5 Things You Need To Know When Purchasing A SolidWorks Workstation
So you’ve decided to buy a new workstation, but where do you start? You could spend hours browsing through the myriad of different websites and retailers. The choice is daunting and the specifications can be confusing, so this article will help to identify and explain some of the features that you should consider when choosing your workstation. Let’s get to it!
5 Things You Need To Know When Purchasing A SolidWorks Workstation
What is a reasonable amount of processing power for high-quality work?
Computer speed and power are critical requirements for working with Solidworks.
SolidWorks workstations require a specific type of video card.
Recommended Storage for Solidworks Workstation
How Much RAM Is Necessary for Effective Work
What is a reasonable amount of processing power for high-quality work?
CPUs of the present day contain several cores on a single chip. SolidWorks, on the other hand, has an extensive design structure built into each model, making the process of re-creating a model a simple linear one. Therefore, the bulk of customers will find that buying faster CPUs with fewer cores is more cost-effective than they had previously thought.
There are some tasks in SOLIDWORKS that require many cores, such as opening and recreating multi-view drawings. Additional cores are used for rendering, which works well with up to twelve. Additionally, simulations will use extra cores – most efficiently with two or four cores, but any benefits beyond this level diminish. Upgrade to a processor with more cores if you routinely utilise these features.
SOLIDWORKS features require high-end processors.
Computer speed and power are critical requirements for working with Solidworks
Solidworks is a CAD program, and CAD programs only work if your computer is fast and able to do the work required. Many people get Solidworks to work by installing some new version of XP or Vista, or by buying a new computer. But neither of these is likely to work. The computers available when Solidworks was being developed were nothing like computers you can buy today.
Solidworks programs run best on modern PCs or high end pc, with four or more gigabytes of memory, and with fast processors and lots of fast hard disk space. So Solidworks is optimized to run on PCs, and PCs on a relatively fast network. Solidworks also needs a fast graphics card, but video cards today are cheap enough that everyone who owns a computer should have one. Solidworks is fast enough to run well on modern notebooks.
SolidWorks workstations require a specific type of video card
Solidworks is a very powerful computer application. But it is also a very demanding application. In particular, Solidworks requires a lot of processor power. As we will see, Solidworks can use a lot of CPU power. But Solidworks does not directly use the CPU: it uses the graphics card. The graphics card is a specialized processor, with its own memory. Solidworks reads and writes commands to the graphics card, and the graphics card does all of the actual work. In Solidworks, the graphics card is called the CPU. The problem is that graphics cards are quite specialized. They are made for special uses, and they are not general purpose. For example, the current crop of graphics cards (on desktop computers) are made for games. They don't have a lot of RAM. The biggest, fastest chips are for pushing lots of pixels to the screen. The graphics card in Solidworks is like that, but quite a bit more demanding.
Solidworks is talking to the graphics card, but it's using commands that the graphics card has to interpret. The graphics card has to remember what Solidworks asked it to do, and send the commands back to the graphics card. The graphics card has to translate commands into hardware instructions, and then execute those hardware instructions. All of this is done on the graphics card, not the CPU. The Solidworks CPU is burdened with translating commands into hardware instructions, and then executing those hardware instructions. The graphics card is burdened with doing the actual work.
Recommended Storage for Solidworks Workstation
As SSD prices continue to fall, we almost always recommend using an SSD as the primary storage medium for your operating system and SolidWorks. SSDs allow your system to boot and run applications in a fraction of the time it takes with a traditional hard disc.
It is possible to reduce the time it takes to open and save assemblies by using an SSD instead of a hard disc . For smaller assemblies, an SSD may not make much of a difference, but in general, the longer it takes you to open a given assembly, the more useful this type of device will be for you.
How Much RAM Is Necessary for Effective Work
SOLIDWORKS need additional RAM (Random Access Memory) to import complex models and drawings. When working with large datasets, this is primarily a problem with the programme. Due to hard drive caching, a machine's load time can significantly rise if it runs out of memory.
The amount of RAM on a system must be adequate to handle the normal size of datasets. Regularly running simulations that require a big amount of RAM, such as those that require a huge amount of data to be loaded, raises RAM requirements.
SOLIDWORKS recommends a minimum of 16GB of RAM.
Get a desktop instead of laptop
Most Solidworks users, however, run Solidworks on a laptop. Laptops have smaller screens, less memory, and less hard drive space than desktop computers, so Solidworks is not as fast on a laptop.
Conclusion
Finding the right workstation for Solidworks is not an easy task - there are so many options to choose from, it can get very confusing. Hopefully, this article will give you a good starting point for figuring out what type of system will suit your needs.
Take a look at Best SOLIDWORKS Workstation recommendation!