Parallels takes virtualization speed crown in head-to-head with VMware
In a comprehensive set of benchmark tests, virtualization competitors Parallels Desktop 5.0 and VMware Fusion 3.0 were examined head-to-head, finding Parallels to be an average of 30% faster than VMware.
MacTech Magazine, in an exhaustive series of tests spanning eight pages, came to several main conclusions after putting VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop 5 though its gauntlet of benchmarks. While both virtualization programs are excellent products, Parallels Desktop was the clear winner - running an average of nearly 30% faster than its competitor over the course of the test suite. Parallels largest gains can be seen in graphics, gaming, and 3D performance.
"If gaming, graphics, and 3D are your thing, you have no choice. Parallels Desktop has so much better graphics support, and is so much faster in most of the comparisons, there's simply no contest," writes MacTech.
Speed should not be the only determinant in deciding on virtualization software, however.
"In the end, your decision as to which product you should take into account what's most important to you: speed, footprint, graphics capabilities, features, user interface, OS you want to run, and more all come into play."
Improvements in Windows 7 as well as in virtualization technology can account for a diminishing "Vista penalty" in performance versus WIndows XP. While Windows 7 performs better than its Vista predecessor, MacTech still recommends sticking with Windows XP due to the fact that it still outperforms Microsoft's latest OS in virtualization tests.
Regarding the allocation of RAM in a virtual machine, more is not always better. MacTech found that more RAM actually leads to longer launch times, suspends, and resumes. It recommends 512MB to 1GB of VM RAM under normal circumstances.
MacTech Magazine, in an exhaustive series of tests spanning eight pages, came to several main conclusions after putting VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop 5 though its gauntlet of benchmarks. While both virtualization programs are excellent products, Parallels Desktop was the clear winner - running an average of nearly 30% faster than its competitor over the course of the test suite. Parallels largest gains can be seen in graphics, gaming, and 3D performance.
"If gaming, graphics, and 3D are your thing, you have no choice. Parallels Desktop has so much better graphics support, and is so much faster in most of the comparisons, there's simply no contest," writes MacTech.
Speed should not be the only determinant in deciding on virtualization software, however.
"In the end, your decision as to which product you should take into account what's most important to you: speed, footprint, graphics capabilities, features, user interface, OS you want to run, and more all come into play."
Improvements in Windows 7 as well as in virtualization technology can account for a diminishing "Vista penalty" in performance versus WIndows XP. While Windows 7 performs better than its Vista predecessor, MacTech still recommends sticking with Windows XP due to the fact that it still outperforms Microsoft's latest OS in virtualization tests.
Regarding the allocation of RAM in a virtual machine, more is not always better. MacTech found that more RAM actually leads to longer launch times, suspends, and resumes. It recommends 512MB to 1GB of VM RAM under normal circumstances.
Comments
MacTech found that more RAM actually leads to longer launch times, suspends, and resumes. It recommends 512MB to 1GB of VM RAM under normal circumstances.
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512MB to 1 GB are not normal for my usage. I wonder about the relative performance when 2-4 GB memory are assigned to the VM; and how their Linux performance rates.
Having used all 3, I found that VirtualBox has been getting better and better, is completely free, and in general I feel like it "gets out of my way" most of the 3 solutions.
I am not saying it's faster...I don't really know. I would have liked to see it compared for exactly that reason. But now I'm thinking I may have to play with Parallels 5.
VirtualBox lacks video drivers with enough resolution choices (no 16:9 ratios), but VMWare also has issues with locking down the Windows install too much with its tools (no way to auto-login). So none of the choices are perfect.
For occasional use, VirtualBox is certainly the way to go.
As for VirtualBox, I'm sure that they have made improvements over the last year, but when I was reading which to go with, they were dead last and had some problems.
I've moved 3 Windows boxes onto Fusion and it's been smooth sailing, no reason to move to parallels that I can see.
Seriously... Parallels is not as mature as VMWare's product.
Been using VMware Fusion 2 since. Ran an exhaustive Windows 7 trial of 5 weeks on it, last summer. Worked like a charm. Win7 dissappointed though. And that was before Snow Leopard!
VM seems to be smooth-sailing and virtually bug-free compared to Parallels.
(Haven't tried this latest Parallels, though.)
The thing that convinces me that Fusion might be a better option is that it can run your bootcamp partition as a virtual machine - searching the Parallels website for bootcamp returns a grand total of 0 results.....