If the fastest way to implement a particular `switch` in assembly is with the equivalent of a set of `if`s, a reasonably smart compiler "should" be able to output the assembly to do that. And I thought that gcc and clang at least have actually been smart enough to do that for a while now.

But if the number of `if`s is high and the distribution sufficiently dense, where a jump table is better than a bunch of `if`s, then a `switch` should output that.

OTOH, a sufficiently smart compiler could theoretically turn a bunch of `if`s into a `switch`-like jump table - but it's much harder to reason that case through correctly than it is the other way, so I'm not sure any current compilers are sufficiently smart to do that.