Intel’s APO (Application Optimization) feature for 14th generation CPUs provides significant performance improvements in games that support it.
Intel’s 14th Gen CPU-exclusive Application Optimization APO feature delivers significant performance improvements in games
Intel Application Optimization, or APO for short, exploits the performance of Intel’s hybrid architecture, which has detrimental effects on the P-cores and E-cores involved. This feature originated in Thread Director, introduced in Windows 11 to manage processing of individual threads based on workload to improve performance. So Intel’s Application Optimizer is only a replica designed to run on video games, not synthetic workloads.
We now know that some yarns are in high demand at one point, but not so much at other times. You don’t want to stress the CPU for this reason as it can affect performance etc. So the next iteration is this.
What APO does is we examine games and determine which could potentially benefit from fine-tuning the guidelines due to the unique way the game behaves.
-Roger Chandler, Vice President and General Manager, Intel, PC and Workstation Enthusiast, Cross-Customer Computing Group Techtown
Not much testing has been done on the Intel APO feature as it’s a bit tedious to use, but Reddit user u/LightMoisture used the Intel APO feature with Intel’s Dynamic Tuning Technology driver with an Intel Core i9 CPU-14900K and saw some great results. In-game performance improvements.
Metro Exodus on Core i9-14900K CPU (APO enabled):
Metro Exodus on Core i9-14900K CPU (with APO disabled):
He says the process was long enough and “boring,” but that didn’t stop him from digging deeper. After downloading Intel’s APO from Microsoft Store, it’s time to implement it and the results users will get will surely shock you.
Rainbow Six Siege on Core i9-14900K CPU (with APO enabled):
Rainbow Six Siege on Core i9-14900K CPU (with APO disabled):
Based on Rainbow Six Siege’s benchmarks, users saw a massive increase of “200 FPS” after enabling Intel’s APO. It managed to reach 867 fps and in some cases the image even crossed the four-digit mark. The user complained that their GeForce RTX 4090 was “screaming loudly”, which is an indication that your GPU is reaching its limits, as the 4090 is one of those graphics cards that needs a lot of CPU power to reach its maximum potential. Additionally, all of the processor’s P/E cores were fully utilized, which is why Intel’s APO performed so successfully. The wins were as follows:
- APO Activated Rainbow Six Siege – +32%
- APO Enabled Metro Exodus – +24%
It was interesting to see such results with Intel’s APO (Application Performance Optimization) feature. This feature currently only works on 14th Gen Intel CPUs. It will be interesting to see if this feature will be adopted by older CPUs and if a larger list of games will be available to users soon.
News Source: Reddit
