It also promises up to 60% more performance on an Apple M1 MacBook Pro versus an Intel-based one, but that's with an Intel Core i9-8950HK and AMD Radeon Pro 555X GPU, again ignoring the most recent generation of MacBooks. There is a newer Intel-based MacBook Air with Ice Lake processors, but that's not what's being used here. However, it's actually compared an Apple M1 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM to a model powered by an Intel Core i5-8210Y and 8GB of RAM, which was actually released in July 2019. First, it promises to be 250% more power-efficient on an Apple M1 Mac compared to a 2020 Intel-based MacBook Air. Parallels is making some big claims about the performance and power efficiency improvements, but you have to read the fine print to put things in the correct perspective.

This enables our users to enjoy the best Windows-on-Mac experience available.”

However, virtual machines are an exception and thus Parallels engineers implemented native virtualization support for the Mac with M1 chip. The transition has been smooth for most Mac applications, thanks to Rosetta technology. 'Apple's M1 chip is a significant breakthrough for Mac users (.). In fact, that's why Parallels prioritized adding native support for the M1 chip, as Nick Dobrovolskiy, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Support, says:

The benefits of native support should be especially evident in Parallels Desktop, since virtualization software tends to use a significant amount of hardware resources. Ever since Apple announced its first Macs powered by in-house ARM processors, more and more companies have had to update their apps to run natively on they new silicon, since Intel-based apps have to be emulated, this resulting in some performance overhead. Parallels has announced that version 16.5 of its virtualization software, Parallels Desktop for Mac, is now generally available, bringing with it native support for Apple's new M1 chipset.

Macbook air m1 parallels windows 10