Advice for Mac Pro Purchase

[Kieranm123]

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Hi guys,

I had a MacBook pro back in 2008, loved the computer but I still need to use windows programmes at times and parallels (my preferable way to quickly swap between operating systems) really wasnt man enough and was extremely slow. Im looking for another mac and looking at mac pro desktops could any one advise what memory config I should be looking at to run the two operating systems quickly alongside, I understand that this is quite a strain for any computer but hope there is a way, im currently running an i7 16gb alienware m17x and love the speed of that machine.

Any advice would be great.

 

[jonnymo5]

Parallels has gotten a lot better so you can get by with less hardware. I would say 8gb min but 16 would be a sweet spot. As always if you have the green then max it out! Nobody ever complained about having too much ram.

 

[ActionableMango]

Impossible to recommend without knowing more. The memory config you need to determined entirely upon how much memory your applications use.

 

[snberk103]

The total amount of memory you need is simply the amount of memory you need for the 1st OS, plus, the memory needed for the 2nd OS. So if what you so with OS X requires 4GB of RAM, and what you do with Windows requires 6GB of RAM then you will need 10GB altogether.

Parallels or VMWare don't need massive amounts of RAM for themselves, the RAM they need is for the secondary OS.