It's interesting that it should be faster

a = (b == c);
is the same as
if (b == c) a = 1; else a = 0;

as far as code is concerned and ends up being compiled into the same thing in c.

Perhaps it's a weakness in the opencl compiler, or maybe it's just the jump path is inefficient since there are multiple statements in the if {} loop.

Anyway I've merged it for what it's worth, and updated poclbm accordingly as well.

(EDIT: By the way, I'm not seeing any improvement).