Running VMWare Fusion

[biggiet4jets]

I just recently posted a thread about which Mac I am going to buy next but I just wanted to get peoples opinion real quick on which specs should I be looking for running VMWare fusion 7. I currently have it installed on my late 09 MBP with 8GB of Ram and it's a C2D. I know ram takes a huge hit when I run Fusion because I see it go from 5GB down to as low as like 20MB, I have an app that shows the percentage.

Is RAM the only thing that is mainly used when running Fusion or is it better to get a quad core i5 or i7 over a dual core i5 in the newer macs? I will be getting an SSD with whatever setup I do end up buying just want to know if I should spend the extra money on faster processors when they might not be really needed.

Thanks all.

 

[santaliqueur]

The more resources you have to allocate to Fusion, the more you can allocate. Lots of RAM and CPU power. I don't think there's a magic number, but more is always better. Depends on how demanding your VM will be.

 

[yjchua95]

I just recently posted a thread about which Mac I am going to buy next but I just wanted to get peoples opinion real quick on which specs should I be looking for running VMWare fusion 7. I currently have it installed on my late 09 MBP with 8GB of Ram and it's a C2D. I know ram takes a huge hit when I run Fusion because I see it go from 5GB down to as low as like 20MB, I have an app that shows the percentage.

Is RAM the only thing that is mainly used when running Fusion or is it better to get a quad core i5 or i7 over a dual core i5 in the newer macs? I will be getting an SSD with whatever setup I do end up buying just want to know if I should spend the extra money on faster processors when they might not be really needed.

Thanks all.

Normally I allocate 4 virtual cores (which is equivalent to two physical cores, because I have an i7 and that supports hyper threading) and 4GB of RAM.

If you're running a single VM, 8GB of RAM would be fine. 16GB would be ideal for around 2-3 VMs and 32GB would do for 5+ VMs.

Whatever you do, a quad core i7 can really help in running VMs. A quad core i5 doesn't have hyper threading.

With a quad core i7, you have 8 virtual cores (4 physical cores) to assign, while on a quad core i5, you only have 4 physical cores.

So for instance, if I allocate two cores to each VM, I can only have 2 VMs at most running on a quad core i5, and 4 VMs at most running on an i7.

If you assign a single core to each VM, you can have 4 VMs running on an i5 and 8 VMs running on an i7.

So the CPU does really help in running multiple VMs.

 

[biggiet4jets]

Normally I allocate 4 virtual cores (which is equivalent to two physical cores, because I have an i7 and that supports hyper threading) and 4GB of RAM.

If you're running a single VM, 8GB of RAM would be fine. 16GB would be ideal for around 2-3 VMs and 32GB would do for 5+ VMs.

Whatever you do, a quad core i7 can really help in running VMs. A quad core i5 doesn't have hyper threading.

With a quad core i7, you have 8 virtual cores (4 physical cores) to assign, while on a quad core i5, you only have 4 physical cores.

So for instance, if I allocate two cores to each VM, I can only have 2 VMs at most running on a quad core i5, and 4 VMs at most running on an i7.

If you assign a single core to each VM, you can have 4 VMs running on an i5 and 8 VMs running on an i7.

So the CPU does really help in running multiple VMs.

Thanks for the feedback yjchua95. I definitely want a quad core i7 just deciding what I want to buy, mac mini or iMac. I will also only be running one virtual machine at a time, since I only NEED it for Windows 7 for programs like Visual Studio, Access and SQL server. I will install Ubuntu as a VM too but won't use that that much. Let me know what machine you think I should inquiry about.

 

[yjchua95]

Thanks for the feedback yjchua95. I definitely want a quad core i7 just deciding what I want to buy, mac mini or iMac. I will also only be running one virtual machine at a time, since I only NEED it for Windows 7 for programs like Visual Studio, Access and SQL server. I will install Ubuntu as a VM too but won't use that that much. Let me know what machine you think I should inquiry about.

I'd go for the iMac, because:
1. The Mac Mini doesn't have a dGPU. It only has an Intel Iris iGPU.
1. All Mac Minis are dual core, even the i7 variant. They use the same logic board as the 13" rMBP, so all processors available on it are dual core.