Good computer for SW2021

[Micallen]

Looking to see what others are using to design in SW 2021 these days. Our computers just don't seem to be cutting it anymore. I'd say an average project has about 6000 components.

My computer now, is a Dell Precision 3630 with an i7-8700 (3.2 GHz). It has 32 GB RAM, 512 GB M2 SSD, running Win 10 Pro. It has a Radeon Pro WX 4100 (4GB) video card.

How does this compare to what everyone else is using designing large assemblies?

[mike miller]

The higher the clock speed the better; more cores is not really beneficial. I learned this the hard way.
RAM is overrated these days, I have 64 GB and never see it even close to 50% because of SWX.
Make sure you have a certified graphics card AND driver.

There's some good information in this discussion as well: https://www.cadforum.net/viewtopic.php?p=13968

Also, I know @Alin has a customized computer that is really fast with large assemblies. Maybe he can chime in with some better insight.

[SPerman]

Having a good computer helps, but I saw orders of magnitude of improvement when I changed how I built assemblies. I'm sure there are threads on here that go into better details, but minimizing the number of mates, using component patterns and breaking assemblies down into small sub assemblies are high on my list.

i9-9900 3.60GHz
64 GB Ram (I know its overkill, but until recently ram was so cheap it is silly not to max it out.)
NVIDIA Quadro P2200

My largest assembly is only 2100 parts, but it is not at all taxing the PC to work in this assembly.

[mattpeneguy]

Having a good computer helps, but I saw orders of magnitude of improvement when I changed how I built assemblies. I'm sure there are threads on here that go into better details, but minimizing the number of mates, using component patterns and breaking assemblies down into small sub assemblies are high on my list.

i9-9900 3.60GHz
64 GB Ram (I know its overkill, but until recently ram was so cheap it is silly not to max it out.)
NVIDIA Quadro P2200

My largest assembly is only 2100 parts, but it is not at all taxing the PC to work in this assembly.

All good points. I'll add that Performance Evaluation is your friend. Identify which parts take the longest to rebuild and fix them.
If your assemblies have some flaws, eliminating those will give you a much better experience than just upgrading your hardware (you can do both, but I recommend the former first).
Here's a short list:
http://help.solidworks.com/2021/english ... SWassy.htm

I think I saw @Alin has a video on this, but I didn't find it with a quick search.

[the_h4mmer]

@Micallen

Personally, I'd say you could probably get quite a bit of performance with the hardware you have at the moment. A full clean install of Windows with a clean install of drivers can be amazing for performance. Also there's lots of performance tweaks you can do with Solidworks, one of the biggest I'd say to check first if any add-ins are loading at startup, disable all except what you absolutely need. I won't go down the SWX tweaking rabbit hole, there's lots of resources out there that would do a better job than me.
The other thing is that Dell 3630 looks pretty cramped for airflow, I'm not 100% certain but the motherboard (MOBO) looks like it might be a standard size, I'd say get that thing into a case with better airflow or if possible, get a bigger cooler on your CPU, it's probably slowing down because it's getting too hot! I like to use OpenHardware Monitor, but there is other software out there for monitor system temps, if you're above 80° C regularly, I suspect you're losing performance from thermal throttling. At minimum, open it up and clean out the dust (don't let the fans spin at high speeds if you're using compressed air) and make sure all vents are clear, if you're comfortable with it, look up how to apply new thermal paste to the CPU cooler. Also, you mentioned the SSD is an M.2 drive, but you should see if you can find out if it is NVMe SSD or SATA, the former will be considerably faster. Finally, the Dell 3630 is listed as having a 300W power supply, I would definitely suggest getting something around the 500W range sa the 8700 may slow down if it starts to reach the power limit (which may be set by the Dell BIOS, meaning it won't matter anyhow).

The advice offered by others about something new is sound. Although I'll say that in general (recently) high CPU speed correlates with a higher number of cores, so even though 12 cores might not be useful (unless doing rendering or simulations), that processor will likely have a higher clock speed and/or IPC (both of which are better for CAD modeling). The Intel 8700 isn't a bad CPU, but the Intel 10 and 11 series processors are not bad on pricing right now and you'll see a performance bump. You'll definitely have to get a new MOBO and you can probably use your existing RAM, but you may want to consider something faster if you do go with a new CPU. The Ryzen 5000 series CPUs are also great, the 5800x would be the way to go price-to-performance-wise. Of course I would expect new processors soon from AMD and later this year from Intel, so pending how much of a rush you're in...

For graphics/video cards, the difficult thing is timing at the moment. Pricing and availability is rough for graphics cards (GPUs) at the moment, although there has been a minor trending downward recently. Your existing card should be okay for a bit until pricing and availability (hopefully soon) settles down.

Not sure if Solidworks has a formal position on Windows 11, but I would steer clear of it for now, but it's a good idea if you do choose the upgrade route, to make sure whatever hardware you get will be compatible going forward. If you get something from an OEM (Dell, HP, etc.) or custom integrator (like Boxx, System76, Pudget Systems, etc.), make sure to stick with Win10 and to ask about compatibility with Win11 for the future.

Other hardware notes:

• NVMe SSD (storage) - Gen4 if you can afford it, but Gen3 isn't terrible; but be sure the motherboard supports Gen4 and the drive is NVMe M.2

• Power Supply - make sure to get something from a reputable manufacturer (personally I'd recommend Seasonic), poor power = power performance or worse (damage to other hardware), 500W is probably the minimum, 650-750W if you want to keep using it for other builds (they should last easily 10+ years)

• RAM - recent CPUs tend to perform better with higher speed RAM, if you work with a custom integrator, make sure to get their recommendation

• Cooling - personally I like air coolers, but lots of people get all-in-one (AIO) liquid coolers; don't skimp here as a warm CPU will not perform as well

Finally, price is always a big factor. What's your budget? How technically capable are you? Have you ever built a PC before or do you want to? If you go with a custom integrator, you're going to pay quite a bit for it. I spec'd a PC to build myself and compared it to Boxx for the same build minus a few differences in things they don't let you change; the price was double with Boxx! One nice thing is you get customer support (I can't speak to how good anyone's would be) and they might even do some performance tuning for you, so you get the most you can from your hardware.

If you want a to build a PC or if you want a list of parts to compare to, let me know. I've done a lot of configurations and can probably fire one off in under 20 minutes. If you decide to do some maintenance, let us know how it goes, or if you go the new route, please share what you got (I'm always interested to know what people are using)!

[the_h4mmer]

Almost forgot. Looks like someone managed to get an AIO in their Dell 3630, if you find a thermal issue, I would take a look. Of course I definitely recommend that anyone considering this should be sure to read the whole walkthru and comment section before jumping in; I did not investigate this further.

https://www.dell.com/community/Precisio ... -p/7411998

[Glenn Schroeder]

I'm attaching the specs for my computer. It worked just fine for SW2021, and is currently working fine with SW2022. As mentioned above, how you build your Assemblies can have a big impact on performance.

[ResidentAtLarge]

I thought I would post this up here for a good reference if anyone wants to read it.
I got to say about 10 years ago, my VAR CATI did a test based on certain computer specs and the differences it makes by certain components being upgraded. I know it is a bit outdated, but some good insight.

Does anyone know of a more updated test being done like this?

https://files.solidworks.com/partners/p ... ce_ENG.pdf

[the_h4mmer]

@ResidentAtLarge

Puget Systems was benchmarking Solidworks on various systems, but looks like they haven't published any reports since SWX 2020 SP5

https://www.pugetsystems.com/all_articl ... SOLIDWORKS

Additionally there is SPECapc for benchmarking SWX. The same company makes Specviewperf, which I've seen used by some YouTube tech reviewers for benchmarking new hardware (not sure if any use SPECapc).

SPECapc https://gwpg.spec.org/bench-marks/speca ... works-2021
Specviewperf https://gwpg.spec.org/bench-marks/specv ... -2020-v3-0

[ResidentAtLarge]

@ResidentAtLarge

Puget Systems was benchmarking Solidworks on various systems, but looks like they haven't published any reports since SWX 2020 SP5

https://www.pugetsystems.com/all_articl ... SOLIDWORKS

Additionally there is SPECapc for benchmarking SWX. The same company makes Specviewperf, which I've seen used by some YouTube tech reviewers for benchmarking new hardware (not sure if any use SPECapc).

SPECapc https://gwpg.spec.org/bench-marks/speca ... works-2021
Specviewperf https://gwpg.spec.org/bench-marks/specv ... -2020-v3-0

@the_h4mmer

Thank you for that!
I have never heard of puget systems before. Their articles look well written.

[Micallen]

So we ended up going with this computer:
Dell 5820
Intel 19-10900X
AMD Radeon Pro W6600 (8GB)
64GB RAM

I was looking at SW 2022 stats when I ordered. SW 2021 doesn't support our vid card. I don't want to upgrade to 2022 any time soon. Any one else using the AMD Radeon Pro W6600 card with SW 2021?