This section describes targeting a processor and processor dispatch and extensions support options.
The options -tpp{5|6|7} optimize for the IA-32 processors, and the options -tpp{1|2} optimize for the Itanium® processor family. The options -x{K|W|N|B|P} and -ax{K|W|N|B|P} generate code that is specific to processor-instruction extensions.
Note that you can run your application on the latest processor-based systems, like Intel® Pentium® M processor or IntelŪ PentiumŪ 4 processor with Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (SSE3) instruction support and still gear your code to any of the previous processors specified by N, W, or K versions of the -x and -ax options.