Recommendations for High-Performance Workstation for Large Assemblies, Simulation, and Visualize in SolidWorks 2023

Dear SolidWorks Community,

We are currently encountering significant performance bottlenecks with SolidWorks 2023 / 2017 in a high-demand design environment. Our projects typically involve full-scale plant models, often exceeding 89,000 components per assembly. These assemblies require extensive compute resources, and we're experiencing considerable delays (e.g., ~5 minutes just to open files) and system instability—particularly during simulation runs and rendering tasks.

Our workflows demand sustained performance across the following key areas:

  • Advanced part and assembly modeling, frequently involving >2,000 components per assembly, with complex mate structures.
  • Finite Element Analysis (FEA) involving intricate geometry and multibody setups.
  • Rendering and animation using SolidWorks Visualize, including ray-traced outputs and real-time previews.
  • Detailed drafting, including large drawing sheets with many referenced views.
  • Weldment design workflows, including conversion to solid bodies with part counts often exceeding 1,000+ solid entities per file.

Additional context:

  • We are not currently utilizing SolidWorks PDM.
  • The systems in use frequently crash during compute-intensive operations, especially in Simulation and Visualize.
  • Stability, GPU acceleration, memory bandwidth, and disk I/O are now limiting our productivity.

We are seeking expert guidance on the optimal high-end workstation configuration to support our usage. Specifically, we need recommendations on:

  • Processor architecture (e.g., high-frequency vs. high-core-count balance)
  • Certified GPU for CAD + GPU compute (Visualize + Simulation Solver)
  • Memory capacity and speed (with ECC or non-ECC consideration)
  • Primary and secondary storage recommendations (NVMe vs SATA, RAID configurations, etc.)
  • Any proven OEM solutions or mobile workstations with validated performance for similar SolidWorks workloads

We aim to future-proof our investment for at least the next 3–5 years and would appreciate real-world feedback from users working on similar scales of complexity.

Thank you in advance for your technical insights.