Recommend a PC Configuration for Heavy Excel Calculations

[dima777]

Hello!

I have recently ran into a productivity wall with my Pentium M 1,7 GHz Sony laptop, that I bought 3 years ago. I am working on a model of one process in Excel and the current version of the file is 200 Mbs comprised of 10 sheets filled to the brim with interrelated formulas (the final version is going to be close to 500 Mbs). Understandably my laptop is refusing to show any speed at all and takes minutes – and sometimes tens of minutes – to recalculate the workbook. I wonder if someone here is a power user of the Excel and can recommend to me a work station that can handle such files with ease? I am working in Excel 2003.

Here are the specs of one PC that the local computer firm is offering to me:

 

Desktop:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 / MB Intel DG41RQ / DDRII 2048Mb PC6400 Kingston / HDD 250Gb Seagate 7200 rpm SATA / Card Reader (CF, MMC, SD, MS) / Video on board / DVD.RW Pioneer / Sound / АТX YY 400w

 

Laptop:

Toshiba Qosmio F50-127 Intel CoreDuo P8600 2.4

15.4"/G97/4G/320/DVDRW/WF/BT/Cam/VHP

 

Please let me know what you think!)

 

Thanks!

Dima

[insane_alien]

either of those will be much better than the pentium M.

 

the desktop would be faster but the laptop will give you portability.

 

but you have to remember that with a lot of calculations, it is still going to take a while to get through them all, don't expect either of them to manage to do it instantly, especially if the spreadsheet is going to expand some more.

[Bignose]

Just to make sure, you aren't using auto-recalculate right? Because you should be able to make plenty of changes every time without enduring the several minutes of re-calculation time.

 

Also, if your sheet is that big, I do wonder if Excel is really the best tool. If you are calculating a lot of things, writing a program in Fortran or C or even using a dedicated math language like Matlab may be better. If you are manipulating a lot of data, Access or some other database may be better.

 

But, to answer your question, it is RAM and processor speed that will make the biggest difference. And, if the two options are more RAM and slightly slower speed or more processor speed and less RAM, I'd take more RAM every time.