MBA vs MBP performance running Microsoft Project on Windows 10 VM using Parallels 18

Hi everyone,

I have a 2019 16" MacBook Pro with a 2.3gHz 8-core Intel Core i9, 16GB RAM and 1TB SDD. I'm running Microsoft Project on Windows 10 using Parallels 18 but I'm getting fairly sluggish performance regularly and the fans on my MacBook Pro are kicking in a lot. I have tried various different hardware settings for the VM and now have gone back to the defaults (I think 6 or 8GB of RAM and 4-cores) because nothing seemed to improve performance. My guess is that I need more RAM to speed things up by reducing the amount of swap between RAM and SDD but that's just a guess and any hints and tips greatly recommended. I would prefer not to fork out for a new MacBook Air (with 24GB RAM) or MacBook Pro (with 32GB RAM) just so that I can run MS Project but it's a core part of my job. Any ideas?

If the answer is largely RAM related then do you think a 24GB MacBook Air would suffice or should I be looking at a 32GB MacBook Pro?

I don't know if there are a lot of differences in RAM and SSD bandwidth between my 2019 MBP and the newest MBA and MBP models?

Any and all ideas welcome!

Kind regards,
Jimbo