System requirements for PD for Mac 15 running Windows 10 with Dragon Dictate Professional

Hi,
I am thinking of buying a new MacBook Air or MacBook Pro and using Parallels for Mac 15 to run Windows 10 with Dragon Dictate Professional.

The system requirements for Parallels for Mac 15 are:
RAM: 4 GB of RAM (minimum) or 16 GB of RAM or more (ideally)
Graphics: Intel, AMD Radeon or NVIDIA (minimum) or AMD Radeon Pro graphics card (ideally)

The Dragon Dictate Professional requirements are:
CPU: 2.2 GHz Intel® dual core or equivalent AMD processor (SSE2 instruction set required)
Processor Cache: 512 KB
RAM: 64-bit: 4GB

I plan on running Dragon and a translation software program in the guest Windows 10, while running Firefox, a PDF reader, Excel, Word and the Spotlight function on the host system Mac OS Catalina.

Do I need 16GB or 32GB of RAM?
Would the Apple 2020 version of Intel Iris Plus Graphics integrated graphics chip i.e. not the older Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645 or 655 be sufficient for my needs?
The CPU would be a quad-core i5 or i7.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Dragon Professional in virtualized environments for some time, and from what you've described, I'd lean toward 32GB of RAM if you're purchasing a new machine and intend to keep it for several years.

Dragon itself isn't particularly demanding, but running Windows 10 through Parallels, along with translation software, while simultaneously using Firefox, Word, Excel, PDF applications, and macOS background services can put considerable pressure on memory. With 16GB, the system should function adequately, but you may notice slowdowns when multiple applications are open. With 32GB, you'll have much more flexibility to allocate resources to the Windows virtual machine without affecting macOS performance.

Regarding graphics, Dragon relies far more on CPU and memory performance than on graphics processing. The Intel Iris Plus graphics found in the 2020 models should be perfectly sufficient for Dragon, Office applications, web browsing, PDFs, and general productivity work. I don't see a compelling reason to pay extra for dedicated graphics solely for this use case.

As for the processor, either the quad-core i5 or i7 should handle Dragon comfortably. If your budget forces a choice between a faster processor and more RAM, I would prioritize the RAM upgrade first.

One additional suggestion: before making a final decision, check the current compatibility recommendations from both Parallels and Dragon, as speech-recognition software can sometimes be sensitive to virtualization settings and operating system updates.

Overall, for the workload you've outlined, a MacBook with a quad-core processor, Intel Iris Plus graphics, and 32GB RAM would provide a very comfortable experience and plenty of room for future software demands.