
There is an ARM-based version of Windows 11 on the way but I haven’t tested that yet. Keep in mind that running Windows 11 natively on a M1 Mac currently is not working with this method. For this article I used a Macbook Air Early 2015 which has a Core I5-5250U and 8GB of RAM and with a few minor tweaks, I got Windows 11 to install and everything working just fine, including updates. As by default, due to the specific hardware requirements mentioned above, it refuses to get installed without any further changes. Parallels 16.5 is available now as a free upgrade for users with an existing Parallels 16 subscription, while new license costs start from $80.Windows 11 is about to be released at the time of writing this and I was very curious to find out if I would manage to get it to work on one of my Macs.

Up to 250% less energy used: On a Mac with an Apple M1 chip, Parallels Desktop 16.5 uses 2.5X less energy than on a 2020 Intel-based MacBook Air computer.Here are some improvements as shared by Parallels: It takes full advantage of the benefits that Apple Silicon M1 chip provides, and as expected, it is a lot more faster and efficient compared to Intel Macs. This just highlighted how powerful M1 chips are, and that native support would bring the best results for virtualization.Īfter spending some time in testing phase as a Technical Preview, Parallels 16.5 is now available for all users. Other tests showed how well games perform in Windows 10 in Parallels on M1 Mac. Initial impressions were very positive as users found out that Windows in Parallels on M1 Mac runs faster than it does on Surface Pro X, which is powered by a Qualcomm SQ2 processor. Parallels was released as a Technical Preview back in December 2020, with support for Windows 10 on ARM. Parallels 16.5 is officially released with native support for M1 chips

Thanks to M1 chip support, users can run Windows 10 on ARM and ARM-compatible Linux virtual machines with near-native speeds. This version of Parallels Desktop supports both Intel and M1 Macs. Parallels 16.5 is now available with native support for Apple Silicon M1 chip.
