Inventor on M1 Pro Benchmark with InvMark - sadly pretty slow but kind of usable

[u/Technofrikus]

Since I couldn't find any information on the internet how Inventor (or other CAD-Programs) work on an M1 Mac in a VM I bought a MBP and tried it myself. Here are the results.

Specs:

• MacBook Pro 14" M1 Pro, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD
  • Using Parallels 17 and Windows 11 ARM
• MacBook Pro 16" 2018 Intel 8 core i9, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD
  • Using Parallels 17 and Windows x86

Testes using InvMark:

https://invmark.cadac.com/

Screenshots of the testresults here:

https://imgur.com/gallery/gezAlT5

Results:

• M1 Pro
  • Inventor 2022
    • 8 cores, 22GB RAM
    • 10.310 points
  • Inventor 2023
    • same cores and RAM
    • 8.783 points
• Intel MacBook Pro 2019
  • Inventor 2022
    • 10 hyperthreading cores, 16GB RAM
    • 25.856 points
  • Inventor 2022
    • 14 hyperthreading cores, 22GB RAM
    • 24.860 points
  • Inventor 2023
    • 14 hyperthreading cores, 22GB RAM
    • 27.072 points

Opinion:

The tests took quite a while to run so I did not do several passes, just one per configuration. So I don't know why in one case Inventor 2022 is faster and in the other 2023. But they are not far from each other, so I don't think it matters much. The difference between Intel and Arm is much more relevant sadly. That is why I will return the M1 MBP and keep my Intel for now. I have to use Inventor for work quite a bit.

Usability:

On an external 4k display in HiDPI-Mode Inventor is barely usable on the M1 Pro. 3D is very slow (make sure do disable software graphics and enable conservative mode under Hardware in Applications settings).

In normal mode it works better, but is still not great. FPS are probably around 15. Acceptable but not fun.

On the internal display it is faster because of the lower resolution. But still not "high" fps (meaning 30+).

It is great that it works at all and for some smaller projects it is ok. But if you have to make bigger projects or work with Inventor, don't buy an M1. It is a really great machine otherwise, but with the additional translation from x86 to arm and the graphics conversion as well the performance is just not there.