Switch vs If-Else Performance

I wrote this test to check if I could figure out which way is better using Measure-Command:

function switchtest {    param($name)    switch -Regex ($name) {        $optionsarray[0] {            Write-host $name            break        }        $optionsarray[1] {            Write-host $name            break        }        $optionsarray[2] {            Write-host $name            break        }        $optionsarray[3] {            Write-host $name            break        }        $optionsarray[4] {            Write-host $name            break        }        default { }    }}function iftest {    param($name)    If ($name -match $optionsarray[0]) {Write-host $name}    ElseIf ($name -match $optionsarray[1]) {Write-host $name}    ElseIf($name -match $optionsarray[2]) {Write-host $name}    ElseIf($name -match $optionsarray[3]) {Write-host $name}    ElseIf($name -match $optionsarray[4]) {Write-host $name}}$optionsarray = @('Joe Bloggs', 'Blog Joggs', 'Steve Bloggs', 'Joe Jobs', 'Steve Joggs')for ($i=0; $i -lt 10000; $i++) {    $iftime = 0    $switchtime = 0    $rand = Get-Random -Minimum 0 -Maximum 4    $name = $optionsarray[$rand]    $iftime = (Measure-Command {iftest $name}).Ticks    $switchtime = (Measure-Command {switchtest $name}).Ticks    Add-Content -Path C:\path\to\outfile\timetest.txt -Value "$switchtime`t$iftime"}

Results

On average, this is how each function performed in 10,000 tests:

Switch - 11592.8566

IfElse - 15740.3281

The results were not the most consistent (sometimes switch was faster, sometimes ifelse was faster) but as switch is faster overall (on mean average) I will be using this instead of ifelse.

Would appreciate any feedback on this decision and my testing.

Typically, switch statements work by building a jump table in the assembly code and using that to determine the appropriate route instead of using comparators like if/else. That's why switch statements are faster. I believe that with strings, the compiler generates a hash code of the strings and uses that to implement the jump table so that the switch statement is still faster. So the switch statement should be faster than the if/if/if you have written above but it may not be since switch statements typically rely on the options being somewhat evenly spaced (e.g. 1 2 3 or 5 10 15).

With that being said, why don't you use an if/else-if/else-if instead of an if/if/if? That'll definitely be faster since not every option is evaluated each time.