Running on Windows 8Windows 8 underlying engine is far more efficient for multithreading scenarios than any other version of Windows. A few things you have to take notice though if you're trying to push for top RB scores:
A) Disable Fast Boot:
Force your system to do a full initialization. With Fast boot on, not every check is made during the boot process and it can save you some time if you disable it when pushing for your system's OC, as instability may become apparent on boot.
You can disable this in the UEFI upon reboot. On the boards that support it.
B) Disable Hybrid Boot:
Hybrid Boot is enabled by default on Windows 8. It is a form of Hibernation (S4 - Suspend to Disk). With it on, Windows saves the Kernel on the system drive disk (hiberfil.sys) so that it can load it much much faster. The problem with this when pushing your clocks is that Kernel space corruption that did not manage to cause a crash, can be "saved on disk" and get reloaded on next boot causing a potential crash on potential stable settings. By disabling it, you ensure that each boot is a clean slate. Regarding boot speed it won't make much difference anyway if you are on SSD.
1. Go to "Control Panel" > "Power Options"
2. Click "Choose what the power buttons do"
3. Scroll down and untick "Turn on fast startup (recommended)"