Hardware Requirements for Solidworks Recommended Laptops
Most users think just about any laptop is suitable for Solidworks 2023; they quickly buy any laptop that catches their fancy and expect to get the best performance in Solidworks. It doesn’t work that way. So here’s a breakdown of the minimum laptop hardware requirements for Solidworks.
CPU or Processor
Solidworks requires a multi-core processor with up to 3.3Ghz or better clock speed. In fact, the higher the clock speed, the better the performance you can expect. This is because modeling and manipulating assemblies require more processing power.
A laptop equipped with a Core i7 or i9 processor with at least six cores will provide the best performance. A quad-core i7 processor will still work great, all things being equal. Intel Core i3 or i5 class of CPUs are also good, as long as the clock speed is at least 3.3GHz.
Your workflow will benefit considerably with a multi-core processor, compared to a single or dual-core processor. Applications such as Solidworks Simulation and Photoview 360 require a laptop equipped with a multi-core processor (at least six cores) for optimum performance.
However, please bear in mind that good design practices such as minimizing in-context references, utilizing large assembly modes, and other performance tools can significantly reduce the load on the processor, thereby improving performance.
Operating System
Solidworks is officially supported on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit and Windows 10, 64-bit. Windows Home Editions are not supported, but this doesn’t mean you can’t run it on this OS.
It simply means that the best performance is not guaranteed because the engineers at Solidworks did not approve it officially. Windows 8.1 is also not supported, as support for the OS ended with Solidworks 2018 SP5.
RAM
Solidworks 2023 requires a minimum of 16GB of RAM. This is ideal. However, if your machine has 8GB of RAM, please bear in mind you are going to be working with small to medium models at most. Anything larger will probably slow down your work or even crash the application.
If you are going to be handling large and massive models and simulations, you should consider going for a laptop with 32GB of RAM or upgrading your current machine. 3D design requires large amounts of fast RAM, preferably DDR4 RAM.
Hard Drive
An SSD drive of at least 512GB is recommended for better performance, compared to a traditional hard drive. This is important because your 128 or 256GB SSD will quickly fill up due to the typically large sizes of CAD files, including renders.
You may want to consider adding one if your laptop doesn’t come equipped with one. A PCIe NVMe SSD drive offers even better performance when compared to a SATA SSD.
You should also consider adding RAID storage. Network storage is not advisable to use, because access speeds drop significantly when compared to local storage on the laptop.
As you’ll discover, all our reviewed workstation laptops have either SSD or NVMe drives installed. So this is not really an issue, but it’s worth mentioning in case you might want to do an upgrade later.
Graphics Card
Solidworks as a modeling/rendering application requires a powerful compute-capable graphics card, preferably a workstation-class, Open GL enabled GPU, and they have released a list of certified cards including NVIDIA Quadro, AMD FirePro, and AMD Radeon Pro WX series cards.
These cards are workstation-class GPUs, offering better performance in Solidworks when compared to graphics cards for gaming.
On the low end, Solidworks supports the Quadro P600 or Radeon Pro WX3100 cards. These cards are meant for the budget segment. Mid-range cards include the Quadro P1000/2000 or Radeon WX 4100.
On the high-end segment, we have the NVidia Quadro P4000 or Radeon WX5100 or higher models. The new RTX Quadros offers top-level performance, compared to the previous generation Quadros.
If you are on a low budget when shopping for a laptop for Solidworks 2023, it is better to buy a machine with a low to mid-range graphics card, and a more powerful CPU and SSD drive. This is advisable if you are going to be working on small models from time to time.
However, if you are going to be working with huge model assemblies, you might consider going for a laptop with a high-end workstation card.
What about Gaming Graphics Cards?
Gaming cards are not recommended, even though Solidworks offer limited support for the GeForce series of graphics cards. This is because they are optimized for high frame rates and low polygon scenes, as is obtainable in games.
Solidworks require a card optimized for handling large polygon count scenes, whilst maintaining low frame rates. This is typical of all CAD application workflows. If your laptop is equipped with a GeForce graphics card, Solidworks will run, but performance will be reduced. Go for this:
- If you don’t plan on carrying out intensive simulation and rendering. Gaming graphics cards from AMD or NVIDIA will serve you.
- You are limited to only Drafting, Modeling, and Drawing small assemblies.
- You are rendering and simulating assemblies that are in the region of a few hundred.
CUDA Specific Workloads
If you plan on using Solidworks Visualize, then you must purchase a laptop with only NVidia cards because this particular application is designed to run on NVIDIA GPUs. If you try to run the software on a laptop without an NVIDIA GPU, then the application switches to the CPU, which can impair performance because other apps rely on the CPU.
Similar products that utilize only NVIDIA GPUs include Solidworks Conceptual Designer and Solidworks Industrial Designer. Bear this in mind when choosing a workstation laptop.
What about dual GPU configurations? Even though you hardly find this setup in a laptop, it’s instructive to note that Solidworks doesn’t utilize the second card. Apart from this fact, graphics issues may arise from processing conflicts.
When it comes to workstation graphics cards, it comes down to just two choices: AMD and NVIDIA. Solidworks seems to favor NVIDIA graphics cards because of CUDA, the proprietary computational engine available on only NVIDIA workstation graphics cards. Solidworks has a component called Visualize, which depends on CUDA architecture to run.
If you are getting a laptop with AMD workstation graphics, please bear in mind that Visualize will switch over to the CPU for computations because AMD cards are not supported.
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Good options here… I was thinking, what about the Surface Book? Will it run Solidworks? I’m asking because a friend of mine has it and I was thinking of getting one. Great article though…
Thanks Lloyd. Ok, as for your question, don’t really know which model of Surface Book you are referring to. Yea actually, the Surface Book 3 has a 10th Gen Core i7 Processor and GTX 1650Ti GPU. The processor is ok, but the problem might be with the GPU.
Solidworks runs better on a Quadro card, compared to a Geforce GPU. The Geforce series are engineered to run games excellently, not CAD apps. Surface Book 3 will still run Solidworks, but performance is not guaranteed because the GTX cards are not certified for Solidworks.
Thanks