MacTech Magazine (http://www.mactech.com) -- a monthly magazine focused on the Mac at the technical level (and for which Yours Truly is a contributing writer) -- has released an extensive benchmark study of virtualization solutions running on Intel-based Macs.

MacTech's goal was to see how well Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion perform compared head-to-head in their most recent versions. The suite of over 3,500 tests was performed comparing the MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro. The purpose of the testing and the article are to answer the questions about performance for the different virtualization solutions available, as well as the differences between Windows XP and Windows 7 in virtual machines, as well as multiple processors and 64-bit vs. 32-bit.

This is the third year that MacTech has done extensive benchmarks on virtualization products. The resulting 7,500 word article, with 23 figures, is the most comprehensive look at virtualization on the Mac with today's commercial Mac products.

"MacTech Labs has been doing product evaluations and testing for over 20 years. Our benchmarks have become definitive in categories like virtualization on the Mac. That comes from our focus to help IT Pros not only in making tough decisions, but with real-world and how-to answers. In this case, we wanted to help people decide which product is best for them," says Neil Ticktin, publisher/editor-in-chief, MacTech Magazine. "Which virtualization solution to use is a complex decision including the decision of XP vs Windows 7, 64-bit, gaming, 3D graphics, and multiple processors. It's clear that virtualization products have come a very long way. That said, we were surprised at the results."

An abridged version of the article will be published in the 26.01 issue of the magazine available on newsstands and through subscriptions. The complete version is also available on MacTech's web site at http://www.mactech.com/articles/special/1002-VirtualizationHeadToHead. Discussions on the results are taking place in the MacTech Forums (http://forums.mactech.com/).