[frcguy]

Originally Posted by Chris_Ely

A workstation might give you a better experience with CAD because of its workstation GPU (mainly better drivers), but normal "gaming" GPUs will work fine.

Just a note on this. Through my experience, I have a reasonably high-powered gaming desktop that is the same spec as our CAD desktop workstation for the team except for the graphics card. In my computer I have an AMD R9 380X, a current generation gaming card, but our CAD workstation has a Nvidia Quadro 400, a workstation card from around four years ago. Based on the SolidWorks performance test, the computer with the older workstation graphics card scores higher. I am fairly certain this has something to do with the available certified drivers, letting SolidWorks use all the functions of the graphics card, as opposed to the generic gaming card drivers, which behaves just like any old graphics card. I can't say much for actual usability, as my experience with both computers has been limited, but that's what the benchmarks say.

Our CAD laptop we have, an Asus model with an Nvidia GTX mobile card, does all right in SolidWorks, however, we need to do a bigger assembly or simulation we move up to the desktop.

Just my experience with the subject.