My CPU

[PaukkuPalikka]

Will there be a branch predictor?

Most likely at least a direction predictor. There will almost definitely not be a branch target buffer as it is very laggy, and it's possible to accomplish the same by hoisting the branch (or parts of it, EPIC-style "prepare-to-branch" instruction maybe) ahead of time. This way the branch prediction hardware runs only when a branch is known to be executed. Hoisting up the branch along with the comparison will increase the misprediction penalty, which is also possible to trade for a delay slot. Delay slots are likely to be a thing, and I think they will only rarely be wasted.

I don't know when this will be decided