How much does a Windows 10 VM benefit from multi-core processors?

[AMS]

How much does a Windows 10 Parallels VM benefit from a multi-core processor? For example, what would the difference be between a 2017 MacBook 12" i7 (not an i3 or an i5) running at 1.4 GHz and a 2019 MacBook Pro 13" i7 running at 2.8 GHz?

I noticed that the 2017 MacBook 12" sometimes freezes or stalls when running Parallels (even though it has 16 GB RAM).

Geekbench reports these numbers:

2019 MacBook Pro 13":

5333
Single-Core Score
18342
Multi-Core Score

2017 MacBook 12":

3933
Single-Core Score
7547
Multi-Core Score

 

[BillA3]

I can tell you that I just purchased a spec'd out 2019 macbook pro 13" (went w/1tb vs 2). I also purchased a sonnet puck egpu to run 3 monitors. After one day of working and pushing the parallels app along with keeping a handful of apps running on the mac side, it actually works pretty well. It didn't until this morning I found a thread on here that talked about setting parallels to "prefer external gpu". Huge difference.

That's a setting that should be on the main configuration menu, not buried like it is. I would've never found that and likely traded my 13" for a 15" because it was not running smooth. Obviously, my 13 has a 4 core i-7 at 2.8 with 16gb of ram. I'm devoting half the ram to parallels and it seems to work just fine. I think I may upgrade my egpu to something a little beefier just to take the edge off and work more smoothly.