Hardware specification for dealing with large files (Excel 2003 and 2007) benjrees[ at ]gmail.com 29.09.2006 10:41:52 Hi All Apologies for repeating parts of other subjects, but I was wondering what people thought were the most important hardware requirements for a machine to effectively calculate large Excel spreadsheets. Specifically, I have problems at the moment both with re-calculations (can take a few minutes) plus things like re-calculating cell contents (when copy-and-pasting formulae) can take forever, often leading me to kill the Excel process.. We're currently on Excel 2003 but are looking to upgrade when the new version comes out. As a starter for ten, I'm guessing the following are the important factors: 1) Processor - as fast as I can get. Is it worth getting a dual processor? I read somewhere, "No" for Excel 2003 but possible for 2007. 2) RAM - as much as possible. I'm thinking 2Gb. 3) Hard disk - not as important because I should, hopefully, have enough RAM to deal with the spreadsheet. 4) Display cards etc - more or less irrelevant. Thanks Ben

Re: Hardware specification for dealing with large files (Excel 2003 and 2007) jkend69315[ at ]aol.com 29.09.2006 15:21:24 Ben, the processor is important. Do NOT get a Celeron, because they do not have math co-processors. Because of this, a real Pentium rated slower than a Celeron will be faster than the Celeron in crunching numbers. James benjrees[ at ]gmail.com wrote: [Quoted Text] > Hi All > > Apologies for repeating parts of other subjects, but I was wondering > what people thought were the most important hardware requirements for a > machine to effectively calculate large Excel spreadsheets. > Specifically, I have problems at the moment both with re-calculations > (can take a few minutes) plus things like re-calculating cell contents > (when copy-and-pasting formulae) can take forever, often leading me to > kill the Excel process.. We're currently on Excel 2003 but are looking > to upgrade when the new version comes out. > > As a starter for ten, I'm guessing the following are the important > factors: > > 1) Processor - as fast as I can get. Is it worth getting a dual > processor? I read somewhere, "No" for Excel 2003 but possible for 2007. > 2) RAM - as much as possible. I'm thinking 2Gb. > 3) Hard disk - not as important because I should, hopefully, have > enough RAM to deal with the spreadsheet. > 4) Display cards etc - more or less irrelevant. > > Thanks > > Ben

Re: Hardware specification for dealing with large files (Excel 2003 and 2007) "Harlan Grove" <hrlngrv[ at ]aol.com> 29.09.2006 22:10:33 jkend69315[ at ]aol.com wrote... [Quoted Text] >Ben, the processor is important. Do NOT get a Celeron, because they do >not have math co-processors. Because of this, a real Pentium rated >slower than a Celeron will be faster than the Celeron in crunching >numbers. .... Celerons don't have co-processors per se. They have built-in floating point units (FPUs), which have been part of Intel CPUs since the 80486DX. The FPUs process the machine instructions formerly processed by math co-processors (through the 80387).

Re: Hardware specification for dealing with large files (Excel 2003 and 2007) jkend69315[ at ]aol.com 30.09.2006 10:54:42 I got talked into a Celeron against my better judgement when I first got this very machine built. It just crept along on doing number crunching. It was so slow I had to take it back and get a real Pentium installed. The difference was amazing. I was told the difference was due to the Celeron's lack of a math coprocessor, so that may not be exactly right. But I can say from experience a Celeron is not a good choice for number crunching. James Harlan Grove wrote: [Quoted Text] > jkend69315[ at ]aol.com wrote... > >Ben, the processor is important. Do NOT get a Celeron, because they do > >not have math co-processors. Because of this, a real Pentium rated > >slower than a Celeron will be faster than the Celeron in crunching > >numbers. > ... > > Celerons don't have co-processors per se. They have built-in floating > point units (FPUs), which have been part of Intel CPUs since the > 80486DX. The FPUs process the machine instructions formerly processed > by math co-processors (through the 80387).