Best Mac System for Intel Virtual Machines

TidBITS Talk
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The topic of running Intel-based virtual machines has arisen a few times in recent threads.

Since running Intel-based operating systems on Apple Silicon devices would require emulation, not virtualization, I think it would be interesting to hear people’s thoughts on the best Intel Macs for running Intel-based virtual machines in the years ahead.

Personally, I use a mid-2012 MacBook Pro with 16 GB RAM and a 4 TB SSD running macOS Catalina to run a collection of virtual machines using Parallels 18.x and VMware Fusion 12.x. (Catalina is the last version of macOS supported by Apple on that hardware.)

Somewhat surprisingly, operating systems newer than Catalina, like Windows 11, macOS Big Sur, and macOS Monterey work very well on that old laptop.

At this point, my main reasons for keeping these VMs is to maintain access to old versions of TurboTax, to maintain access to 32bit Mac apps, and to maintain PostScript/EPS support (Monterey). As my need for older versions of TurboTax wanes, I may abandon Intel virtualization entirely, but I do sometimes think about getting a late-model Intel Mac for insurance.

I think a case can be made for a 16+ GB 2018 Mac mini with an external SSD, even though Sequoia is the last supported version of macOS on that hardware. Such machines can be found in the $200-400 range. There also are the Intel systems that Tahoe will support:

  • 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro
  • 2020 Intel 13-inch MacBook Pro
  • 2020 iMac
  • 2019 Mac Pro

The Mac Pro machines can be expensive, but you can find good deals on 2020 iMacs and the Tahoe-supported MBPs.

For the sake of completeness, I’ll mention Hackintoshes and Macs running OCLP, but those can be quirky. For example, note macOS Sonoma and newer don’t support virtualization at all under OCLP on some hardware. It is very important to read the OCLP hardware compatibility guide before experimenting. I’d avoid virtualization under OCLP as a general principle, simply to avoid overtaxing older hardware. A Hackintosh on newer hardware might be interesting, but I wouldn’t recommend that solution to anyone who isn’t technically savvy and willing to tinker.

Feedback welcome.

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I had an iMac Pro that I really liked and used Boot Camp to run Windows 10 and Microsoft Flight Simulator. The only irritation was when Windows wanted to apply updates and you could get locked out of Mac OS. That system handled Windows easily and I never heard the fans spin up even under heavy load. That system was very reliable over the four years I used it,

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FWIW, the performance of Windows 11 running in a Parallels VM on a 2022 M2 MacBook Air is only slightly less (based on benchmarks, I think I used Geekbench) than a Parallels VM in a 2019 Intel iMac. I haven’t found a single app that doesn’t run in the VM on the M2.

I do have a 2014 Intel Mac mini but haven’t tried a VM there. At this point I’m thinking I’m going to upgrade that machine anyway.

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For Windows these days I just run Windows 11ARM in VMware Fusion. Really great, and W11ARM runs Intel Windows apps through its own emulation layer.

I have a UTM VM for a very old Windows compiler, but performance is abysmal and setup confusing, so I rarely use it, only when I have to.

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I also have a Windows 11 VM in UTM (well, I have one, plus a spawned one that allows me to experiment with a few things - I was helping a client decide whether Tailscale would be a good solution for them for some specific remote access needs), and I haven’t done any benchmark testing, but it seems to run with good performance when I use it. In fact, I think I may move away from Parallels and to UTM permanently because of the ongoing costs of Parallels licensing and because I rarely need to use Windows.

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I thank people for recommendations to use the ARM version of Windows on Apple Silicon and for emulating the Intel version of Windows via UTM on ARM. (For the record, I am delighted with the performance of Intel apps running on a Windows ARM VM on my M1 Macbook Air.)

I appreciate that emulation and/or virtualization on Apple Silicon is possible, but it is not always practical, either because licensing/activation may break, or for cost, or for performance reasons.

To keep this thread focused, I request that further replies be limited to the original question:

What is the best Intel Mac system for running Intel-based virtual machines for the next few years?

The main use case would be for running older, Intel-only versions of macOS, e.g., Sierra or Mojave, with excellent performance. Any machine capable of that would be capable of running Windows VMs, too. (If Windows VMs are the only VMs of interest, simply buying a $200 budget PC might be an adequate solution.)

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I use a Late 2013 Core i7 dual-core 2.8 GHz Retina 13" MBP with 32 GB RAM for that purpose. At the time, this was the top of the line 13" MBP. It also has ample speedy internal flash (512GB SSD) so it remains useful to this day.

It’s still on Mojave, which is certainly a restriction in some ways, but I deliberately chose Mojave over Catalina so I could continue to run 32 bit Mac apps on it. But truth is, these days I rarely to never do that and similar for Win virtualization. The latter is certainly specific to my situation — our campus IT people have set up a beefy Win VM for me so when I do need to run Win stuff, I just run it on there and access from anywhere through MS Remote Desktop Windows App.

My hope is that one day there will be a decent lightweight Intel emulator that runs on Apple silicon and that by then Apple silicon will have become even more powerful so that I won’t care about emulation vs. virtualization vs. VMs vs. whatever. I bet we aren’t far off from having an Mx Pro that will emulate x86 or x86-64 such that it can beat the raw speed and feel (“snappiness”) of an old 2013 dual-core i7 system.

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For this I use a cheap NUC PC running ESXi which allows me to have the PC in a Window on my Mac. Kind of like VNC, but more performant.

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…using the Windows app (formerly Remote Desktop), I presume?

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For those unfamiliar with it, ESXi is a type 1 hypervisor. It runs on “bare metal”, not on another operating system. The computer boots into the hypervisor and then starts one or more VMs (based on its configuration), which can be accessed remotely.

Broadcom/VMware ESXi is part of their VSphere product. Free licenses with limited functionality are available. See also: VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 3e now available as a Free Hypervisor.

The production version and free version are the same software, but with different license keys. The free version:

  • Allows configuration of unlimited VMs (up to hardware limits)
  • Supports up to 2 physical CPUs and up to 8 virtual CPUs per VM. (The production licenses don’t have these limits)
  • Supports the use of the vSphere Host Client for web-based management.

The free version does not:

  • Allow management via their vCenter Server product
  • Allow various high-end features, including the ability to move running VMs between servers and high-availability.
  • Have any official tech support

I used ESXi years ago. We had two Dell rack-mount PCs (24 CPU cores each) running free licenses of ESXi. On those two computers, we created several dozen VMs (mostly running Linux), which were used by the engineering team.

I didn’t realize that it works well on a system as small as a NUC PC. That’s really cool and opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities for SOHO installations.

With ESXi, you can access the VMs via standard remote access (e.g. Remote Desktop or VLC), or you can open a console window (from a remote computer, using the vSphere Host Client web interface), which will show what the VM would display on a local display.

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As long as those VM’s aren’t macOS, the idea of using ESXi is fine.

If we’re talking macOS VMs, that’s a different story. macOS is now a deprecated guest OS platform under ESXi - it hasn’t gotten updates for support in a while (VMware Tools are frozen for macOS and getting close to no development work).

Consider that running macOS on ESXi is still bound by Apple’s licensing restrictions. Running macOS on non-Apple hardware (even in a VM) isn’t compliant with the macOS EULA.

Running a macOS VM on ESXi still has issues of graphics support. There’s no 3D acceleration available for macOS guests with VMware Tools. Software that wants Metal (and that includes gradually increasing needs in newer macOS versions) will either run slowly or not display properly. Better to stick with an older Intel Mac if you have macOS versions that you need to run (either natively or in a VM).

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No.

David’s post is a good summary.

The NUC runs ESXi which hosts the VMs. ESXi as a hypervisor is sort of like an advanced bios. There’s no traditional operating system like Windows of Linux in between the hardware and the VMs. So performance is more optimal and management is arguably easier.

To view/operate the VM on your Mac, you can use your Web browser (save to dock to make it an app of its own) or a suitable viewer app. But it’s not Remote Desktop or VNC. The software is interacting with ESXi rather than Windows, so at a lower level. But of course you’re using Windows. If you’re interested a google will be enlightening!

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Thanks! I know what hypervisors are in general, and I was aware of ESXi as a product, but I don’t have hands-on experience with the latter.

I guess I just assumed that you’d either need a vSphere client to access the host (hypervisor) environment and then either VNC or RDC to access the VMs. It hadn’t occurred to me that you also could access the VMs via the client/browser, even though it makes perfect sense to do so. Thanks again for the enlightenment.

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I use VMware Fusion on
Model Name: Mac mini
Model Identifier: Macmini7,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 16 GB
HD Capacity: 1 TB (1 000 211 607 552 bytes)

I will use this mac as far as I can see into the future.

I think this is a good choice. I see no reason to run Tahoe for your use case.

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Of course, you may still prefer to do so. When I used to create Linux VMs on ESXi, I only used the vSphere Host web app for setting it up (deliberately configuring it to not boot into any GUI-based environment). Once established, however, I would use SSH to log in to the VM and set the X11 DISPLAY environment variable to present GUI content on my local computer’s X server. Or alternatively, using X2Go for convenience.

I don’t think I ever set up Windows VMs, so I’m not sure how hard it would be to set up Remote Desktop, or if the web-console would work better.

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To use Remote Desktop, you just need to be running a supported version of Windows (i.e., Pro, Enterprise, or Server) and then enable screen sharing.

If available, RD generally feels snappier than VNC, but that’s a minor thing.

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I paid full retail for a Mac mini (2018) at the end of their cycle, after Apple Silicon was announced, but before actual M1 systems were announced and available. I figured that would be the best system for keeping Intel-based Mac OS versions running, as well as Windows virtualization.

I should have waited. OWC has them at a very, very nice discount these days: Used & Refurbished Apple Mac mini (2018) from OWC

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I believe this is what Apple called the Late 2014 Mac mini. What version of macOS do you run on it and why — if you don’t mind me asking. Just curious.

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The Macmini7,1 is indeed a 2014 Mini. I have one and ran MacOS versions from Yosemite to Monterey.
Mine is sitting at Monterey but also dual boots into Linux.

I personally like this Intel mini as it does not have the T2 chip that the 2018 model does. As such it is much easier to run Linux on should you want to.

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It is the Late 2014. With the best specs you could buy, I believe. I run Monterey and don’t remember why. Maybe because VMware 12 required it?

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