Hardware upgrade to gain more Excel computing power.

Hi guys,

Im running Windows 7 machine with 4Gb of RAM, Pentium CPU and regular Western Digital HDD (blue series).


Im doing a lot calculations in Excel (Office 2010 version) and some of the files which are filled with all kinds of formulas and even DB queries are quite heavy and have more then 200 Mbs.

Due to some sotware limitations Im stuck with 32-bit OS and cant move to x64 platform so getting more RAM in order to get better performance is off the table.

From my perspective I can do 3 things:

1. Upgrade CPU
2. Upgrade HDD to SDD
3. Both above.

Since I use socket 1150 LGA, i5 and i7 are quite expensive and my budget is limited.
I can buy some good i5 or i7 processor or I can buy some SDD

My question to you guys is, should I go with CPU upgrade or SSD upgrade since I cant afford both?

I might be able to pull up with some 120 Gb SSD + some lower i3 CPU model as alternative to above.

Which combination you think will bring more performance on to my excel calculations?

Thank you in advance.
Dean

W10, 16GB ram, SSD

To extend your memory above the 32Bit address space you could try:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...96(VS.85).aspx

But in the long run you might need to switch to a 64Bit OS.

Because memory is the way to go.

200 Mbs is a reason to use MS SQL Server.

That is some valuable info but we dont have capacity for MS SQL Server...

4Gb of RAM is enough.

Yes, thats something I cant increase anyway...

I dont know should I go with better CPU or SSD

Would you please explain?

What do you mean by right sotware application?

I mean DBMS (data base management system). Excel is not specific for tasks of processing 200 Mbs data. You can chose Ms Access or MS SQL Server. 4Gb of RAM is enough for this.

There are free versions (SQL Express, Access run-time).

Yes, it is so. But the topic starter can chose more options.

Thank you all for joining this discusion.

I would like to add that my company is a small one and in our HQ we use regular windows 7 machine to act as a server and by server I mean
just another PC in the LAN on which we store data and other PCs that uses those resources are usually regular office machine with lower end hardware.

True this "server" is running SSD and I7 CPU, but its also limited to 32-bit OS and 4 Gbs of RAM.

That is an obsticle that cant be avoided at least for now.

Somebody here suggested SQL Server 2016 but I dont know anything about it.
Also I dont know if it can run under windows 7 pro or it needs to be installed on Windows server platform. All this asks for resources (mostly time) in order
to be implemented which I currently dont have...

We are currently nearing capacity and I might need real server in my company quite soon, but current setup does finish the job.

So Im looking for a "quick fix" at least temporary in order to speed daily tasks for my employees.

Did you try to remove unused rows and columns, eliminate excessive formatting?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...es-less-memory

I didnt but I dont experience memory problems at all.

We just need more performance and I highly doubt its related to memory... Shouldnt we get that out of memory msg if memory is problem?

I would like to update this topic with some numbers... maybe I will get some extended help based on these new info.

Our has around a milion formulas althogh its size is not what I mentioned before but more around 20 Mbs

Does this put some lights on what should we persue to gain some computing power?

Thank you

Originally Posted by Olly

You guys with massive workbooks, using lots of indexes / lookups would get the biggest "bang for buck" by upgrading to Excel 2010 or later, and using Power Query / Power Pivot.

Hi Olly

We are using Excel 2010 I just havent made the update to my account here. I will do it now

Originally Posted by 5631

Did you try to remove unused rows and columns, eliminate excessive formatting?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...es-less-memory

Hi,

Thank you for the suggeston.

Im not original creator of this file and I highly doubt its going to be easy to optimize it since its quite complex and chance of messing it up during this optimization is quite high.

I will certanly pass this link to original creator of the file so he can go through it and maybe implement some suggestions.