I am using parallels 9 and am for the most part happy. I have an 2013 IMac I5 2.9ghz with 16gb memory. I have alloted 6.6 gb of memory for Windows 7 Professional. How much real world performance would I see in an upgrade? Is there a change in version 9 from version 8 in the program's ability to address memory?
I googled "parallels 9 vs parallels 8 benchmark" and found several reviews including this one http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/first-look-parallels-desktop-9-windows-benchmarks It states Parallels 9 is slightly faster than Parallels 8.
have you any experience with using Parallels9? Just wondered if you have any insight as to how well it works
I haven't noticed much of a difference. I only use it for development work. I haven't ran any benchmarks and I haven't tried any games. I don't use fullscreen or coherence modes. I haven't had any problems. As for memory, you could allocate up to 16 GB on your iMac but since you only have 16 GB, then I would set the virtual machine to 12 GB or less (probably 8 GB).