The problem
What happens when threads that were supposed to execute together choose different branches?
What current research shows
NVIDIA documents that branch divergence occurs within a warp and that different paths are executed serially for the affected threads. The result is lower effective utilization even though the hardware still exposes many threads.
Where the evidence stops
The impact depends on divergence frequency, path balance, compiler behavior, architecture, and whether divergence is hidden by other active warps.
What Valen Systems is testing
Measure branch efficiency, active warps, instruction throughput, and useful work across controlled workload shapes.