Hardware requirements - Notebook

Bernd

I‘ m thinking about to buy a new notebook (workstation) to use it for CAD modeling. I understand that Onshape is a cloud based system and that the hardware requirements are lower then on a local installed CAD system.

Nevertheless I assume there is hardware available which leads to a better performance. I would like to model mid size assemblies. Approx. 500 parts – to mention a number.

So please allow me to ask for details.

Which CPU is to recommend, how much RAM is needed and which graphic card leads to a good working performance?

I know that the internet connection may have the biggest influence. Is there also a recommendation?

At the moment I have ~6.000 kbit/s download and 550 kbit/s upload speed.

Would it make a big difference to go up to 16 or 50 mbit/s?

Thanks for your help, Bernd

abefeldman

@Bernd - great question.  I'd definitely recommend upgrading to something in the 16 to 50 mbit range.  Your interactive performance likely won't change much, but your load times will improve significantly.

As for your laptop, Onshape doesn't require an expensive, high powered workstation laptop with a certified graphics card for great performance, but for that kind of work we do recommend you get something with a discrete graphics card at least 1 GB of dedicated video memory and 8+ GB of RAM.  Mid to high-end gaming laptops are usually more than sufficient for Onshape and other CAD work at half the cost of a workstation laptop.  Here are a couple of recommendations of machines with great specs for Onshape:

https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Dell-Inspiron-15-i7559-5012GRY-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.333475500
http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/pcs/NP940Z5L-X01US
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y700-series/y700-t-15-inch/

You can also always down to your local electronics store and sign in to your Onshape account on a couple different machines to see how they perform.

abefeldman

@Bernd - great question.  I'd definitely recommend upgrading to something in the 16 to 50 mbit range.  Your interactive performance likely won't change much, but your load times will improve significantly.

As for your laptop, Onshape doesn't require an expensive, high powered workstation laptop with a certified graphics card for great performance, but for that kind of work we do recommend you get something with a discrete graphics card at least 1 GB of dedicated video memory and 8+ GB of RAM.  Mid to high-end gaming laptops are usually more than sufficient for Onshape and other CAD work at half the cost of a workstation laptop.  Here are a couple of recommendations of machines with great specs for Onshape:

https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Dell-Inspiron-15-i7559-5012GRY-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.333475500
http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/pcs/NP940Z5L-X01US
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y700-series/y700-t-15-inch/

You can also always down to your local electronics store and sign in to your Onshape account on a couple different machines to see how they perform.

ml

for the low end range: https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/4720/another-advantage-onshape-is-usable-also-on-older-hardware  

Bernd

Thank’s Abel for your answer!

Some more questions to find the best hardware to use Onshape.

 1.) Is there a difference between gaming graphic cards and CAD workstation graphic cards? And if yes - which kind of card would fit best for the use of Onshape?

 2.) The Notebook I would like to buy should have an i7 processor and a dedicated graphic card like Nvidia.

What is more important - an i7 with a high clock frequency (i7 4910 much better than i7 4800 ?) or a better performing graphic card (Nvidia Quadro K2100M much better than K1100M ?)?

Maybe you can help me to get a better feeling for what is more important to look for. Graphic card or processor.

Thanks again and best regards,

Bernd

3dcad

In my experience web browsers enjoy having massive RAM. I've worked with $399 chromebook with 4gb - it's fine for simple stuff. But having multiple browsers with multiple tabs eats memory and it's quite cheap these days so in office pc I chose to put 64gb RAM and that provides really flawless experience overall.
On the go I have Thinkpad Yoga X1 and that performs just fine too (even with 4G).

abefeldman

@Bernd

1)  The major difference between gaming graphics cards and workstation cards (besides price) are the specific driver optimizations on workstation cards for parallelization and double floating point precision that's necessary for scientific computing, rendering and simulation in addition to your CAD work.  However, because Onshape runs in the browser, vendors don't have meaningful driver optimizations for us, nor do our graphics require those specifications.  If your team is primarily running Onshape you'll likely get the best performance per dollar boost by purchasing machines with higher end gaming cards (GeForce GT 900 series and up). A GeForce GTX 1080 is nearly equivalent to a Quadro P5000 (the 1080 has less VRAM, which isn't a critical spec for CAD applications) at significantly less cost.

2) For Onshape we recommend prioritizing the graphics card and a higher amount of RAM, as WebGL and the browser do not put significant load on your CPU.

Bernd

I would like to give other users and readers an update about my experience.

At the moment I work with an internet connection of max. 6.000 kbit/sec.

With our old Notebook

Intel i5 M520 2,4 GHz and 4 GB RAM (no dedicated graphic card)

It is not possible (or really hard) to work with Onshape. Size of assembly ~30 parts.

 

If I try it with a workstation on the same internet connection it works fine.

Intel i7 4910MQ 2,9 GHz 32 GB RAM

Bernd

Sorry I forgot to mention the Nvidia Quadro K1100M Graphic Card in the workstation.