Windows8 – “Support for all devices”
As you know, Microsoft is trying to come up with a unified operating system and user interface for a wide range of devices, including tablets, smartphones, Xbox One, and the desktop PC. Building this unified platform is not easy. It is not just a matter of creating an interface that can be used with a multitude of input devices (finger, mouse, controller), but it also needs to support as many devices as possible. Getting the software to run out of the box on as much hardware as possible is the challenge they are facing.
Of the many aspects to fine-tune, one feature in particular is causing Windows8 to be practically useless for (competitive) overclocking: the RTC. Quoting Wikipedia, “A real-time clock (RTC) is a computer clock (most often in the form of an integrated circuit) that keeps track of the current time. Although the term often refers to the devices in personal computers, servers and embedded systems, RTCs are present in almost any electronic device which needs to keep accurate time.” Sparing you the details of development process, compared to Windows7 and previous versions, Microsoft made changes to how it measures time to be compatible with embedded or low cost PCs that do not have a fixed RTC clock. After all, having a fixed RTC clock adds cost to a platform.
Your PC system uses the RTC for many things. For example, it ensures the Windows Time on your machine is accurate. For most benchmark applications, the RTC is used as reference clock when executing the benchmark code. By synchronizing with the RTC, the benchmark knows exactly how much time has passed, and takes that value into account when calculating the performance of your system.
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