Strange Geekbench Scores between OSX, Bootcamp, & Parallels on same 5K iMac

[distefano]

I ran Geekbench with three variations on the same i7 / M295x iMac with 24GB of RAM;

1 = Native OSX Single-Core Score = 4,403 & Multi-Core = 16,451
2 = BootCamp Win 8.1 = Single-Core Score = 2,421 & Multi-Core = 10,323
3 = Parallels Win 8.1 = Single-Core Score = 4,146 & Multi-Core = 15,206

The Windows 8.1 partition is the same running in either native bootcamp or Parallels. Why would the native boot to Windows on raw hardware be SO MUCH lower in terms of scores?

Also - I am currently running the stock 2x4GB sticks of RAM plus a pair of Crucial 2x8GB PC3-12800 sticks (CT2K8G3S160BM). I however read the thread yesterday that says if you use the Crucial Ballistix PC3-14900 memory (BLS2K8G3N18AES4) the iMac will run at the higher memory speed. I have 4x8GB of these modules due tomorrow.

Any ideas on the speed discrepancy? Running the benchmark under the hypervisor was suprisingly close to native. I also ran all benchmarks several times to make sure nothing was a fluke. When I get the new faster memory tomorrow I will update the post with new results.

UPDATE:

32GB of RAM (4 x 8 PC3-14900);

1 = Native OSX Single-Core Score = 4,555 & Multi-Core = 7,053
2 = BootCamp Win 8.1 = Single-Core Score = 2,496 & Multi-Core = 11,121
3 = Parallels Win 8.1 = Single-Core Score = 4,272 & Multi-Core = 15,367

Small bump in benchmark results due to the faster memory but still seeing the discrepency noted above.

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Memory Speed Reported by About This Mac

CPU-Z - 24GB PC3-12800

CPU-Z - 32GB PC3-14900

CPU-Z - 8GBGB CT2K8G3S160BM Module

CPU-Z - 8GBGB BLS2K8G3N18AES4

Domenic