One major advantage of Apple’s MacOS platform is its ability to run Windows 10 via Boot Camp or third-party virtualization apps. While Boot Camp is likely the highest performance option, it doesn’t fully leverage the MacBook Pro Touch Bar in Windows 10 mode. Two of the more popular virtualization apps, Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion, change that equation by adding in meaningful Windows 10 Touch Bar support.
The news comes via 9to5Mac, which reported on both Parallels Desktop 13 and VMware Fusion 10 now enabling some nice Touch Bar functionality for Windows 10 users. The virtualization apps also add a number of other features that equate to significant upgrades for existing users.
Feb 13, 2018 - Any comments regarding performance on the iMac Pro for VMware Fusion or Parallels would be appreciated. Especially the allocation of cores.
VMWare Fusion 10’s Touch Bar support provides for “commonly used controls,” without much in the way of details. Additional updates in Fusion 10 include enhanced GPU and 3D graphics performance, and a new user interface that better leverages MacOS, Linux, and Windows 10. Enterprise users will benefit from improved virtual machine management (VM) features and enhanced support for Microsoft’s virtualization-based security features, UEFI Secure Boot, and virtual Trusted Platform Module support.
Parallels Desktop 13’s Touch Bar support for Windows 10 was explained in additional detail. Not only does the Touch Bar provide specific functionality for Windows apps that are running in a VM, but when no apps are running, the Touch Bar can be used to show items in the Windows task bar for easy access to running and available apps. The following video shows off Touch Bar support in Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac.
Other updates include enhancements to the Parallels Toolbox utility like Airplane Mode, Clean Drive, and Find Duplicates. Parallels Desktop 13 also anticipates some future Windows 10 features that will be coming in the Fall Creators Update, such as the Windows 10 People Bar and picture-in-picture functionality. Of course, performance and reliability improvements are also part of the package
The update to VMware Fusion 10 costs $49 for existing users and $119 for the Pro version. If you buy version 8.5 or 8.5 Pro now, you’ll receive an update to version 10 when it’s officially released in October. Parallels Desktop 13 is available today as a $50 upgrade for version 11 or 12 users; a new copy costs $80.
Editors' Recommendations
We’re back with the final component of our yearly analysis of virtualization software for OS X. We’ve already looked at the recently updated offerings from Parallels and VMware, and now it’s time to compare them directly.
Today, we’ll be looking at a performance comparison of Parallels Desktop 11, VMware Fusion 8, and Oracle’s VirtualBox 5. Although Parallels and Fusion are more popular options for OS X users looking to run Windows and other x86 operating systems on their Macs, we always like to keep an eye on VirtualBox to see just how well this free open source alternative can keep up with its commercial competitors.
Part of our goal with this analysis is not to simply determine which virtualization solution is the fastest, we also want to see how they compare to “native” Windows performance on the same hardware. We’ve therefore run all applicable tests in Boot Camp as well, which gives us an idea of how close these options are to eliminating the need for something like Boot Camp altogether, at least for certain tasks.
Also new this year is the addition of a “high end” host for some tests. As we’ll describe in more detail in the next section, all of our tests were performed on 2014 15-inch MacBook Pro, a system that we consider to be in the “mid-to-high” range of Mac configurations. But we were also curious about just how well Fusion and Parallels would perform if given access to clearly “high-end” resources. We therefore ran select CPU- and GPU-focused tests on a 2013 Mac Pro, and we have those numbers available in their own dedicated section later on.
Our benchmark tests and results are divided into the sections identified below. You can browse all results in order by using the “Next” and “Previous” buttons below, or you can jump directly to a specific test using the Table of Contents, which is found at the bottom of every page. Some tests required that we cram a lot of data into a single chart, and some of these charts may be difficult to read on smaller or low-resolution screens. To see any chart in its full-sized Retina glory, just click or tap on it to load the full image.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Test Setup & Methodology
3. Geekbench
4. 3DMark
5. FurMark OpenGL
6. Cinebench R15
7. PCMark 8
8. Passmark PerformanceTest
2. Test Setup & Methodology
3. Geekbench
4. 3DMark
5. FurMark OpenGL
6. Cinebench R15
7. PCMark 8
8. Passmark PerformanceTest
9. Video Encoding
10. File Transfers
11. USB 3.0 Speed
12. Virtual Machine Management
13. Battery Life
14. Mac Pro: Gaming
15. Mac Pro: CPU
16. Conclusions
10. File Transfers
11. USB 3.0 Speed
12. Virtual Machine Management
13. Battery Life
14. Mac Pro: Gaming
15. Mac Pro: CPU
16. Conclusions
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