BIOS Settings, Virtual Machines, performance?

Just received an Alienware 17.  Works good.  Went into the BIOS this morning to see if there was anything I should change.  I've now spent the last hour rummaging around the Internet trying to figure out if I would ever be running a virtual machine.  I still don't know.  this box will primarily be doing image processing and "normal" things. 

Do I have to install something to use a virtual machine?  Or can my software - Photoshop, Lightroom, etc., use one by default?  If NOT, is there any reason to have virtualization and virtualization for I/O turned on?  In 25 words or fewer can someone explain in simple terms WHAT virtualization is and whether or not it gets used in normal work?

There's also a performance section in the BIOS with a setting for CPU performance and one for fan performance.  They're both disabled.  Given that the software I'm using is hugely cpu intensive and gobbles memory like crazy, should these be enabled or disabled as they currently are?