So the next time you feel like your SolidWorks is running a little bit slow, here’s a way to test it: the SolidWorks Performance Test.
The Performance Test was introduced in the 2011 version as a way to put numbers to all the different combinations of hardware out there, so that we could compare it. It opens up pre-defined files on your computer, zooms, rotates and rebuilds them 5 times, and then averages the times and reports them.
Not only does this provide a benchmark you can compare other computers to, you can use this to tell if your new computer is much better than your old, if changing out that hard drive really did anything, and even to see your place in the world. (There’s an option to post your scores on-line and compare them to everyone else, along with some specs on your computer. Like every other worldwide competition, you’ll be faster than some and much slower than others, but it’s informative to see what hardware makes a difference.)
To find the test, open up your SolidWorks RX utility (just searching for ‘RX’ in the Windows 7 programs list finds it), go to “Add-ins” and hit “Start Benchmark”:
Of course, close other programs and restart the computer before the benchmark, for a clean test. That’s what I did last week’s Explicit User Conference, for a presentation called “The Need for Speed.” I took two similar systems, and using the benchmark, tried to see what really made a difference in speed: RAM, system maintenance, graphics card drivers. And the results were sort of surprising.
But that’s a post for another day, so stay tuned!
