Dassault Systèmes Solidworks is one of the most widely used 3D CAD programs for product development, mechanical engineering and technical design. Solidworks has established itself particularly in medium-sized companies thanks to its user-friendliness and efficient integration of simulation and production. For workstation graphics cards, it is considered one of the most demanding tests, as the software is based on its own “RealView” pipeline, which is heavily dependent on certified OpenGL drivers. This is exactly where the wheat is separated from the chaff, because without targeted driver support, even powerful GPUs can hardly exploit their computing capacity.
GPU Composite Score
The overall value of the SPECacp workload for SolidWorks clearly shows the dominance of AMD cards in this CAD program. The Radeon AI R9700 takes the top spot with 4.40 points, immediately followed by the RX 9070XT with 4.39 points. Although the gap to the Radeon Pro W7800 is not large, it is still clearly recognizable. With 4.26 points, it is behind the two RDNA-4 models, which can noticeably exploit their higher clock frequency and more efficient pipeline. The results show once again that SolidWorks benefits less from certified workstation paths in many areas, but reacts very strongly to pure GPU geometry performance and driver throughput. The R9700 sends a clear signal here and confirms that modern architecture decisions are increasingly making the difference, even in the professional environment. The RTX models, on the other hand, are clearly falling behind and are unable to threaten the AMD cards.
Shaded
Both the Radeon AI R9700 and the RX 9070XT achieve 2.92 points in pure shading and thus share the top spot. The Radeon Pro W7800 follows close behind with 2.85 points, which confirms its professional claim, even if it cannot catch up with the RDNA-4 models. SolidWorks primarily uses the geometry and rasterization performance in this view, with which the monolithic structure of the R9700 can score convincingly. The higher results compared to the NVIDIA cards show that AMD currently has a very mature pipeline in this area. Although the workstation models benefit from more stable driver paths, the performance differences are in favor of the pure computing power of the R9700.
Shaded with Edges
When edges are activated, the load on the GPU increases significantly, as additional geometry information has to be calculated with every camera movement. The R9700 achieves an almost perfect result of 4.28 points and is therefore only slightly behind the RX 9070XT, which leads with 4.29 points. The gap to the Radeon Pro W7800 is still visible, but not dramatic, as it is also at a very high level with 4.13 points. The handling of complex edge structures shows that RDNA 4 has advantages here thanks to its efficient L2/L3 cache organization and high shader performance. Especially when navigating quickly through large assemblies, the R9700 shows a very clean and smooth image, which is a clear added value in practical use.
Shaded RealView
RealView is probably the most demanding display in SolidWorks, as additional lighting models, reflections and material effects are calculated here. In this scenario, the R9700 achieves an outstanding result of 5.74 points and is just ahead of the RX 9070XT, which achieves 5.72 points. The Radeon Pro W7800 remains close behind with 5.65 points, but already shows slight limitations due to its older architecture. This result confirms that modern GPU designs now also play a significant role in complex visual workloads. The RealView performance of the R9700 is remarkably stable and delivers a very clean display image. NVIDIA models clearly lose ground here, which indicates the lower optimization of the Ada architecture in this specific application area.
Shaded RealView with Edges
The combination of RealView effects and edge load is one of the most complex calculations in the SolidWorks environment. This is exactly where the R9700 can show its full potential and achieves 6.49 points, which is the highest score in the test field. The RX 9070XT is also in the top field with 6.44 points and the W7800 follows with 6.16 points. The RDNA-4 models benefit visibly from their high shader density, modern cache structures and very efficient clock characteristics. The R9700 offers an extremely smooth and visually clean image, especially for assemblies with many filigree structures, shadow effects or highly reflective surfaces. In practical use, this enables smoother handling, even with very demanding projects.
Drawing
In the pure drawing views, the results between the R9700, RX 9070XT and Radeon Pro W7700 are completely equal with 2.66 points each. This view is traditionally less GPU-heavy and benefits more from stable driver paths than from pure shader performance. The fact that the R9700 is still at the top here shows that AMD has implemented the basic interfaces in RDNA 4 very efficiently. The advantage of the professional workstation models is visibly shrinking in this area. NVIDIA cards are behind all AMD models, which once again confirms a general pattern in this SPECacp workload.
Interim conclusion
The results in SolidWorks confirm the performance profile already seen in AutoCAD and Creo, but with an even clearer focus on visual rendering and geometry performance. The Radeon AI R9700 takes the lead in practically all relevant sub-disciplines or shares it with the RX 9070XT. The workstation models of the W series follow close behind, but without seriously endangering the RDNA 4 models. The W7800 remains competitive, but clearly shows the limits of its RDNA 3 basic architecture, especially in RealView-heavy scenarios.
The R9700 benefits noticeably in SolidWorks from high clock rates, its modern cache structure and the overall very responsive pipeline design. The larger VRAM is not yet fully utilized here, but offers future security for larger data sets. The results underline that the Radeon AI R9700 is an extremely powerful tool for demanding design work and can be positioned as a high-performance alternative to classic workstation cards.
- 1 - Introduction and technical data
- 2 - Test system and equipment
- 3 - Autodesk AutoCAD
- 4 - Autodesk Inventor Pro
- 5 - PTC Creo
- 6 - Dassault Systèmes Solidworks
- 7 - Autodesk Maya
- 8 - SPECviewperf 15 (2025)
- 9 - Adobe Photoshop 26.10
- 10 - Adobe After Effects 2025
- 11 - Adobe Premiere Pro 25.41
- 12 - KI Benchmarks (AI Vision, Image, Text)
- 13 - Rendering
- 14 - Temperatures, clock rate, fans, noise and power draw
- 15 - Summary and conclusion
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