"We now understand that some threads are in high demand at one point but not so high demand at another. You don't want to tax the CPU with that because it could impact power and so forth," Roger says. "So, the next iteration is this.
What APO does is we test the games and see, okay, this might benefit from a fine-tuning of the policy just because of the unique way this game behaves."
If there's a game that can benefit from Intel Application Optimization (APO), the policy is changed within the Thread Director. The game is simply added to the list, and PC gamers rocking the new Intel Core i9 14900K or 14700K get a sizable performance uplift - sometimes in the region of 20+% in specific workloads or scenarios compared to the top-end Ryzen CPU.
"The user does not have to do anything; there's nothing we have to do with the driver," Roger adds. "It's all just a policy thing we manage based on how the system interacts with the application. Not every application benefits from this; we test it and find what works flawlessly with Thread Director, and there are no issues."
Users can also turn the feature off via a Microsoft Store application, and when it comes to game updates, Intel works closely with developers to re-test as time goes on to ensure there aren't any issues. "We'll try to make it as seamless for the end-user as possible," Roger explains. Currently, the Intel team working on Intel Application Optimization (APO) is focused on games. Still, it could expand to other workloads, such as those in the creative space.
"Thread Director and our dynamic tuning technology policies are pretty elegant," Roger says.
"They cover 99% of most use cases, but games differ. They have spiky behavior for things that happen, so that's how APO works. If we find the opportunity, we apply it. If the game doesn't need it, great. We don't put it on the list."
Read more:
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/9392...performance-on-intel-core-14th-gen/index.html
