Intel has 'no plans' to bring frame-rate boosting APO feature to older 13th and 12th Gen CPUs

pcgamer.com:

With the introduction of its 14th Gen processors just last month, Intel introduced a new feature called Application Optimizer, or APO for short. It's a new scheduling technology to help boost frame rates in select games—very few select games, in fact, there are just two that support APO today. But that's not the only way this feature is limited, It's a 14th Gen exclusive feature and Intel says it has no plans to roll it out to older chips.

APO is supported in Rainbow Six: Siege and Metro Exodus and Intel says you can expect up to a 16% increase in performance in the latter with APO enabled. That's pretty much backed up by figures from Hardware Unboxed.

The channel also spoke to Intel about further support for older chips, seeing as 12th, 13th, and 14th Gen Intel processors are all quite closely related. Namely 13th and 14th Gen chips. There are so few differences to talk about between the top Core i9 chips—yet I still somehow managed to write nearly 3,000 words in my Core i9 14900K review—as both generations use the Raptor Lake architecture at their core.

Though that doesn't actually count for much here, it seems. As Intel has confirmed to the YouTube channel it «has no plans to support prior generation products with Application Optimization.»

That's a bit of a shame, considering the potential for much improved utilisation of E-cores and higher frame rates in CPU-limited games. 

Though there's one source of frustration I've had with APO worth mentioning before you get too upset about not being able to use it. I have all the pieces available to me required to enable APO on my test system—an Intel Core i9 14900K, an Asus Maximus Dark Hero Z790 motherboard, DTT enabled in the BIOS, and (I thought) the correct driver