Not sure what you meant in the edit, but the first sentence is correct. Hotspot 1.8 does default to Parallel collector in the absence of any explicit GC setting VM arguments.<p>[1]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;hg.openjdk.java.net&#x2F;jdk8u&#x2F;jdk8u60&#x2F;hotspot&#x2F;file&#x2F;37240c1019fd&#x2F;src&#x2F;share&#x2F;vm&#x2F;runtime&#x2F;arguments.cpp#l1569" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;hg.openjdk.java.net&#x2F;jdk8u&#x2F;jdk8u60&#x2F;hotspot&#x2F;file&#x2F;37240c...</a>