There are three virtualizers for OS X, Parallels was the first one and is very good developed, Then there's VMWare Fusion and the last one is VirtualBox, a free virtualizer for MacOS X. All virtualizers are using disk images, so a only a big file will be used as Windows partition, you don't have to repartition your hard drive. This isn't slow, I'd say the Windows in Parallels is booting faster than my real Windows I used. Of course it's again better to store the disk images on a second harddisk. The problem of virtualizers may be the slower graphics, so it isn't too great for games. But there are no problems with applications.

A different solution is CrossOver. It allows to install Windows programs directly in MacOS with a kind of Windows API emulation called Wine. It's not neccessary to boot a virtual machine every time, but it may be not so compatible as a virtualized Windows. There's also a special version for games available.

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2 Opteron systems: OSx86 10.5.8, Andy's 9.8.0 kernel, Asus A8N-SLI Premium, Opteron 185 o'clocked @ 2 x 2,95 GHz (2nd system 2.6 GHz), ATI Radeon HD2600XT 256MB Dual-Monitor 2x HP L2035, 4 GB RAM, Griffin FireWave as main audio device, Marvell + nForce LAN, Asus U3S6 USB3/SATA6 card, 5,5 TB harddisk, Firewire 800 card, Apple Remote + eHome IR receiver, 2x Wacom serial graphics tablet, Canon Pixma iP4700, Logitech Internet Navigator wireless keyboard/mouse combination.

My Audio stuff: M-Audio Transit USB (default audio), M-Audio ProFire 610, M-Audio ProFire Lightbridge (34 channels) using Creamware A16 ADAT converter • MIDI: M-Audio Midiman 4x MIDI interface • Behringer Audio Mixers: Xenyx 1002, Xenyx 1002FX, Xenyx 1202FX, Eurorack UB1002FX, Eurorack MX1804FX, Eurorack MX262A • FX devices: Lexicon MPX100 DSP, Behringer DSP-1000 Virtualizer, Behringer MiniFEX 800 DSP, Behringer Multicom Pro MDX4400 compressor • RETRO: MSSIAH midi/sequencer/synthesizer cardridge for the C64 (Dual-SID), Steinberg M.S.I. MIDI Interface for C64