Parallels is proud to announce a new product today which changes the face of PC virtualization: Parallels Workstation 4.0 Extreme. Just as Parallels was the first to bring you container-based virtualization and the ability to virtualize on a Mac, we bring you yet another industry first. Designed for high-end businesses and developers, Parallels Workstation 4.0 Extreme is workstation virtualization software which does what no virtualization product on the market has been able to do before: allowing direct access to PCI devices, giving virtual environments full performance for both graphics and networking!
This is awesome news for many users out there who are stuck using multiple PCs to accomplish advanced graphical work like 3D rendering, modeling and animation. It will allow developers and engineers to run everything they need simultaneously on a single multi-monitor workstation, including multiple PC operating systems, resulting in a totally seamless work environment. There's a video below which shows this in action, running Microsoft Vista 64-bit, Windows XP 64-bit, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux at the same time, each of which has direct access to its own NVIDIA Quadro graphics card within a single machine. Notice the SmartMouse sweeping across all five monitors to interact with the multiple OSes? You can copy, paste and share the clipboard as well, just like you're used to doing in all Parallels VMs. It's a beautiful thing to see for anyone even remotely involved with 3D graphics.
The official press release is HERE, and it has all the juicy details. This new product represents a collaboration between Parallels, NVIDIA (with their new SLI Multi-OS graphics technology) and Intel (with VT-D implemented in their newest processors). For now, our product is available exclusively on the new HP Z800 Workstation, which is designed to handle exactly the sort of intensive workload that Parallels Workstation 4.0 Extreme works perfectly with.
Ray Chew
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