Why comparison of biased representation are faster than two's complement?
In an un-biased exponent representation, a "negative" exponent (for a number smaller than 1.0) would be represented with its sign bit set - true for any of 2's complement, 1's complement or sign&amp;magnitude.

The consequence of this is that, viewed as a straight bit pattern, a small number would appear "out of order" i.e. "larger" than at least one number with a positive exponent (typically larger than all of them).

Then, the only way to compare FP numbers would be to unpack them, separately compare the exponents, mantissae and sign bits, and combine all these results with the appropriate decision logic.

But the biased representation chosen preserves strict ordering of all positive FP numbers (and only minor irregularities when you include signs) such that (using integer comparison)  

0  
   &lt; denorms (exponent=0)  
   &lt; exponent=1  
   &lt; ... 
   &lt; 0.999999 
   &lt; 1.0 
   &lt; 1.00001 
   &lt; ... 
   &lt; (exponent = 0xFE) 
   &lt; infinity 
   &lt; NAN.