Though they share a nearly identical microarchitecture, the 14th generation Core “Raptor Lake Refresh” processors are distinguished from the 13th generation by a special feature called Intel Application Performance Optimization (APO). APO, or application-specific processor optimization, is software-based and has been found to provide performance boosts of up to 16% in “Metro Exodus” and up to 13% in “Rainbow Six: Siege.” Intel has only released APO optimizations for these two games, and at the moment, APO is limited to the Core i9-14900K and i9-14900KF. While Hardware Unboxed discovered that the company may soon add APO to additional 14th Gen Core processor models; It will not reach the older 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake” or the 13th Gen Core “Raptor Lake.”

APO is an addition to the Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology framework that gives the OS scheduler more assistance in order to provide the optimal hardware system resource allocation for a given application. This is likely the reason Intel is restricting APO to only its current 14th Gen processors, and only specific processor models within the lineup: the company needs to conduct extensive testing and validation specific to processor models and the applications themselves before releasing APO profiles to new games. The source link below allows you to view the Hardware Unboxed presentation, which includes Intel’s statement and their testing of APO on the two supported titles.