VMware Fusion 8 Benchmarks vs. Fusion 7 and Boot Camp

PCMark 8

Whereas the earlier 3DMark benchmarks are focused on gaming, Futuremark’s PCMark benchmark aims to measure overall system performance in a variety of categories. The test automates tasks such as Web browsing, video chatting, creating complex spreadsheets in Excel, and editing images in Photoshop. We conducted three of PCMark’s tests: the Home test, the Microsoft Office test, and the Adobe Creative Cloud test, hoping to give us a look at some workflows that are more representative of “real world” scenarios. The results are reported in arbitrary “points,” with a larger number of points representing better performance.

Of note, PCMark by default runs each test three times per benchmark cycle, so each test was only manually initiated once for each Windows installation.

Although it beats Fusion 7 in all three tests, Fusion 8 shows much more impressive results in the Microsoft Office test, scoring about 21 percent higher than its predecessor. This may be key, as many Mac owners seek out virtualization software to run the Windows version of Office, or other Office-like productivity apps that aren’t available for OS X.

Results in the “Home” test — which examined a mix of Web browsing, light 3D gaming, photo editing, and video chatting — were practically identical, while Fusion 8 scored about 6 percent higher than Fusion 7 in the Creative Cloud tests.

Table of Contents

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1. Introduction
2. Fusion 8 New Features & Overview
3. Hardware, Software, and Testing Methodology
4. Geekbench
5. 3DMark (2013)
6. 3DMark06
7. FurMark OpenGL Benchmark
8. Cinebench R15
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9. PCMark 8
10. Passmark PerformanceTest 8.0
11. x264 Encoding
12. x265 Encoding
13. File Transfers
14. Virtual Machine Management
15. Conclusions
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