Because CPUs vary in the amount of time they take to execute certain instructions, Quantify counts the number of cycles in each basic block differently for each machine.
Quantify determines the machine type and clock rate at instrumentation time. Quantify uses information from the operating system to match the machine-code values in the .machine.<platform> file. If a match is not found, Quantify assumes a default machine, currently sparcstation_1 for SPARC architectures and HP9000/715 for HPPA architectures.
Quantify records the machine type and clock rate in the Quantify'd program. It uses the stored clock rate at run time to determine the expected cycles. When you run the Quantify'd program on a different machine than the one used to instrument the program, Quantify detects the changes in the clock rate at run time and issues a warning. However, it continues to use the original clock rate.
You can instrument your program to collect data as if it were built and running on a different machine type. This enables you to see the changes in performance due to different clock rates. For details, see the -use-machine option.