SOLIDWORKS 2026 Hardware Recommendations

We have compiled this SOLIDWORKS 2026 hardware requirements guide to aid you in the process of upgrading or purchasing new hardware. While SOLIDWORKS provides a general list of minimum system requirements  We provide the following guidance based on our experience and real world benchmarking.

Common SOLIDWORKS 2026 System Requirements Misconceptions

“Higher numbers are always better”

Do not simply look at raw numbers and specifications when comparing components. Many companies will tout workstations with impressive sounding specs, but lack the expertise in SOLIDWORKS solutions to recommend the correct specifications. It is possible to spend many multiples the cost of our recommended workstations but get worse performance.

Consult a TriMech Group Technical Consultant for assistance when assessing the right hardware for your requirements.

“Build your own custom SOLIDWORKS PC to save money!”

Though building and configuring your own SOLIDWORKS CAD PC can be fun, we strongly recommend purchasing a certified workstation system from a reputable hardware manufacturer with onsite warranty. These workstations have been tested, optimized, and certified to run professional applications like SOLIDWORKS. Your businesses time is better used designing and building great designs with SOLIDWORKS, not troubleshooting compatibility issues with your hardware components.

“SOLIDWORKS performance is the same every release”

Besides the dozens of new features and enhancements, SOLIDWORKS have also focused on improving performance taking more advantage of the latest hardware technology in each new release. Consider upgrading your SOLIDWORKS to the newest and best version to benefit from these performance enhancements.

Windows 10 End of Support

SOLIDWORKS 2026 is not supported on Windows 10 if you haven’t already now is the time to plan your switch to Windows 11.

Microsoft are ending support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, and SOLIDWORKS will stop support at the same time.

SOLIDWORKS 2022 or newer is required to support Windows 11 along with a PC with TPM 2.0 security support.

While systems as far back as Intel’s 8^th generation CPUs from 2018 may support Windows 11,  our recommended replacement cycle is 3-5 years. An equivalent 5 year old workstation will often take more than twice as long to complete common a range of engineering tasks.

Recommended SOLIDWORKS 2026 Hardware Configurations

Below, the TriMech Group Technical Team has combined their knowledge to give recommendations for SOLIDWORKS hardware.

Our engineers have used Dell Workstations with NVIDIA graphics for optimum SOLIDWORKS performance for over 20 years.  This gives us the confidence to recommend Dell hardware that will provide the best performance and support for your engineering team.

Our recommended specifications are based off benchmark tests our expert engineers carry out using real engineering data and balance performance with budgets.

	Essential SOLIDWORKS Hardware	Advanced SOLIDWORKS Hardware	Ultimate SOLIDWORKS Hardware
User Needs	Light design changes on moderately complex assembly designs. Build moderately complex parts, detailed drawings, sophisticated schematics diagrams, and first pass visualization	For complex SW parts, large assemblies, sophisticated multi-page drawings. Run moderately complex  finite element analysis (FEA), kinematic studies and visualization	Build complex SW parts, the most complex  assemblies and more sophisticated multi-page detailed drawings along with  complex Simulation and visualization use
Processor (1)	Intel Core Ultra 7  200 series CPU	Intel Core Ultra 9  200 series CPU	Intel Core Ultra 9  200 series CPU
RAM	32GB	64GB	64GB-128GB
Hard Drive (2)	512GBs+PCIe SSD Drive	1TB+NVMe PCIe SSD	2TB+NVMe PCIe SSD
Video Card (3)	Desktop-  NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada+ Laptop – NVIDIA RTX PRO 500-2000 Blackwell	Desktop – NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada + Laptop- NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000-3000 Blackwell	Desktop – NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada + Laptop- NVIDIA RTX PRO 3000-5000 Blackwell
Operating System	Windows 11 Pro (64-bit)	Windows 11 Pro (64-bit)	Windows 11 Pro (64-bit)
Additional Software	Microsoft Office 2021 or newer	Microsoft Office 2021 or newer	Microsoft Office 2021 or newer
Suggested Desktop Models	Dell Pro Max Micro/Tower T2	Dell Pro Max Tower T2	Dell Pro Max Tower T2
Suggested Laptop Models	Dell Pro Max 14/16	Dell Pro Max 16/16 Plus	Dell Pro Max 16/18 Plus

 

DOWNLOAD: See mode detailed recommendations in our SOLIDWORKS Hardware Guide PDF

Dell, NVIDIA & Intel

You might have noticed some unfamiliar names in the table above, this year there has been a lot of updates from the key players in the workstation market with multiple changes to the familiar names in the industry we will summarize the key changes below.

The End of Dell Precision?

Dell created the windows workstation category with their first Precision branded workstation in 1997 and many engineers including our own have come to rely on Dell Precision workstations and laptops.

As part of a wider re-organization of their product range in 2025 Dell announced they would have just 3 main brands going forward

• Dell for home use
• Dell Pro for basic office use
• Dell Pro Max for maximum performance

Products launching under this Dell Pro Max brand replace the previous Precision range,  and will be the only Dell systems with the most powerful CPU’s and dedicated graphics and certified for professional applications such as SOLIDWORKS.

Introducing NVIDIA RTX PRO

NVIDIA’s Quadro professional graphics range launched in 2000, became synonymous with high performance and reliability for professional applications such as SOLIDWORKS. However this brand was retired in 2021 and since then there has been a bit of confusion between similarly named but unsupported GeForce gaming cards which lack support for some SOLIDWORKS features and crucially cause performance and stability issues.

The good news is from summer 2025 new NVIDIA  professional graphics cards will be under the NVIDIA “RTX PRO” branding, clearly separating them from the unsupported gaming/ consumer range. For laptops we have seen the launch of the entire RTX PRO Blackwell generation from the RTX PRO 500 Blackwell 6GB all the way up to the top of the range RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 24GB.

On desktop workstations as of October 2025 only the top of the range RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96GB has launched and while this is ideal for high end GPU compute workloads such as rendering, certain simulation and AI workloads it’s out of the budget of most CAD users. For now you will continue to see some graphics cards under the old NVIDIA RTX Ada Generation branding until the rest of the RTX PRO Blackwell desktop range launches in the coming months.

No more Intel Core i5/i7/i9?

Finally across Intel’s range we have seen the retirement of Intel’s Core i5, i7 and i9 names, replaced with the equivalent Ultra 5, Ultra 7 and Ultra 9 branding for new CPU’s launched in 2025. While there were limited 1st generation Ultra CPU’s in 2024 the full range was not updated until 2025 and the good news the 2nd generation bring a significant uplift in both performance and efficiency.

If you want to know more watch this video that sums up all the changes introduced in 2025.

Core SOLIDWORKS 2026 System Requirement Considerations

Processor (CPU)

• The processor can be the single most influential component to your system, with the Turbo Boost speed in GHz being more important than number of cores.
• The Latest Intel Core Ultra CPU’s offer the best balance of highest single threaded speeds for CAD and up to 24 cores for simulation workloads. SOLIDWORKS add-ins like SOLIDWORKS Simulation, and SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation do utilize multi-processing capabilities more extensively.
• Newer CPUs may show similar clock speeds and cores to previous series CPUs but don’t be fooled. improvements to the overall architecture mean newer CPU’s can usually perform more calculations per GHz, your old CPU may sound like it’s speed is similar on paper but the reality is often different.
• In our tests only SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation benefited significantly from options with more cores, with 32 and 64 core AMD Threadripper 9000 series CPU’s offering 15-25% faster solve times albeit at a significantly higher price.

System Memory (RAM)

System memory is another important SOLIDWORKS hardware component for overall system performance, insufficient RAM can affect system performance.

• SOLIDWORKS System Requirements state a minimum of 16GB of RAM.
• We recommend at least 32GB of RAM for CAD use, with the RAM consumed by windows and other applications running alongside SOLIDWORKS means 16GB of RAM  is often too low now.
• 64 GB-128GB is recommended if you are dealing with complex datasets, imports, 3D scanning and/ or conducting complex simulation tasks.
• Error Code Correction (ECC) RAM is recommended in desktops for long running tasks such as simulation for maximum stability, this can correct for errors caused by environmental factors that could otherwise cause a software or operating system crash.
• Additional RAM will not improve performance if sufficient memory space is available they best way to tell is to monitor RAM usage while running your typical workloads.

Graphics Card

The graphics card is one of the most commonly overlooked SOLIDWORKS hardware component when configuring a workstation. Your graphics card affects how smoothly the images on screen rotate, zoom, pan, and refresh. Graphics cards can also enable visualization features to display images more realistically evaluating smoothness of models etc.

• It is highly recommended to purchase a professional workstation class graphics card to run SOLIDWORKS optimally. Consumer/ gaming graphics cards such as NVIDIA GeForce are optimized to play the video games, not professional applications like 3D CAD and are the most common source of SOLIDWORKS instability.
• The SOLIDWORKS Hardware Certification page provides a comprehensive list of supported graphics cards and certified drivers. Some features, such as live draft analysis, RealView graphic rendering requires a supported card.
• SOLIDWORKS utilizes OpenGL hardware acceleration with SOLIDWORKS 2019 and newer leverages OpenGL 4.5 for improved performance when the Enhanced Graphics Performance option enabled.
• SOLIDWORKS Visualize utilizes NVIDIA CUDA cores for processing alongside Ray trace cores to accelerate calculations and Tensor cores to accelerate AI denoising and upscaling of images,. For final renders this can reduce the number of passes required up to 10x with similar time savings.

Hard Drives

Other than acting as storage space for applications and files, the hard drive can play a vital role in your system’s overall performance.

• For optimal performance, we recommend a high-speed Solid State Drive (SSD).
• When selecting a drive capacity, allow for a sufficient amount of free space on the drive for virtual memory and scratch space. Drives, especially disk based non-SSDs, run optimally when 20% or more hard drive space is free.
• Only Windows-based storage is supported. NAS or SAN storage is not officially tested or supported by SOLIDWORKS.
• Working over a network drive can lead to performance and increased likelihood of file corruption. For best collaboration and performance use SOLIDWORKS Product Data Management (PDM)

Supporting Software

Operating System

SOLIDWORKS 2026 is only supported under the Windows 11 operating system.

• Windows 11 is supported with SW 2022 SP2 and newer.
• SOLIDWORKS 2020 was the last version that supported Windows 7 SP1, (64bit).
• eDrawings 2026 is supported under the macOS 14.0 (Monterey) or higher operating systems.
• Refer to the SOLIDWORKS system requirements page for additional information.

SOLIDWORKS 2026 Network License (SNL) Server

Many clients prefer their licenses to be internally networked opposed to activated as standalone licenses. Operating system and hardware requirements for license servers are slightly different than their clients.

• The 2026 SOLIDWORKS Network License (SNL) Server no longer supports Windows server 2019 only fully supported on Windows Server 2022 & 2025
• SOLIDWORKS offers support for certain Virtual Environments. Please review the list of approved virtualized environments on the SOLIDWORKS system requirements
• For Network Licensing, the default setup requires TCP ports 25734 and 25735 to be open through your firewall for license access.

Partner Software

There are related software packages that work with SOLIDWORKS. Certain older versions of these software packages are not supported by these companies in later revisions of SOLIDWORKS. Check with your reseller or the manufacturer of the software for compatibility and support.

• SOLIDWORKS 2026 supports the use of Microsoft Office 2021 or newer. Word and Excel are needed in order to generate Design Tables, analytical reports, and Excel based BOMs.
• DS SOLIDWORKS recommends a trusted antivirus product updated to the latest version. Consider adding exemptions for SOLIDWORKS file types in the antivirus software to improve performance with Open/Save/Save As operations.

SOLIDWORKS PDM 2026 System Requirements

SOLIDWORKS PDM uses SOLIDWORKS SolidNetWork Licensing (SNL). Review the SOLIDWORKS Network License Server requirements in addition to these requirements.

• For best performance, we recommend a dedicated server environment. Other configurations, such as servers with the addition of domain controllers, have been found to introduce variables that should be avoided whenever possible.
• SOLIDWORKS PDM 2026 Database and Archive servers are only supported in the Windows Server 2022 and 2025 operating system environments.
• SOLIDWORKS PDM database server also requires Microsoft SQL 2019 or 2022. SOLIDWORKS 2026 SP5 is the last version to support SQL 2019.
• SOLIDWORKS recommends at least 8GB of RAM or more for Archive and Database servers. Consult your SOLIDWORKS PDM Implementation Professional for recommended memory amounts based on your usage and server configuration.
• The processor should be a relatively current Intel or AMD processor. Consult your SOLIDWORKS PDM Implementation Professional for recommended specifications based on your usage and server configuration.
• SOLIDWORKS PDM Web 2 service requires the Microsoft Internal Information Service (IIS).
• SOLIDWORKS support certain Virtual Environments. Please review the list of approved virtualized environments on the SOLIDWORKS system requirements

eDrawings 2026 Requirements

eDrawings 2026 is only supported on, Windows 11, macOS 14.0 or newer.

• The eDrawings mobile app is supported on both iOS and Android mobile devices.
• eDrawings 2025 supports HTC VIVE Pro™ virtual reality devices for VR viewing of your eDrawing models.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2026 Requirements

SOLIDWORKS Visualize is a photo rendering and animation application that performs best with NVIDIA Graphics cards. These feature thousands of CUDA cores for the raw number crunching, ray trace cores to accelerate render calculations and Tensor cores to accelerate AI Denoising of images.

Visualize 2026 requires a Graphics card from NVIDIA’s 2019 Turing Generation or above with Ray trace cores for full support of 3DS Stellar Fast and Accurate render modes. Support for AMD graphics cards (RDNA 2+) in Fast mode was added for 2026 but does not deliver equal performance/results currently.

Accurate mode can support cards from NVIDIAS 2014 Maxwell generation with reduced performance.

• SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2026 needs at least 4GBs of GPU memory to enable GPU acceleration, slower CPU rendering will be used if you have insufficient VRAM.
• Higher end NVIDIA graphics cards can be easier to justify for Visualisation where the increased power can deliver results much quicker
• Multiple graphics cards are also supported if budget allows, adding a second card will roughly half the render time

SOLIDWORKS 2026 Network Recommendations

SOLIDWORKS is tested only with Microsoft’s Windows Networking and Active Directory network environments.

The optimum solutions for collaborative working with SOLIDWORKS data are data management solutions including SOLIDWORKS PDM and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

These solutions are CAD structure aware, cache data locally and only need to transfer back the components which are changed leading to a more robust and performative solution.

Opening and saving to a network drive or to cloud storage solutions such as Microsoft OneDrive or Dropbox is NOT recommended. These solutions are not CAD aware can cause issues including file corruption when attempting to access data at the same time as SOLIDWORKS.

• TCP/IP network service is required when using our SOLIDWORKS PDM for storing and managing data.
• Client Workstations require a minimum connection speed of 100Mbps for reliable SOLIDWORKS PDM Server Access. WAN environments have special considerations for bandwidth and latency