computer-science
How fast is a macOS VM, and how small could it be?
Key takeaways
- In my review of mac OS virtualisation on Apple silicon, I quoted performance figures that were obtained some time ago, and didn t consider minimum specifications for a usable VM.
- The last of those gives single precision, half-precision and quantised test results, in that order.
- Comparing CPU single-core figures, the VM runs effectively at 98% of the speed of the host.
In my review of mac OS virtualisation on Apple silicon, I quoted performance figures that were obtained some time ago, and didn t consider minimum specifications for a usable VM. Given current interest in running a VM on a Mac Book Neo, I thought it would be worth examining these afresh, from mac OS Tahoe.
Using the same host, a Mac mini M4 Pro, this time running mac OS 26.4.1 on its 14 cores (10 P + 4 E) with 48 GB RAM and a 2 TB internal SSD, Geekbench 6.7.1 scores are slightly faster, on both the host and a guest given 5 virtual cores and 16 GB of virtual RAM:
The last of those gives single precision, half-precision and quantised test results, in that order.
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