Microsoft/Apple Products Support Lifecycle (SOLIDWORKS 2020 and older) Microsoft/Apple Products Support Lifecycle (SOLIDWORKS 2018 and older) Microsoft/Apple Products Support Lifecycle (SOLIDWORKS 2021 – 2023) SOLIDWORKS Composer is not supported in virtualized environments.Check Hardware Benchmarks for applications and references that can be used to help determine hardware performance.For a complete listing, check Certified Cards and Drivers. SolidWorks has tested and certified graphics cards for virtualized environments. SOLIDWORKS and eDrawings require a GPU for optimal performance in a virtualized environment.SOLIDWORKS Hypervisors (Virtual Environments)

See what other SOLIDWORKS users have for hardware and their performance to make a better informed decision. SOLIDWORKS has created a benchmark to gauge system performance. This list below is a good place to start. SOLIDWORKS System Requirements for Laptops Very few laptops have the certified graphics cards for SolidWorks.

PDM Archive Server or Database Server: 500 GB or more.

PDM Web Client or Web Server: 5 GB or more.

PDM Contributor or Viewer: 10 GB or more.

New PCIe M.2 drives are strongly recommended for use for the primary drive.

Sata Controlled SSD (solid state drive) recommended at minimum.

All SOLIDWORKS Simulation products take advantage multi core and multi CPU architectures.

SOLIDWORKS will take advantage of multi core and multi CPU architectures up to 4 cores.

The Intel i7 Generation 8 Coffee Lake series are the fastest CPU’s today.

Current generation Intel or AMD with SSE2 support processor – as fast as you can afford.For SOLIDWORKS 2019, the new performance pipeline requires Nvidia Quadro series cards Kepler, Maxwell, Pascal and Volta that support OpenGL 4.5.While a certified video card is important SOLIDWORKS is a CPU bound application, you’ll see more performance gains from a faster CPU.Quadro NVS are not recommended they are 2D only cards.Integrated Intel HD graphics and gaming cards (Nvidia GeForce for example) are not certified and not recommended.Nvidia Quadro or AMD FirePro or AMD Radeon Pro.Visit for a list of certified cards and drivers.32 GB or more – recommended for large assembly work and Simulation.16 GB or more, SOLIDWORKS (PDM Contributor/Viewer or Electrical Schematic: 8 GB or more).

Solidworks system requirements