Solidworks Hardware Requirements
Below is the information you need to configure your computer for Solidworks.
Best Processor for Solidworks
If you spend a lot of time rendering or doing flow simulations in Solidworks these two functions will use all the cores available in your CPU for processing. Basically, the more cores the better. All other functions of Solidworks are not highly multithreaded so for everything except rendering and flow simulations, the frequency of the CPU is much more important.
Choosing the right CPU therefore is dependent on the type of work you do. If your work with Solidworks is almost all rendering and flow simulations, the best CPU is the 18-core 10980XE. Otherwise, Intel’s 16-core i9 12900K CPU is the one to go for.
If you do a lot of rendering and flow simulations, or you just want to dedicate a computer to these tasks, choose a CPU with as many cores as you can afford.
Graphics/GPU Requirements for Solidworks
Solidworks is one of the few applications where a workstation card is an absolute necessity. Functions like rotations won’t happen smoothly without it.
Choosing the right graphics card is dependent on how complex the geometry of image you have on the screen and the tessellation.
For models with up to 1.5 million triangles at a resolution of 1080p, the Quadro P2200 should be more than adequate. For more complex models, choose the RTX 4000.
If you are working in 4K, the memory on the card as opposed to the processing power of the card becomes more important since you have 4 times as many pixels at 4K than at 1080p. At this resolution Quadro’s RTX 4000 video card with 8GB of memory is a good choice.
Memory/RAM Requirements for Solidworks
Unless you are working with extremely large and complex assemblies, 16GB of memory should be more than sufficient. You will need more RAM if you work with other programs simultaneously or you work with assemblies that have more than 40,000 components.
Storage Requirements for Solidworks
The best hard drive configuration for Solidworks is one solid state hard drive for the operating system and a separate second hard for active projects/storage. A solid state hard drive ensures Solidworks and drawings or assemblies load quickly. Saving large assemblies to the storage drive will benefit from a solid state hard drive as opposed to a mechanical drive.
