Questions for SolidWorks Users and/or Engineering Graduates

[nwoods]

Trying to decide between PC or MacBook for a college laptop.
My daughter is off to college this year. Mechanical Engineering is her focus (while being on a Volleyball scholarship). She has grown up using Macs and is invested into the rest of the Apple eccosphere (iPad, Watch, iPhone, iCloud, iTunes, etc..). I need to buy her a new computer because her old MacBook Air is past its prime. The new 13" MacBook Pro has just been released, with decent specs (if you get the 10th Gen quad-core processor), so I was thinking of getting that for her. But I am hesitant because I know engineering and particularly modeling and analytical software is heavily PC based. I've talked to the school (pre-covid) and they said that they provide all the software on heavy duty PC's at their on campus computer labs. Post-Covid, I'm wondering how true that still is? Yes, they have the labs, but can you access them remotely?

I personally have a heavy duty REVIT capable PC based workstation in my office, but I access it 99% of the time via Remote Desktop on my old 15" MacBook. This works really well, I get the best of both worlds, as long as I have a decent internet connection.

I am hesitant to buy a PC for the following reasons:
1. I am not current on PC laptop brands, quality, etc..
2. I am not enamored with 2:1's or all in nones or whatever
3. My past experience with Toshiba and Dell laptops in corporate life left me with the impression that they are all junk
4. My current impression of Microsoft Surface devices is that the screen resolution is ridiculous and doesn't do font scaling properly compared to a Retina screened Mac
5. Our corporate fleet of Surface devices (which I do not personally use) has had numerous cases of extremely short battery life (ie: they are crap)
6. All of my MacBooks ( I have bought and owned 5 of them amongst my family members) have lasted 8 years or longer. They cost more, but they freaking last forever, and are CAPABLE during that long life span, and even have residual value for trade in.

I am hesitant to buy a MacBook Pro for the following reasons:
1. SolidWorks
2. AutoDesk software (of all/any type)
3. Any other PC specific engineering program she might need.
4. My daughter isn't very familiar with Windows, and its not super intuitive to a Mac user.
5. My daughter is NOT a high speed computer user, don't use shortcuts, doesn't manipulate files, or even think where they should be filed. The computer is just a screen to her. A Mac works within that scope, PC's...not so much. I say this as a very experienced and proficient Windows user.

Cost is not a factor. A new Dell XPS 15" is $2,100 properly configured and the 13" MBP is $2,200. I don't want to hear about how much cheaper PC's are. At this level hardware, they just aren't.

Really not sure what to do. Wide open to suggestions and opinions. I would particularly value those of people who work in engineering and/or have graduated from an engineering program. Thanks for your time!

 

[nwoods]

This site doesn't help clarify things at all! SolidWorks says it runs fine on Parallels, and also states that SolidWorks eDrawings (not sure what that is) runs natively on Mac

SOLIDWORKS and SW PDM System Requirements

Check out SOLIDWORKS System Requirements to ensure you are always working with a SOLIDWORKS supported and optimized system for hardware, operating system and Microsoft products - also Apple, Mac 10.4 - Mac 10.7, eDrawings, and more.

www.solidworks.com

 

[john61ct]

Get her the nicest current Mac Pro because that's what she will love.

If the school is giving remote (control) access into their engineering lab PCs for their specialist software a Mac client will likely work just fine. or maybe even a low-end PC, the heavy CPU/RAM operations are in the lab, just keyboard mouse inputs, displaying outputs being sent over the wire.

Finally, since money is not the issue, let her know **if she wants** (or needs) the PC once she gets started, then you'll get that too.

 

[nwoods]

LOL, Browsing the SolidWorks website confuses me even more. When you click on Products>Platforms>Desktop, they show a MacBook:

 

[nwoods]

Finally, since money is not the issue, let her know **if she wants** (or needs) the PC once she gets started, then you'll get that too.

Hey hey, lets not get crazy now. I'm just trying to head off the "apple tax" arguments when it comes to cost. Buying multiple engineering laptops is not in daddy's fishing budget.

 

[JPR4LFE]

I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering 10 years ago, so I am not sure about the cross compatibility of solidworks today specifically, but when I was in school design software was MUCH further along on PCs. I can tell you that in the energy/mining/mineral/petroleum industry, programs are almost exclusively PC based. I think you would be further ahead if you started with a PC going in to engineering school. The landscape might change with remote access and 'working from home', but it is too soon to tell if that will stick around. If campus uses PCs for engineering, I'd be hard pressed to start my college engineering career with a MAC.

 

[Rando]

SolidWorks does not run on MacOS, but other CAD programs (Autocad, Fusion 360 etc) do run on a Mac. Typically engineering programs provide student licenses for programs like SolidWorks, you don't run them remotely, you check out a license from a license server and run it on your local machine, or use a local student license straight from SolidWorks. You can run Solidworks on parallels, but it has pretty high resource use, and running adding the overhead of parallels likely won't make it much better. Check with the program she is entering to see what they use. Also, you may or may not use CAD in the first few years, so it may not matter.

I am a Mac user as well, but at our meetings the divide is pretty stark - the engineering division is 90% Windows, 5% Linux (flight software group) and 5% Macs. The science division is 80% Mac, 10% Windows and 10% Linux. In general engineering programs (with the exception of CS) seem to prefer windows.

 

[DaveInDenver]

SolidWorks doesn't run on macOS, eDrawings does. That's a viewer. Autodesk on a Mac is fine since all the key programs are ported and current.

Just my $0.02 but I'd still get her a MacBook Pro if that's what she wants to use personally. Doing CAD on a laptop isn't efficient without extra monitors and I'd think an engineering school would have a CAD lab that will have machines way better for the task.

If she was doing EE I think there's actually advantages to a Mac being a stable BSD UNIX natively underneath along with XQuartz and your favorite package manager (Brew, MacPorts, etc.) makes some things software actually easier. Windows still rules the world, though. You can never escape so you either have two machines, dual boot or run VirtualBox or the like depending on your needs.

 

[jadmt]

college students and employees get a nice discount on Macs thru their school Check the discount before buying elsewhere.

 

[nwoods]

I am a Mac user as well, but at our meetings the divide is pretty stark - the engineering division is 90% Windows, 5% Linux (flight software group) and 5% Macs. The science division is 80% Mac, 10% Windows and 10% Linux. In general engineering programs (with the exception of CS) seem to prefer windows.

That is really interesting split! I'm in architecture, and it's about 75% PC and 25% Mac, with most of the Mac users working in areas not directly related to Revit production. I am the exception, where I RDP from a Mac to a PC workstation.

I've sent an email off to the college to see how they handled the remote schooling and software access. I'll post their response here. Thanks everyone for what you have contributed thus far.

 

[Finlay]

I'm an IT director at a school now, and used to run a supercomputing node for a dynamic fluid modelling system at a research lab. Before that, I was an Autocad and Solidworks support engineer. I have a degree in engineering from a small inconsequential school nobody ever heard of - UW-Madison.

Buy a PC. HP makes a decent laptop - I'm typing this on an Omen. It doesn't matter much, if it lasts till she graduates, it's good enough. Remote access workarounds are OK, but they have real limitations and various degrees of suckitude, especially when running complex modelling software.

Corporate PCs do indeed suck. They have a different set of priorities. The machine I am typing this on is vastly superior to anything my job would provide. Not to be snarky, but it's a windows (and to a lesser extent Linux) world and the real work gets done in those ecosystems. We can argue all day about inherent superiority and whatever, but it does not matter - computers are tools to do a job. I use a screwdriver to drive screws, and I use a hammer to drive nails.

Studying engineering is a gruelling enough endeavour as it is - why make her deal with the hassle of finding workarounds to solved software problems ?

 

[Christian P.]

if she is like my wife, there is no argument you can make that will hold.

She wants/needs/desires a Mac. Just accept it...

 

[nwoods]

To Finlay: To be fair, when discussing my own corporate experiences, they are high end machines specifically built to run intensive applications like Revit. They all have a min of 64GB RAM, Hybrid SSD's, Xeon CPU's, and some sort of ridiculous graphics card that I am not even sure what they are, including a few custom Nvidia cards for our liquid cooled visualizing machines that cost more than my car. They are not your typical Dell Precisions or whatever.

I REALLY like your point about it not having to last very long. I was kinda hung up on that, but you're totally right. It's a a tool with a relatively short life span requirement. that does help a lot.

If I go PC: What is the current hotness?
Requirements:
- 32GB Ram
- 1TB SSD
- Compact form factor for backpack use on a very slender girl. Screen: 13"? 14"?
To compare, the 16" MacBook was "Eew, way too heavy Dad. No way!"
- Long battery life. As an athlete, they travel a LOT, and need long battery life on planes, buses, etc...
- Illuminated keyboard
- Good trackpad (can anything compare to a Mac? I don't know)

I have no idea what to target regarding screen quality and resolution. PC and Mac just don't correlate at all due to different font and DPI scaling methods. Her eyes are decent, no near sightedness concerns.

 

[DaveInDenver]

If I go PC: What is the current hotness?

FWIW the MEs who I worked with had just gotten new machines: Dell Precision 5820 workstations, quad core W2223 Xeons, 32GB, Nvidia P2200, 500GB drive, dual 27" 2560 x 1440 Dell monitors. Overkill for a student, though.

I earned my EE degree from the Univ. of Colorado but things are radically different now.

 

[john61ct]

Yes, 3-4yr lifespan is a reasonable expectation for economically productive PCs at the high end

and sometimes more like 2-3.

And commodity pricing has led to unrealistic bargain-hunting, for this kind of scenario $3k is not a big budget, and for me I'd not count the bigger / multiple screens and other accessories.