openssl ships optimized libraries for some cpus. The loading of these
libraries depends on the ability of the dynamic linker to automaticly
search additional directories depending on the cpu. If you want to
find out which are these directories for your computer, run the
following command:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib strace true 2>&1 | fgrep "open(\"/usr/lib"

On a Pentium III this gives:

open("/usr/lib/i686/mmx/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/i686/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/mmx/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY)    = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

Following is a list of cpus, library paths and possible optimizations:

486		/usr/lib/i486	-march=i486 -mcpu=i486 +asm
Pentium 	/usr/lib/i586	-march=i586 -mcpu=i586 +asm
Pentium MMX	/usr/lib/i586	-march=i586 -mcpu=i586 +asm
Pentium II	/usr/lib/i686	-march=i686 -mcpu=i686 +asm
Pentium III	/usr/lib/i686	-march=i686 -mcpu=i686 +asm
AMD-K6		/usr/lib/i586	-march=i586 -mcpu=i586 +asm
AMD-K7		/usr/lib/i686	-march=i686 -mcpu=i686 +asm

Sparc v8	/usr/lib/v8	-mcpu=v8              +asm
Sparc v9	/usr/lib/v9	-mcpu=v9 -Wa,-Av8plus +asm

Alpha EV4	/usr/lib/ev4	-mcpu=ev4
Alpha EV5	/usr/lib/ev5	-mcpu=ev5

+asm means that the handcrafted 586 assembler routines can be used.