In the Linux kernel, there are unlikely() and likely() macros which indicate to the compiler whether or not a condition is likely using __builtin_expect (which then influences the output assembly into producing code that should make the branch predictor do the right thing more of the time).

Unfortunately, the issue here is that the performance depends on the input and so such hints wouldn't help (unless you knew a-priori you were dealing with mostly-sorted data). Presumably the min-max (and lol) versions perform worse for descending arrays?