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What Drive Arrangement for the New 27" IMAC Can I use if I use Parallels Desktop® 8

V

Vuddha

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 23, 2012
45
0
I am planning to get a NEW 27" IMAC [if they ever come out] and use Parallels Desktop® 8 or Bootcamp for Gamming.

I Am Guessing Around $3200 - $3400, as long as you don't go for 768GB SSD
Just a Guess like every one Else. The 768GB SSD may bring it over $4400.

Going with:
27" 3.4GHz quad-core Intel core I7 with 8MB L3 cache
8GB Ram - Upgrade to 32GB 1600MHz DDR3 from Crucial or OWC
3TB 7200rpm Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX Graphic processor with 2GB of GDDR5 memory
AppleCare Protection Plan
Samsung SE-506AB Slim Portable Blu-ray Writer =+$89.

I work with Photoshop, some Video and Play World of Warcraft.
Planning to do Gaming on the PC Side with using Parallels Desktop® 8.
As you see I was planning to get the 3TB 7200rpm Fusion Drive.
But I don't know if it would work with Parallels Desktop® 8.
Not sure if a separate Volume need to be made for the PC side?
If the 768 SSD would work?
Or do I have to go with Regular hard drive?:confused:
 
Last edited:
Unless something has changed, gaming in a VM is not a good experience. You'll get better performance using bootcamp.
 
Razorhog said:
Unless something has changed, gaming in a VM is not a good experience. You'll get better performance using bootcamp.
Click to expand...

But with Bootcamp do you need to have a separate Vol. for the PC side?:confused:
 
Razorhog said:
Unless something has changed, gaming in a VM is not a good experience. You'll get better performance using bootcamp.
Click to expand...

I haven't spent a good deal of time researching it yet, but this is one area Parallels 8 was supposed to address.

Vuddha said:
But with Bootcamp do you need to have a separate Vol. for the PC side?:confused:
Click to expand...

You need to partition your drive. You don't need a whole new drive. (Note - 3TB drives can't currently be partitioned for Bootcamp.)

If you choose to go with a Fusion drive, for most tasks you'll probably see better performance in Parallels than in Bootcamp. If you go with a standard HDD or full SSD, Bootcamp performance will be better than Parallels.

Also, you didn't note it, but there are many games that come with OS X native versions either simultaneously or shortly after launch. Gaming performance under OS X isn't quite the same as in Windows but the gap is closing pretty fast. You don't need to go into Windows every time you want to game.
 
I'm a gamer and I currently use a MacBook Air (with Intel HD 4000), as there is no iMac yet. This works reasonably well. Like a lot of people said, there are more and more games coming out on OS X. I play WoW too and StarCraft II and Diablo III. All Blizzard games, so they all work flawlessly under OS X. The HD 4000 can keep up (1920x1200), but without Anti-Aliasing and effects on medium. The Geforce 9xx will have no trouble at all.

I also tried some games with Parallels 8. They seem to work good, but I didn't try the latest and greatest. For example Command & Conquer 3 and Zero Hour work very good.

You will loose some performance with virtualization, so it depends the type of games you want to play. And how often. For ultimate gaming Bootcamp offers the best performance.
 
forty2j said:
You need to partition your drive. You don't need a whole new drive. (Note - 3TB drives can't currently be partitioned for Bootcamp.)

If you choose to go with a Fusion drive, for most tasks you'll probably see better performance in Parallels than in Bootcamp. If you go with a standard HDD or full SSD, Bootcamp performance will be better than Parallels.

Also, you didn't note it, but there are many games that come with OS X native versions either simultaneously or shortly after launch. Gaming performance under OS X isn't quite the same as in Windows but the gap is closing pretty fast. You don't need to go into Windows every time you want to game.
Click to expand...

I did not know the 3TB drives can't currently be partitioned for Bootcamp.

Looks like Bootcamp may be the way to go. The the decision may be to go with the SSD Drive with an external HD.:confused:

Has anyone seen speed test on the 768GB SSD vs the Fusion Drive 1T or 3T?

I work with Photoshop, and Adobe Premier, After Effects and I play WoW on MAC and Star Wars Old Republic and other PC only games. I have a Synology NAS for Data and Backup.
 
RAMdisk may be another option

I just read in another thread about ramdisk. I wonder if this could be an option for Bootcamp or Parallels?
I don't know much about how to set one up or how they work. But I am planning on getting 32 G of RAM.
And will it work with a Fusion Drive wit Bootcamp or Parallel?:confused:
 
Vuddha said:
I did not know the 3TB drives can't currently be partitioned for Bootcamp.

Looks like Bootcamp may be the way to go. The the decision may be to go with the SSD Drive with an external HD.:confused:

Has anyone seen speed test on the 768GB SSD vs the Fusion Drive 1T or 3T?

I work with Photoshop, and Adobe Premier, After Effects and I play WoW on MAC and Star Wars Old Republic and other PC only games. I have a Synology NAS for Data and Backup.
Click to expand...

Just keep in mind that price of the 768GB SSD.. If you're already putting some data on external, I'd think you'd be better off with 1 TB Fusion. The performance will be similar in OS X(think of Fusion as giving 90% of the performance benefit of SSD for standard usage), give you a bit more capacity, and save you about a grand. The question really comes down to how much you need to use Windows and whether the Windows side needs the benefit of the SSD. For gaming, the SSD will speed up the initial load, but it won't affect frame rates once you're in. It will also speed up the OS boot up. Up to you if you think an extra 30 seconds when booting into windows and 20 seconds when launching a PC game is worth $1000. (FYI - Others are exploring options to install their own SSD for cheaper, but we don't know how hard it is to open an iMac yet.)



Vuddha said:
I just read in another thread about ramdisk. I wonder if this could be an option for Bootcamp or Parallels?
I don't know much about how to set one up or how they work. But I am planning on getting 32 G of RAM.
And will it work with a Fusion Drive wit Bootcamp or Parallel?:confused:
Click to expand...

RAMDisk isn't a permanent solution. The entire contents of the RAMDisk are erased any time you reboot or power off. There is a way to make it "persistent" but it assumes you're not switching operating systems; you couldn't boot off it. It has some niche uses but it's not something you'd want to keep an operating system on. Besides which, assuming you conquered those hurdles, you'd need to allocate at least 16GB to a Windows disk, leaving less available to actually use as RAM.
 
Razorhog said:
Unless something has changed, gaming in a VM is not a good experience. You'll get better performance using bootcamp.
Click to expand...

Something has changed.

Bootcamp cannot take advantage of the Fusion Drive at all, and it doesn't work with the 3TB fusion drive.

Parallels and other virtual machines will get the same optimisations from a Fusion Drive as Mac applications.

And a 27" iMac has plenty of CPU power that most people need not worry about performance at all. Only thing to remember is that with Parallels, you want enough RAM for the Mac, PLUS enough RAM for Windows.
 
So if I go with the 3TB fusion, could I run Bootcamp off of an external Thunderbolt drive for gaming?
 
Forty Two thanks for your input!

forty2j said:
Just keep in mind that price of the 768GB SSD.. If you're already putting some data on external, a bit more capacity, and save you about a grand. The question really comes down to how much you need to use Windows and whether the Windows side needs the benefit of the SSD. For gaming, the SSD will speed up the initial load, but it won't affect frame rates once you're in. It will also speed up the OS boot up. Up to you if you think an extra 30 seconds when booting into windows and 20 seconds when launching a PC game is worth $1000. (FYI - Others are exploring options to install their own SSD for cheaper, but we don't know how hard it is to open an iMac yet.)


RAMDisk isn't a permanent solution. The entire contents of the RAMDisk are erased any time you reboot or power off. There is a way to make it "persistent" but it assumes you're not switching operating systems; you couldn't boot off it. It has some niche uses but it's not something you'd want to keep an operating system on. Besides which, assuming you conquered those hurdles, you'd need to allocate at least 16GB to a Windows disk, leaving less available to actually use as RAM.
Click to expand...

Now the question is what drive arrangement will Bootcamp run on? SSD, Fusion 1T, Fusion 3T or only HHD 1T or HHD 3T.
Can Bootcamp run on an External drive?

Maybe I should just give up on Bootcamp altogether and use Parallels on a 1T or 3T Fusion Drive with 32GB or RAM

Seems like the RAMdisk is out for a solution.

I wonder if OWC has looked into doing Turnkey with the New Imac's and Install Larger SSD [256GB or 512GB with a fast 1T HDD or 3T] with out the Fusion part? Not knowing if the IMAC 27" Drive bay will even accept them?:confused:
 
Vuddha said:
Now the question is what drive arrangement will Bootcamp run on? SSD, Fusion 1T, Fusion 3T or only HHD 1T or HHD 3T.
Click to expand...

Of those options, Bootcamp will run on:
HDD 1TB
Fusion 1TB (with HDD partition only; no SSD benefit)
SSD

If it helps, remember that Fusion isn't a new kind of drive. It's a 1TB HDD and a separate 128GB SSD. It's OS X software that makes them work together as one "smart" drive.

----------
Vuddha said:
Maybe I should just give up on Bootcamp altogether and use Parallels on a 1T or 3T Fusion Drive with 32GB or RAM
Click to expand...

You need to find some people (maybe try the Parallels forums) that are gaming under Parallels 8 and see what they say. Not sure what the framerate penalty is for doing it this way. Parallels-Fusion would give you the best (affordable) startup/application launch speed, but there is a framerate hit.
 
gnasher729 said:
Something has changed.

Bootcamp cannot take advantage of the Fusion Drive at all, and it doesn't work with the 3TB fusion drive.

Parallels and other virtual machines will get the same optimisations from a Fusion Drive as Mac applications.

And a 27" iMac has plenty of CPU power that most people need not worry about performance at all. Only thing to remember is that with Parallels, you want enough RAM for the Mac, PLUS enough RAM for Windows.
Click to expand...

Bootcamp CAN take advantage of the 1TB fusion drive, just not the SSD portion. (which is what you probably meant) Windows will be installed on the 1TB spinner in the case of bootcamp.

Despite the CPU power of a 27" iMac I would still definitely be concerned with performance, when it comes to running games in Parallels or Fusion. Some games are "recommended" in Parallels 8, I'd definitely stick to those games and would be willing to bet they are still buggy.

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/gamers/titles/
 
Looks Like Bootcamp is out for now

:apple: Well at this time I think that I may go with 3T Fusion and HOPE that they fix Bootcamp to work on 3T drives.

OR

If OWC Starts doing Turnkey with the New Imac's and Install Larger SSD [256GB or 512GB with a fast 1T HDD or 3T] with or without the Fusion part? Not knowing if the IMAC 27" Drive bay will even accept them?

OR

Not play PC games when I first get my computer.

Thanks guys for all your Help, maybe things will change with Bootcamp or OWC before The New 27" Finally Comes Out ;)
 
Last edited:
uptownnyc said:
So if I go with the 3TB fusion, could I run Bootcamp off of an external Thunderbolt drive for gaming?
Click to expand...

External USB3 drive is exactly as fast and tons cheaper. And I'm quite sure Windows supports booting from an external USB drive; I wouldn't be so sure that it supports booting from a Thunderbolt drive.
 
gnasher729 said:
External USB3 drive is exactly as fast and tons cheaper. And I'm quite sure Windows supports booting from an external USB drive; I wouldn't be so sure that it supports booting from a Thunderbolt drive.
Click to expand...

According to Apple support Bootcamp only work on Internal drives at this time. Also Bootcamp does not work on 3T Internal either. I hope that Apple fixes the problem with 3T drive compatibility.

Maybe OWC has looked into doing Turnkey with the New Imac's and Install Larger SSD [256GB or 512GB with a fast 1T HDD or 3T] with out the Fusion part? Not knowing if the IMAC 27" Drive bay will even accept them? Heres Hoping.
 
[/COLOR]
Razorhog said:
Unless something has changed, gaming in a VM is not a good experience. You'll get better performance using bootcamp.
Click to expand...

i use a rc flight simulator on a vm flying rc helicopters doing 3d stuff and it keeps up pretty well, even during multi-player flying.

and i'm running a mid-2007 24" iMac with 4g
 
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