x86: CPU Performance Counter Updates for Intel Processors

Modern microprocessors contain hardware performance counters that enable the measurement of many different hardware events related to CPU behavior. Hardware events include instruction and data cache misses as well as various internal states of the processor. Data from the performance counters can be used to analyze and tune the behavior of software on a particular type of processor. The Solaris 10 5/09 OS provides access to CPU Performance Counters (cpc) through the libcpc(3LIB) interface and through the cputrack(1) and cpustat(1M) utilities.