MacBook Pro vs iMac - speed improvement for Parallels Windows 8.1

Will there be a noticeable increase in speed and performance in switching from an iMac 2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with 1TB HardDrive to a MacBook Pro - Retina Display 13-inch 2.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 512 SSD.??? Both being brand new iMac and MacBook Pro.
I am not sure if the SSD drive will make a noticeable difference in this scenario. I am trying to investigate if doing the switch will make the use of Parallels with Windows 8.1 better; the iMac seems to be dragging a bit while running Windows through Parallels.
Thanks,

I would be looking at the Quad core MBP for Parallels. A Quad-core vs Dual-Core is not a fair comparison.
For the same CPU, the two bottlenecks for Parallels are RAM and disk speed.
You will see an improvement if you max out the RAM and the disk speed. The SSD in the MBP will be much faster than the HDD in the iMac.

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