Intel's game boosting APO tech will remain exclusive to the new 14th Gen Core CPUs

At the time, we noted that the new Intel Application Optimization (APO) tech was exclusive to the new Core i9 14900K and Core i7 14700K, and with Intel reiterating this 14th Gen exclusivity to tech channel Hardware Unboxed - it sounds like APO won't be making its way to 12th and 13th Gen products. This is strange when you factor in that the 14th Gen "Raptor Lake Refresh" shares architecture with previous-gen Core products.

APO is a software tool created to work alongside Thread Director (developed for Windows with Microsoft) to manage and optimize threads across Intel's Performance and Efficiency Cores, specifically for PC games. The new optimizations are tested with various games, and if there's a benefit, the existing policy in Thread Director is updated to deliver free performance.

The gains are impressive, with up to a 15 to 20 percent improvement in frame rates in Metro Exodus and Rainbow Six Siege (two titles with APO support so far). It all comes down to how the 'P' and 'E' cores in Intel's CPUs are managed, with the consensus being that it's the sort of software feature or improvement that should be open to more products.

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