I plan to upgrade my version of solidworks (Currently 2007 is floundering) For 2013 it apparently takes a racing beast to run it! Can someone tell me if it is really necessary to have this kind of station to work properly? I work in furniture so the work remains simple apart from the assemblies for the assembly instructions, I don't use many solidworks functions which require a lot of resources.
As for the specs machnies, a standard Z420 should do the trick if you don't have huge assemblies, or you don't do simulation calculations, here is the configuration recommended by mycadstore:
HP Z420
Intel Xeon E5-1620 processor (4 cores, 3.60 GHz)
8GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 2000 graphics card (1GB video memory)
300 GB hard drive at 15,000 rpm
Windows 7 in 64-bit
A DVD player and the office pack if you use the parts family, BOM Excel...
The recommended configuration is Windows 7 64 Bits with a minimum of 4GB of RAM, Excel 2007 or 2010 (for parts families), and a compatible graphics card (see the list here depending on the manufacturer Nvidia, ATI, etc http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/videocardtesting.html ) and a fast hard drive (15000 rpm).
Be careful, Windows 8 is only compatible with SolidWorks 2013 and most new PCs are sold with Windows 8 !
For more general information, there is information on the SolidWorks website: