Reddit user LightMoisture on the Intel subreddit shared detailed gaming benchmark comparisons of Intel's new Application Optimization (APO) technology working on a Core i9-14900K. The Redditor saw performance improvements of over 200 FPS with Intel's new utility, revealing that the application can provide serious improvements to games.
For testing, LightMoisture used Rainbow Six Siege and Metro Exodus for testing since those are the only two games Intel supports with its new Application Optimization at this current time. In Metro Exodus, the i9-14900K was able to achieve 66 higher FPS with the tuning utility activated, going from 273 FPS to 339 FPS average, a 24% increase in performance.
In Rainbow Six Siege, the performance gains were even more impressive, yielding a 208 FPS difference, going from 659 FPS to 867 FPS with the tuning utility enabled. Percentage-wise, Intel's optimization app yields a 31% increase in performance.
The performance gains LightMoisture has extracted from Intel's Application Optimization feature are shockingly good and far outweigh Intel's official performance estimations of 13% and 16% respectively for Rainbow Six Siege and Metro Exodus. If this level of performance is repeatable on other 14th Gen systems and other titles, Intel could have a really potent performance optimization tool on its hands, that could enable its 14th Gen chips to overthrow AMD's Ryzen 7000 series CPUs with 3D-VCache, at least in some games.
The performance enhancements seen here were made with a new feature baked into Intel's Tuning Utility known as Application Optimization, or APO. This feature utilizes a profile-based system to actively optimize the thread scheduling of supported applications with Intel's supported 14th Gen CPUs (currently the 14900K and 14700K). Details of exactly how it works are pretty scarce, but Intel has confirmed that it works in conjunction with Thread Director.
Unfortunately, only the two aforementioned games are supported at this time, and we don't know how frequently Intel will update its list of supported games/applications. We also don't know if these incredible performance enhancements will be applicable to newer and more demanding games. But if we do see similar performance improvements in other titles in the future, Intel's 14th Gen CPUs could become a lot more interesting and appealing.
