SolidWorks on Mac Pro?

Question

Level 1

110 points

SolidWorks on Mac Pro?

Hi,

I wasn't sure where to post this, but most of the "Solidworks on a Mac" discussion seems to take place here on bootcamp. A lot of the posts seem a little dated now that Leopard is out, so it would be nice to hear the latest setups running SW. Someone did mention he was going to get a MP but was waiting for the new OS.

I am about to pull the trigger on a new Mac Pro 3.0GHz Quad-Core with an Nvidia Quadro 4500 graphics card (SW certified) to run Solidworks 2008. My main goal is to do Industrial Design and be able to interface with all the other designers and engineers who I will be working with.

From all the posts I've read over the last few weeks here and on other forums, it should be fine, but I'd love to hear from someone with experience running it on the same or similar platform (Mac Pro/Mac Book Pro with Windows). Many posts talk about running it on a MBP and it seems to be running well within reason. If I were to extrapolate from these posts, my setup should be fine, but I'd like to know what to look out for or what performance I can expect in the setup I will be buying.

Question: Do you think my setup (Mac Pro 3.0GHz Quad-Core with an Nvidia Quadro 4500 graphics card) should be fine running SolidWorks 2008 on the Windows side? Advice? Recommendations?

I'd also love to know what your setup is:
Computer:
Mac OS:
Windows OS:
Graphics Card:
SW version:
Memory:

Thanks for any insight.
YH!

G4 MDD Dual 1.25 MHZ, In the future: Mac Pro 3.0GHz Quad-Core with an Nvidia Quadro 4500

Posted on Nov 27, 2007 9:22 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Dec 10, 2007 9:40 AM in response to YeeHa!

I was running SW2007 on a MAcBook using Fusion and virtual WINXP with 1 GB of ram dedicated to the virtual pc. No problems, but then I thought...oh I should use BootCamp because then it will be even better, now I can't even install it?

So I am a bit confused, are other people able to run Solidworks using Bootcamp?

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Answer 2

YeeHa! Author

Level 1

110 points

Nov 28, 2007 9:48 AM in response to YeeHa!

Is anyone using Solidworks on a Mac Pro at all?

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Answer 3

Fortuny

Level 7

21,455 points

Nov 28, 2007 11:35 PM in response to YeeHa!

Hi,

have you looked at this thread http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=461980&tstart=105 describing experiences with SolidWorks on a MacBook/MacBook Pro.

Might be helpful

Stefan

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Answer 4

YeeHa! Author

Level 1

110 points

Nov 29, 2007 11:49 PM in response to Fortuny

Thanks Fortuny, I was hoping for some replies that were more relevent to using Solidworks on a more current Mac Pro possibly with the Nvidia 4500 card. Sounds like a Mac Pro with the Nvidia would work fine, but I just wanted to hear from someone who might have this setup and be able to talk from experience.

YH!

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Answer 5

Dec 1, 2007 1:23 PM in response to YeeHa!

I can't speak to the MacBook Pro or later versions of Solidworks, but I'm running Solidworks 2003 on at MacBook. No stress here, it's (thankfully) running just fine, so far!

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Answer 6

Dec 1, 2007 1:24 PM in response to Kim(gerly)

Oh, in hindsight, I should note and have updated, I'm actually running Leopard, too.

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Answer 7

Dec 1, 2007 1:26 PM in response to Kim(gerly)

Er, one more tidbit of consequence, I'm running Windoze Vista. Sorry, absent-minded t'day...

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Answer 8

YeeHa! Author

Level 1

110 points

Dec 2, 2007 9:39 PM in response to Kim(gerly)

Thanks for responding. You're running Vista? Hmmm... Everything I've read said to stay away from Vista, that XP SP2 was the way to go. Vista supposedly has too many things running in the background.

YH!

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Answer 9

Tom Fenn

Level 2

251 points

Dec 5, 2007 2:37 AM in response to YeeHa!

I use Solidworks 2006 (SE) on this MBP (not a Mac Pro- sorry)

SW's runs fine- I use it all the time for my university engineering degree.

I hope this helps

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Answer 10

Tom Fenn

Level 2

251 points

Dec 5, 2007 2:38 AM in response to YeeHa!

Oh yes, I don't bother with Vista either. Everything runs in XP SP2

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Answer 11

Tom Fenn

Level 2

251 points

Dec 11, 2007 1:38 AM in response to Kirk Hayes

Solidworks, fwiw, works very well in Bootcamp- far better than Fusion. However SW's would work even better if it were Mac native 😉

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Answer 12

YeeHa! Author

Level 1

110 points

Dec 11, 2007 9:21 PM in response to Tom Fenn

Tom, when running Solidworks in Bootcamp, are there any problems that you've encountered? Any quirks? I want to run SW on a MacPro with the nVidia Quadro 4500 graphics card, probably on XP Pro SP2. Any other advice or forewarning you can give?

YH!

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Answer 13

Tom Fenn

Level 2

251 points

Dec 16, 2007 4:25 AM in response to YeeHa!

Hi YH.

I think that you will have no problems at all on a Mac Pro. If you can I'd recommend using a second internal drive to run Windows though. I'm running the OS's from one 4200 RPM drive in this Macbook Pro. I've got 3 gigs of RAM and although performance is very good it's not as good as it could be if I had 2 drives. You see Windows file indexing system is basically rubbish- compared to OS X highly sophisticated alternative system, so windows slows the drive down even more (which it's sharing with OS X).

The only real quirk I've noticed is a 'blockyness' with complex assemblies, but this could just be caused by bi-sharing on the HD. As I don't have a Mac Pro with dual drives it's hard to give you an accurate explanation/ recommendation.

However, I have been making moulds in SW on VMware for the last month, and apart from getting many errors for my own incompetence in mould making, SW's has been running with minimum effort.

I hope that helps.

PS, BTW all those I know who have switched to OS X from Windows are now wondering why they didn't switch earlier. Any initial problems they've encountered have mostly been down to not really knowing what they were actually doing in the first place!

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Answer 14

ACHunter

Level 1

0 points

Jan 9, 2008 1:24 PM in response to YeeHa!

Im running exactly that system with an OEM copy XP pro x64.

Ran like a champ for SW 2007 but have been having problems since updating to SW 2008.

Haven't moved up to Leopard yet for the updated bootcamp.

I'll post any solutions i come up with if I have time

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Answer 15

Pordi

Level 1

0 points

Feb 23, 2008 10:45 PM in response to YeeHa!

My company runs Solidworks on MacPros 3GHz, 6gig ram, Leopard each with Quadro 4500s, until the machines got stolen last week. We work with HUGE assemblies and SW seems to cope fine, but hard to compare as we only have MACs. SW freezes allot but this could be due to the complexity of our models. We run Parallels build 5160, the later builds have problems with SW. We now have new MacPros and are waiting for the new Quardro 5600 cards and ram to arrive. Want to experiment with VMware and Bootcamp, we need to see if we can reduce the amount of restarts we have to perform.

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