WARRENTON, Va., April 25, 2001 - SPEC/GPC's Application Performance Characterization (SPECapc) project group has released a new benchmark for UGS' Solid Edge, a leading CAD/CAM/CAE application for Windows platforms. Initial performance results and free downloads of the benchmark are available at www.spec.org/gpc/apc.static/se9info.html

SPECapc for Solid Edge V9 was developed by UGS in cooperation with the SPECapc group. It represents typical user operations that are valuable in evaluating the performance of systems running Solid Edge.

"Jointly developing this benchmark to test the performance of hardware platforms means that many thousands of our existing and future users can confidently select computer systems that optimize the power of Solid Edge," says Bill McClure, director of the Solid Edge line of business at UGS.

The new benchmark runs on Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000. Two Solid Edge models are used for the benchmark: a well-head assembly with 1,320 parts and 1.3-million polygons, and a 64-part hydraulic jack assembly with 66,000 polygons. Four basic areas of performance are measured:

• Graphics - measures commonly used commands in three modes: smooth shading, wireframe, and smooth shading with textures and reflections.
• File I/O - measures opening and saving the well-head assembly model using three different display configurations: all inactive, all active, and a combination of active, inactive and hidden parts.
• CPU - exercises real-time VHL representation and re-computing an assembly.
• Workflow - represents a typical set of operations users will execute during the course of creating a project, such as real-time drawing view placement, in-place assembly activation, in-place part activation, modifying a model, and updating all the files due to the model change.

UGS considers all four portions of the benchmark to be equally important in evaluating performance using Solid Edge, so they have been given equal weightings when calculating the geometric mean.

"We are pleased to add Solid Edge to our suite of CAD/CAM application benchmarks," says George Chaltas of Intel, SPECapc project group chair. "Through great cooperation between UGS and SPECapc, the industry now has a benchmark that provides a broad picture of Solid Edge performance based on how the application is typically used."

SPECapc is a project group of the Graphics Performance Characterization (GPC) Group, which in turn is part of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC). SPEC is a non-profit corporation formed to establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set of relevant benchmarks that can be applied to the newest generation of high-performance computers. SPEC's membership includes computer hardware and software vendors, and leading universities and research facilities worldwide.

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