Autodesk Inventor® Hardware Web Site

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Last Updated
8/17/2010
Certified Workstations

The following are system test results for Autodesk Inventor® running on various Workstations.

Testing done with the "System Verification" test

This test has three main parts:

  • Rebuilding parts
  • Updating Assemblies
  • Creating drawings with a base view and 2 section views of each assembly
  • See the pdf file for each test for detailed information.

    • The data used represents a general cross-section of Autodesk Inventor® applications.

    Links to Autodesk Inventor® 2011 Workstation Certifications:

    By System Vendor

    By Total Time

    Historical Certifications

    Inventor 2010

    Inventor 2009

    Inventor 2008

     

    What to look for when configuring a workstation:

  • Memory: Plan for expansion and purchase as much RAM as you can afford.
  • CPU Speed: Fast is better. If you are constrained by a budget, a slower CPU with more memory will give better overall performance. The size and speed of the on-board instruction cache (L2) do impact Inventor's performance. The bigger the better. Some new CPU's can dynamically give more of the cache to the busy processor.
  • CPU and Operating System: Autodesk strongly recommends 64-bit CPUs and operating systems for Inventor.
  • Hard Drives: Big and fast is best, plan for expansion. Serial ATA in a Stripped RAID 0 configuration is a good cost performance compromise. Start with one drive, add more drives if you need more speed or space. Since all drives must be identical, make the first drive the fastest performance (RPM, transfer rate, and seek time) that you can afford. Note that the best drives also come with a longer warranty (usually 5 years).
  • Graphics Card: Select a Certified card from this site. Look at the cards memory footprint as well as its performance and cost. The memory footprint may be found by clicking the compare or view keyword in the "Tested" column of the card display table. Some cards may grab a lot of memory up front and use very little for additional windows at the same time. Others may use very little up front, but use more for each additional window opened. Cards with larger memory, may use more main memory when a large number of windows are opened.

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