diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c b/arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c
index 3e977dbbf993..23e4db6cd99d 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c
@@ -2444,22 +2444,22 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kvm_lapic_set_eoi);
 void kvm_apic_write_nodecode(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u32 offset)
 {
 	struct kvm_lapic *apic = vcpu->arch.apic;
-	u64 val;
 
 	/*
-	 * ICR is a single 64-bit register when x2APIC is enabled.  For legacy
-	 * xAPIC, ICR writes need to go down the common (slightly slower) path
-	 * to get the upper half from ICR2.
+	 * ICR is a single 64-bit register when x2APIC is enabled, all others
+	 * registers hold 32-bit values.  For legacy xAPIC, ICR writes need to
+	 * go down the common path to get the upper half from ICR2.
+	 *
+	 * Note, using the write helpers may incur an unnecessary write to the
+	 * virtual APIC state, but KVM needs to conditionally modify the value
+	 * in certain cases, e.g. to clear the ICR busy bit.  The cost of extra
+	 * conditional branches is likely a wash relative to the cost of the
+	 * maybe-unecessary write, and both are in the noise anyways.
 	 */
-	if (apic_x2apic_mode(apic) && offset == APIC_ICR) {
-		val = kvm_lapic_get_reg64(apic, APIC_ICR);
-		kvm_apic_send_ipi(apic, (u32)val, (u32)(val >> 32));
-		trace_kvm_apic_write(APIC_ICR, val);
-	} else {
-		/* TODO: optimize to just emulate side effect w/o one more write */
-		val = kvm_lapic_get_reg(apic, offset);
-		kvm_lapic_reg_write(apic, offset, (u32)val);
-	}
+	if (apic_x2apic_mode(apic) && offset == APIC_ICR)
+		kvm_x2apic_icr_write(apic, kvm_lapic_get_reg64(apic, APIC_ICR));
+	else
+		kvm_lapic_reg_write(apic, offset, kvm_lapic_get_reg(apic, offset));
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kvm_apic_write_nodecode);