MSI Readies BIOS Update for 14th Generation Intel Core Processors to Enable APO

[AleksandarK]

According to the discovery made by @ghost_motley on X/Twitter, we have information that MSI is starting to roll out BIOS updates to accommodate Intel's Application Optimization called APO shortly. This update, however, comes with significant restrictions. Intel APO, designed to enhance performance, is exclusively compatible with 14th Gen Intel CPUs, leaving owners of previous-generation Intel processors, mainly the closely comparable 13th Gen, without this benefit. Intel's APO is an extension of its Dynamic Tuning Technology (DTT) specifically for gaming. It is available on select 14th Gen Core processors like the i9-14900K/KF, enhancing workload distribution across hardware resources like P-cores and optimizing them for peak frequencies.

As noted, the current rollout of Intel APO support is limited, namely to the Intel Core i7-14700K, i7-14700KF, i9-14900K, and i9-14900KF, excluding the Core i5 series. This omission is significant given APO's focus on boosting gaming performance, a feature that would be highly beneficial to Core i5 users. However, the feature is currently supported by only two games: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege and Metro Exodus. The frame rate improvements in Rainbow can be as high as 13% while also boosting Metro Exodus FPS by 16%. Whether we will see more APO-optimized games or not, owners of MSI motherboards have received their updates and are ready to enjoy the FPS increase.



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[tpa-pr]

AMD user here so I'm not familiar with the tech. It looks like it's a replacement for the standard Windows scheduler to better distribute processes across the appropriate cores, is that right?

 

[Chomiq]

So... has anyone actually verified this?

 

[JustBenching]

AMD user here so I'm not familiar with the tech. It looks like it's a replacement for the standard Windows scheduler to better distribute processes across the appropriate cores, is that right?

Yes and no. I think they are specific optimizations per game, not something you can do on your own with lasso etc. Basically the game knows where to send each individual game of the thread, sending the lighter threads to the ecores

 

[stimpy88]

I hope somebody figures out how to make this work on the identical 13 series. But it must feel special to be an Intel customer. And all you 14 series fanbois will cry when your same as 13 gen CPU is all done in less than a year from now, and you'll need a "new" mobo again.

 

[Toothless]

I hope somebody figures out how to make this work on the identical 13 series. But it must feel special to be an Intel customer. And all you 14 series fanbois will cry when your same as 13 gen CPU is all done in less than a year from now, and you'll need a "new" mobo again.

Ya really gonna bring the flame war in aren't ya? Three generations of chips on one socket is fairly good for Intel without bios modding. (Looking at you socket 1151 and the VERY late Ryzen 2000/x370 chipset)

It's a refresh. AMD has done this before. Don't start drama.

 

[tpa-pr]

Yes and no. I think they are specific optimizations per game, not something you can do on your own with lasso etc. Basically the game knows where to send each individual game of the thread, sending the lighter threads to the ecores

Are the optimizations provided by Intel themselves or the dev (which Intel then wraps in their utility)?

I hope somebody figures out how to make this work on the identical 13 series. But it must feel special to be an Intel customer. And all you 14 series fanbois will cry when your same as 13 gen CPU is all done in less than a year from now, and you'll need a "new" mobo again.

Don't do this please, it's unecessary.

 

[JustBenching]

I hope somebody figures out how to make this work on the identical 13 series. But it must feel special to be an Intel customer. And all you 14 series fanbois will cry when your same as 13 gen CPU is all done in less than a year from now, and you'll need a "new" mobo again.

I'm pretty sure 13th gen cpus will not need a new motherboard. They will work on the motherboard they are currently installed in

 

[Daven]

I hope somebody figures out how to make this work on the identical 13 series. But it must feel special to be an Intel customer. And all you 14 series fanbois will cry when your same as 13 gen CPU is all done in less than a year from now, and you'll need a "new" mobo again.

Intel figured out if they release the exact same processor three times and the exact same chipset three times but with higher model numbering, they can pretend to have platform longevity while still fooling customers into upgrading. All this and they don’t have to spend additional money on R&D to come up with new tech.

Of course most people are not dummies so APO is an attempt to add more ‘features’ and up sell 12 and 13 gen customers.

 

[JustBenching]

Intel figured out if they release the exact same processor three times and the exact same chipset three times but with higher model numbering, they can pretend to have platform longevity while still fooling customers into upgrading. All this and they don’t have to spend additional money on R&D to come up with new tech.

Of course most people are not dummies so APO is an attempt to add more ‘features’ and up sell 12 and 13 gen customers.

Because 14th gen isn't significantly faster than 12th gen....

 

[chrcoluk]

Its sad Intel have become Nvidia locking down software features to specific hardware.

But ultimately until someone tries this out and actually analyses what its doing then we dont know what it is doing.

For permanent affinity, I dont use lasso (paid software), I am using process hacker (system informer). But I dont really touch games on it, instead I am using it to route stuff I dont want to conflict with games to be forced onto e-cores like most of the svchost processes (but not all of them), browser, and some other background stuff that has high cpu time.

For a more optimal baseline scheduler I set the windows scheduler to "prefer performant cores". That is better than the "use performant cores" as the latter pushes everything on to the p-cores and you will notice things like cpuz and cinebench single threaded scores go down because of competing svchost etc., whilst prefer performant cores has some intelligence about it and moves background stuff of p-cores to make room for foreground interactive application, so thats the one to use.

 

[JustBenching]

Its sad Intel have become Nvidia locking down software features to specific hardware.

But ultimately until someone tries this out and actually analyses what its doing then we dont know what it is doing.

I really don't understand this argument. Are you suggesting it would be better if they never realised APO at all?

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

I really don't understand this argument. Are you suggesting it would be better if they never realised APO at all?

They're saying it'd be better if Intel allowed APO to work with 13th gen

 

[JustBenching]

They're saying it'd be better if Intel allowed APO to work with 13th gen

It'd be better if they allowed it on pentium 3 as well but that's not the point. It's a new thing that hadn't existed before, and people prefer if it was never released (like competitive products don't have that feature) rather than it being 14th gen only.

 

[Toothless]

Because 14th gen isn't significantly faster than 12th gen....

It's a chunk faster but only if someone is using for specific things. 12600k to 13600k? Naw. Anything older than 12th or specific workloads? Sure. i5 to i7? Might as well.

 

[JustBenching]

It's a chunk faster but only if someone is using for specific things. 12600k to 13600k? Naw. Anything older than 12th or specific workloads? Sure. i5 to i7? Might as well.

You realize it's quite uncommon to have a gen on gen difference - especially within a year -, bigger than the jump between the 12600k and the 13600k, right? I don't even remember if there was ever a time that we got such a huge increase within a year.

 

[dgianstefani]

It's a chunk faster but only if someone is using for specific things. 12600k to 13600k? Naw. Anything older than 12th or specific workloads? Sure. i5 to i7? Might as well.

Actually 12600K to 13600K is significantly faster in gaming, since the per core cache is doubled, among other architectural changes. 13-14th is just frequency and feature set, with some better binning.

This is with a 3080 too, with a faster GPU the differences would be more pronounced.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

It'd be better if they allowed it on pentium 3 as well but that's not the point. It's a new thing that hadn't existed before, and people prefer if it was never released (like competitive products don't have that feature) rather than it being 14th gen only.

The Pentium 3 is irrelevant. Nobody brought up CPUs that old.

The 12th, 13th, and 14th gen are all the same arch. The 14 is literally a 13 with different C states tuned in. There is no reason APO should be artificially restricted to 14th gen chips.

You realize it's quite uncommon to have a gen on gen difference - especially within a year -, bigger than the jump between the 12600k and the 13600k, right? I don't even remember if there was ever a time that we got such a huge increase within a year.

Only if you are intel. AMD over here delivering 10%+ between gens for the last 7 years now.

 

[JustBenching]

The Pentium 3 is irrelevant. Nobody brought up CPUs that old.

The 12th, 13th, and 14th gen are all the same arch. The 14 is literally a 13 with different C states tuned in. There is no reason APO should be artificially restricted to 14th gen chips.


Only if you are intel. AMD over here delivering 10%+ between gens for the last 7 years now.

Exactly, Intel delivered 40% within a single year from 12th to 13th in Mt performance. That's insane, don't think it has happened before.

I'm saying, apo only working on 14th gen is better than non apo at all.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Exactly, Intel delivered 40% within a single year from 12th to 13th in Mt performance. That's insane, don't think it has happened before.

It has. netburst to conroe? The jump to Nehalem?

I'm saying, apo only working on 14th gen is better than non apo at all.

I'm saying, there is 0 reason that APO should be exclusive to 14th gen when it is the same as the 13th gen. That is artificial market segmentation, something that companies like nVidia get hammered for. Intel does not deserve a free pass here. There is no technical reason the 13th gen cannot use APO.

 

[chrcoluk]

I really don't understand this argument. Are you suggesting it would be better if they never realised APO at all?

I apologise if you dont understand what I was saying, and I dont know why you think the only other option was to not release it.

To make it clear, I think this should be working on every CPU for that socket, so all 12th gen, all 13th gen and all 14th gen, it only working on a few 14th gen SKU's is artificially restricting it.

 

[JustBenching]

I apologise if you dont understand what I was saying, and I dont know why you think the only other option was to not release it.

To make it clear, I think this should be working on every CPU for that socket, so all 12th gen, all 13th gen and all 14th gen, it only working on a few 14th gen SKU's is artificially restricting it.

I think it should be working as back as pentium 3, I'm just saying that between it not existing and only existing for 14th gen, the latter is preferable. I don't feel entitled to it, was never promised any such feature back when I bought my 12th gen. I'm not saying they should give it to older gens, I'm just saying that if they do it's a welcome bonus gift

 

[chrcoluk]

I think it should be working as back as pentium 3, I'm just saying that between it not existing and only existing for 14th gen, the latter is preferable. I don't feel entitled to it, was never promised any such feature back when I bought my 12th gen. I'm not saying they should give it to older gens, I'm just saying that if they do it's a welcome bonus gift

I think you still dont get the point I and others are making. There is no technical barrier to doing it, its a business decision not a technical one.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I think it should be working as back as pentium 3,

And why do you think that, when the pentium III is a totally different arch?

I'm just saying that between it not existing and only existing for 14th gen, the latter is preferable. I don't feel entitled to it, was never promised any such feature back when I bought my 12th gen. I'm not saying they should give it to older gens, I'm just saying that if they do it's a welcome bonus gift

This is the same mental gymnastics that is used to justify artificial product segmentation. Why should it not work with 13th gen chips, when they are THE SAME SILICON?

 

[phanbuey]

And why do you think that, when the pentium III is a totally different arch?

This is the same mental gymnastics that is used to justify artificial product segmentation. Why should it not work with 13th gen chips, when they are THE SAME SILICON?

Yeah they're trying to pull some sh*t...

The problem with this tech is 1) it's for 2 games only, and needs to be added game by game, and 2) it's for an architecture that is going to be replaced in a matter of months, so how long will this last? maybe 2 years, maybe there's 20 games added.... tops. meh.

It does show the potential for better software optimizations, however.