SPEC

The New SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 Workload Development Kit: Measuring Performance Your Way

By Jessica Heerboth, SPECapc Chair

Last year, the SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 benchmark set a new standard for evaluating Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) performance on the continuous release version of Siemens NX. Rigorous and packed with real-world workloads, it runs a battery of graphics tests — rotation, panning, zooming, clipping — as well as viewport tests that measure field of view, feature-regeneration performance, and more. The benchmark is used by professionals, students, artists, hardware vendors, and system manufacturers who want to understand how their hardware performs when doing compute-intensive tasks in Siemens NX.

I’m very proud of what we achieved with the benchmark, but I’m also happy to report that we didn’t stop there. Instead, we added something entirely new, a Workload Development Kit (WDK). Now integrated directly into the SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 benchmark download, the SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 WDK offers a parallel customization framework that gives you the power, flexibility, and security to measure the performance of your own GPU-specific workloads, design models, and assemblies.

How the WDK works

The great thing about a benchmark like the SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 benchmark is the standard: you get reliable, apples-to-apples performance comparisons across different machines and vendors by using repeatable workflows and models. The limitation of this is that you can’t measure the often extreme loads of your proprietary workflows and models. Yet that is often exactly what you really need a benchmark for – it’s the key to making optimal purchasing decisions.

For example, if you're a design engineer working on a proprietary model, a software vendor who wants to know how your own rendering pipeline behaves using different GPUs, or a workstation manufacturer trying to validate a new chip against a customer's real assemblies, the standard benchmark takes you only so far, potentially leaving you with a lot of assumptions. You still need a way to measure the performance of your real workload – using a methodology you can trust.

The SPECapc for SNX 2024 WDK applies the same rigorous measurement and output techniques to your models and workflows, and it runs as a parallel framework, so it does not alter the baseline scoring or standard workloads of the existing SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 benchmark.

A real-world scenario

Let's look at how a company might use the WDK in a high-stakes corporate environment. Imagine a manufacturing company’s engineering team about to develop a new vehicle platform. The assemblies they will be working with are enormous, so they need to buy 200 new workstations for the design group. Before the purchase, they want to determine which GPU performs best on their assembly, not just on a generic test scene.

Here’s what they do:

  • Download & Set Up – Dave, the engineering team lead, downloads the updated SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 package, which includes the integrated WDK.

  • Define the Workload – Using the WDK framework, Dave configures a custom testing routine. He loads the team’s actual, confidential engine assembly into the test suite. Since the assembly is stored locally, it remains completely secure behind the corporate firewall.

  • Program the Actions – Dave then programs the WDK to run the specific, highly demanding operations his engineering team runs every day:

    • Continuous zooming, panning, and rotating of the entire dense assembly
    • Viewport cross-section clipping to evaluate graphics performance under complex visualization modes
    • Measuring feature-regeneration times during mass property calculations and model rebuilds

  • Secure Testing – Now Dave can run tests on as many hardware configurations as necessary to make a data-driven decision regarding the new hardware purchase.

  • Analysis – The WDK outputs precise performance metrics using SPEC's industry-standard measurement techniques. This enables Dave to discover that one GPU configuration runs 18% faster than the alternatives. Over a year, this performance boost will save his team hundreds of hours of lag and rendering time, ensuring greater productivity and a faster time-to-market for the new vehicle platform.

Get started now

The SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 WDK is available now. If you are an existing licensee, you can access it by downloading and reinstalling the updated benchmark package from the SPEC site. For new licenses, the benchmark with the integrated WDK is free for everyone except sellers of computers and related products, who are charged a $2,500 licensing fee.

Whether you are an enterprise CAD manager testing confidential assemblies, a software developer fine-tuning your application, or a hardware vendor pushing the boundaries of GPU technology, the SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 WDK was built for you. I hope you’ll let us know how it works for you!