HARDWARE GUIDANCEF O R R U N N I N G

SolidWorks 2015 will only run on an X64 bit operating system. X64 won’t make your machine ‘run’ faster but it will allow you to use more memory. Also X64 is strongly advised for FEA users due to the high memory requirements of the calculations used in simulation studies.

X 6 4SolidWorks 2015 will only run on an X64 bit operating system. X64 won’t make your machine ‘run’ faster but it will allow you to use more memory. Also X64 is strongly advised for FEA users due to the high memory requirements of the calculations used in simulation studies.

X 6 4

W I N D O W S 1 0

Not yet released, or supported. Should be supported with SolidWorks 2016.

C O N S I D E R AT I O N SSpeed does not significantly increase with more expensive cards. Only very complex or very large assemblies justify high end graphics cards. SolidWorks does not support SLI or Crossfire versions of these cards.

M A N U FA C T U R E R SThere are two main manufacturers of cards supported by SolidWorks - NVIDEA Quadro and ATI Fire. Typically drivers are provided for 3-4 years after a card’s initial release.

W I N D O W S 8

The latest version of Windows 8 Professional (8.1) is only supported on SolidWorks 2014 (SP1) or later.

X P A N D V I S TA

SolidWorks 2014 will no longer install on Windows XP Professional. SolidWorks 2015 will not install on Windows Vista Professional. XP is no longer sold by Microsoft and Vista was officially retired in April 2012.

A D D - I N S

Some 3rd party Add-ins for SolidWorks may not be X64 compatible... be sure to check they are supported on this OS.

T U R B O B O O S TNewer Intel processors support Turbo Boost - unused processors are shutdown while speed is increased in other processors.

H O W M A N Y C O R E S ?For typical SolidWorks users 4 core processors offer best value for money. The cost of 6 core processors can only be justifed for heavy FEA Simulation or Photo Realistic Renderings.

S. A . T. AS.A.T.A Drives are generally quick enough. Choose a disk speed of 7500 RPM or even better 10,000 RPM.

S O L I D S TAT E ( S S D )Solid State Drives allow for fast boot up and program launching but do not offer much in general SolidWorks performance. A good combination is to us SSD for OS and SATA for data storage.

S O L I D W O R K S R E S E L L E R

Cadtek offers comprehensive and world-class support for all SolidWorks products.

Visit www.cadtek.com for a full hardware guide

S C S ISCSI Drives are available with disk speeds of 15,000 RPM but the extra cost is rarely justified by performance gains unless used for complex FEA, as these tasks make heavy demands on disk drives.

Windows 7 Professional is currently a good choice for any new machine you purchase. Older peripherals may not be supported so check you can get drivers for them.

W I N D O W S 7

CADTEK SYSTEMS

Providing you have adequate memory, it

is the processor speed that governs how fast

SolidWorks software runs

SolidWorks only supports a limited number of Graphics Cards. Unsupported cards are very unreliable.

Hard disk speed is the least significant element of SolidWorks’ performance. RPM is a general indicator.

OPERATING SYSTEMS

GRAPHICS CARDS

PROCESSORS

HARD DISKS