Intel has seemingly figured out a clever way to convince gamers to step up to its latest 14th Gen Core processors.
As noted by the @ghost_motley account, MSI has started rolling out BIOS updates that bring support for Intel Application Optimization (APO) to select motherboards, but this feature, which is said to deliver frame rate improvements of as high as 31% in select games that include Rainbow Six Siege, is exclusive to Intel’s refreshed Raptor Lake CPUs.
We briefly covered the Application Optimization feature in our i9 14900K Review.
Here’s how Intel has described its Application Optimization feature, which appears to work, at least partially, merely by hitting a toggle for supported games:
The Intel Application Optimization determines and directs application resources in real time. This policy optimizes thread scheduling along with application threading for selected software titles and may improve performance for supported applications. System responsiveness may vary based on configuration and graphics card capabilities. Users can disable Intel Application Optimization through this software for all applications or on a per application basis if results are not as expected.
Intel Application Optimizer is an optional part of the optimization technology that allows users to see what games are optimized and to turn off optimizations they do not want. Users may disable the entire application or disable specific games under “Enable/Disable Individual Applications” tab. The list will vary from user to user, depending on the games detected and optimized by Intel.
The support article goes on to confirm that the feature is, in fact, only supported by four of its latest CPUs at the moment, including the new flagship Core i9-14900K processor, which costs $599:
- Intel Core i9 processor 14900K
- Intel Core i9 processor 14900KF
- Intel Core i7 processor 14700K
- Intel Core i7 processor 14700KF
There doesn’t seem be any word yet on whether Intel might be bringing APO support to its older CPUs, such as the 12th or 13th Gen Core family.
And here’s a video that shows APO in action, per the Talon’s Tech account: