Macbook Pro M3 pro Parallels standard or premium edition?

[Alexander96]

Hello folks, since release I am using my new Macbook Pro m3pro in the base config and so far I am quite happy.
For my studying I need to work with Solidworks and a few simulation tools which only work with Windows so I will probably need to buy parallels to use them.

I dont plan to use windows on my mac as the main OS only in the cases if I need to run those specific tools which dont run under mac os.

Are there any real advantages of the parallels pro version like more vram and cpu cores for my kind of stuff or is the basic version completely fine?


Sincerly Alexander

 

[Bigwaff]

Parallels on Apple Silicon will only run the ARM version of Windows. You should verify the software you intend to use in Windows runs in the ARM version of Windows.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Can't say for Solidworks as I've not used it but I run an x86 app (non graphical) almost every day in a Windows for ARM virtual machine in Parallels on my M1 Ultra studio and it works absolutely fine. If you're a student, make sure to check out the student pricing for Parallels as it's about half the price and it looks to be almost the same price for Pro as non Pro. Although it's all only subscription based.

 

[haralds]

The Pro addition allows assigning more RAM and CPUs. This would be important for SolidWorks.
Some people report slow performance of that app, but I suspect it's configuration-dependent.

Parallels Desktop is HALF-OFF for students and educators. Quite the deal. I have three licenses for working on three machines professionally (Software Development.) Essential software and work reliably for me.

Most of my engineers use Macs, and we deploy different types of apps on all OSs (macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.)

 

[bobcomer]

Hello folks, since release I am using my new Macbook Pro m3pro in the base config and so far I am quite happy.
For my studying I need to work with Solidworks and a few simulation tools which only work with Windows so I will probably need to buy parallels to use them.

Since you have a base Macbook pro, there really is no advantage to the pro version for you, you're going to be pretty limited in what you can do only having 8G of RAM for the host. It's probably not going to be very fast at what you want to do. Maybe buying a cheapy Windows laptop might not be a bad investment.

 

[Alexander96]

Since you have a base Macbook pro, there really is no advantage to the pro version for you, you're going to be pretty limited in what you can do only having 8G of RAM for the host. It's probably not going to be very fast at what you want to do. Maybe buying a cheapy Windows laptop might not be a bad investment.

I got the Macbook Pro with the M3pro so I got 18gb of ram

 

[chrfr]

Hello folks, since release I am using my new Macbook Pro m3pro in the base config and so far I am quite happy.
For my studying I need to work with Solidworks and a few simulation tools which only work with Windows so I will probably need to buy parallels to use them.

I dont plan to use windows on my mac as the main OS only in the cases if I need to run those specific tools which dont run under mac os.

Are there any real advantages of the parallels pro version like more vram and cpu cores for my kind of stuff or is the basic version completely fine?


Sincerly Alexander

You can also use VMware Fusion 13.5 for free. I’d start by trying that.

 

[vigilant]

The Pro addition allows assigning more RAM and CPUs. This would be important for SolidWorks.
Some people report slow performance of that app, but I suspect it's configuration-dependent.

Parallels Desktop is HALF-OFF for students and educators. Quite the deal. I have three licenses for working on three machines professionally (Software Development.) Essential software and work reliably for me.

Most of my engineers use Macs, and we deploy different types of apps on all OSs (macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.)

Worth noting, though this may come off as biased.

In the past 10 years most REAL Engineer or Developer uses a Mac. Typically the people I see that are using Windows, and are constantly behind on their work.

I’m not saying this is causation, but more correlation.

With that said, out of the truly contributing Engineers I’ve known using Windows all use Microsoft Surface.

As someone that despises Windows, I’ll tell you that if someone asks my recommendation for a PC it’s always Surface. It’s the closest to the overall build quality to a Mac than any of the other OEMs.

 

[vigilant]

You can also use VMware Fusion 13.5 for free. I’d start by trying that.

I agree that VMWare Fusion is an option. But if you are looking for Business tier support you’ll only get it with Parallels as they are the only virtualization software Microsoft actually supports.

 

[vigilant]

Hello folks, since release I am using my new Macbook Pro m3pro in the base config and so far I am quite happy.
For my studying I need to work with Solidworks and a few simulation tools which only work with Windows so I will probably need to buy parallels to use them.

I dont plan to use windows on my mac as the main OS only in the cases if I need to run those specific tools which dont run under mac os.

Are there any real advantages of the parallels pro version like more vram and cpu cores for my kind of stuff or is the basic version completely fine?


Sincerly Alexander

The big differences are that Pro lets you go beyond the fixed specs that Parallels forces you into on the consumer version.

Will those limited specs be good for you? I don’t think any of us can answer that better than you.

 

[chrfr]

I agree that VMWare Fusion is an option. But if you are looking for Business tier support you’ll only get it with Parallels as they are the only virtualization software Microsoft actually supports.

I don’t think this makes much difference at this point- Microsoft never officially supported virtualizing Windows on Intel Macs at all.

 

[bobcomer]

I got the Macbook Pro with the M3pro so I got 18gb of ram

Ah, good, that's much better than the base 8G MBP. You shouldn't have much problem at all if the software you need runs on Windows on Arm. I'd still get the standard edition if I were you though, 8G for the VM will be pretty optimal and 4 cores is okay too. But if your apps need more than 8G, if you got pro, you could probably go up to 12G for the VM if needed...

 

[Appletoni]

Hello folks, since release I am using my new Macbook Pro m3pro in the base config and so far I am quite happy.
For my studying I need to work with Solidworks and a few simulation tools which only work with Windows so I will probably need to buy parallels to use them.

I dont plan to use windows on my mac as the main OS only in the cases if I need to run those specific tools which dont run under mac os.

Are there any real advantages of the parallels pro version like more vram and cpu cores for my kind of stuff or is the basic version completely fine?


Sincerly Alexander

If you want to be on the save side: I'm using a MacBook Pro 16-inch M3 MAX maxed out with Parallels Premium and all is fine with a lot updates.