What would be the best pc i can build for Excel spreadsheets?

[thefrenchrocker909]

I work with massive excel spreadsheets, like 50-60 MB big,. it takes 20 minutes to do one calculation on my current computer (8gb ram, dual core). What would be the best machine for handling these spreadsheets? I was thinking a ryzen 1700 with 32gb ram?

 

[toshibitsu]

The Ryzen would be best if you are multi-tasking. Since you're focus is on Excel, I doubt you have much else running in the background. That being the case, I'd suggest an i5-8600k(or if you have the money, an i7-8700k). The 32gb of memory should also be more then enough. I would also suggest using an SSD for your excel file storage. Would really help with loading times.

 

[Zerk2012]

I would get a i7, 16gb of memory and wrok from a SSD.
16gb should be more than you would ever need the dual core is the main problem.

 

[thefrenchrocker909]

The Ryzen would be best if you are multi-tasking. Since you're focus is on Excel, I doubt you have much else running in the background. That being the case, I'd suggest an i5-8600k(or if you have the money, an i7-8700k). The 32gb of memory should also be more then enough. I would also suggest using an SSD for your excel file storage. Would really help with loading times.

why not the ryzen 8 core?

 

[gasaraki]

why not the ryzen 8 core?

Ryzen has poor single core/dual core performance and Excel doesn't not use more than 2 cores. You'll want a i7-7700K or i7-8700K and a fast SSD with decent amount of RAM (16GB or higher).

 

[Darkbreeze]

What is your current CPU? I don't know what platform you have or how old it is, but ANY platform from the last ten years should be able to handle Excel or any other office application with no problem unless something else is wrong with the system/hardware/OS.

Or, if you have an unlegitimate or borked office installation.

I have some older Core2duo systems that can run any size Word, Excel, Publisher or Access file without issue.

 

[kanewolf]

why not the ryzen 8 core?

Ryzen has poor single core/dual core performance and Excel doesn't not use more than 2 cores. You'll want a i7-7700K or i7-8700K and a fast SSD with decent amount of RAM (16GB or higher).

This performance study shows that 3 cores is the optimum number for that Excel benchmark. This benchmark scaled all the way to 8 cores. So your mileage may vary. An 8600K or 8700K would provide more than enough cores and have the highest clock speed.
The other thing to remember is you want the 64bit version of Excel so that it will take advantage of more RAM.

 

[thefrenchrocker909]

why not the ryzen 8 core?

Ryzen has poor single core/dual core performance and Excel doesn't not use more than 2 cores. You'll want a i7-7700K or i7-8700K and a fast SSD with decent amount of RAM (16GB or higher).

This performance study shows that 3 cores is the optimum number for that Excel benchmark. This benchmark scaled all the way to 8 cores. So your mileage may vary. An 8600K or 8700K would provide more than enough cores and have the highest clock speed.
The other thing to remember is you want the 64bit version of Excel so that it will take advantage of more RAM.

it didnt mention anything about comparing an 8-core to a 3 or 4 core

 

[dontlistentome]

8 threads, not cores, I guess if you want to get technical about it. But I could tell what it says. Sometimes people talk about bitcoin mining when they mean crypto currency mining, you can't get hung up on things like that.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, so I'll ask again. What is your current CPU and/or other hardware specs?

Are you running a spinning mechanical drive or using an SSD?

What version of Windows and what version of office are you running?

When was the last time the operating system had a clean install, or has it ever? Has it been upgraded to Windows 10 from an older version WITHOUT doing a clean install?

Is it a legitimate, licensed copy of Office? Because if it's not, you can probably stop right there.

These are all considerations that could be affecting your performance in Excel, because, like I said, even with a dual core CPU, unless it is a very old model it should be fully capable of running any size spreadsheet and performing advanced calculations without experiencing the kind of lag you are talking about. I have a core2duo machine, pretty old, with only 8GB of RAM, and the largest spreadsheets with very advanced calculations do not take more than a few minutes, tops. Usually much less than that.

On anything as new as FX or Ivy bridge to present models, there should not even be anything like that going on unless there is another factor involved.

 

[USAFRet]

So that perf study site has their sample data to download and run on your own system.

On my i7-4790k, 32GB RAM system (full system details under my avatar)...it averaged between 2-3 seconds for each test.
So two or three times as fast as their test system.

The CPU spiked to 100%, RAM unchanged.

 

[thefrenchrocker909]

Ok, so I'll ask again. What is your current CPU and/or other hardware specs?

Are you running a spinning mechanical drive or using an SSD?

What version of Windows and what version of office are you running?

When was the last time the operating system had a clean install, or has it ever? Has it been upgraded to Windows 10 from an older version WITHOUT doing a clean install?

Is it a legitimate, licensed copy of Office? Because if it's not, you can probably stop right there.

These are all considerations that could be affecting your performance in Excel, because, like I said, even with a dual core CPU, unless it is a very old model it should be fully capable of running any size spreadsheet and performing advanced calculations without experiencing the kind of lag you are talking about. I have a core2duo machine, pretty old, with only 8GB of RAM, and the largest spreadsheets with very advanced calculations do not take more than a few minutes, tops. Usually much less than that.

On anything as new as FX or Ivy bridge to present models, there should not even be anything like that going on unless there is another factor involved.

its a late 2013 13" macbook pro running dual os with windows 7

 

[thefrenchrocker909]

So that perf study site has their sample data to download and run on your own system.

On my i7-4790k, 32GB RAM system (full system details under my avatar)...it averaged between 2-3 seconds for each test.
So two or three times as fast as their test system.

The CPU spiked to 100%, RAM unchanged.

what is the significance of this?

 

[USAFRet]

what is the significance of this?

Simply as a comparison to see how my personal system ran with that calculation set.
You might consider trying it with your current system, and see how it compares to mine.

Might give you an insight as to what direction to go with for a new system.

Or, you can completely ignore this data point.

 

[Zerk2012]

That would still put me going with something like this for the fast single core speed.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($326.29 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H5 Universal 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($41.99 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Motherboard: ASRock - Z270 Extreme4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($136.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($204.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($342.89 @ OutletPC)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Pro M ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair - TXM Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Case Fan: Fractal Design - GP14-WT 68.4 CFM 140mm Fan ($12.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $1181.01
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-02-13 08:15 EST-0500

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, so I'll ask again. What is your current CPU and/or other hardware specs?

Are you running a spinning mechanical drive or using an SSD?

What version of Windows and what version of office are you running?

When was the last time the operating system had a clean install, or has it ever? Has it been upgraded to Windows 10 from an older version WITHOUT doing a clean install?

Is it a legitimate, licensed copy of Office? Because if it's not, you can probably stop right there.

These are all considerations that could be affecting your performance in Excel, because, like I said, even with a dual core CPU, unless it is a very old model it should be fully capable of running any size spreadsheet and performing advanced calculations without experiencing the kind of lag you are talking about. I have a core2duo machine, pretty old, with only 8GB of RAM, and the largest spreadsheets with very advanced calculations do not take more than a few minutes, tops. Usually much less than that.

On anything as new as FX or Ivy bridge to present models, there should not even be anything like that going on unless there is another factor involved.

its a late 2013 13" macbook pro running dual os with windows 7

That is a model, that is not the specs. That does not tell me what CPU, memory, drives or anything else you have. Since you seem to be resistant to offering much in the way of information, I'll leave off to these others to sort it out. Good luck.

 

[thefrenchrocker909]

Ok, so I'll ask again. What is your current CPU and/or other hardware specs?

Are you running a spinning mechanical drive or using an SSD?

What version of Windows and what version of office are you running?

When was the last time the operating system had a clean install, or has it ever? Has it been upgraded to Windows 10 from an older version WITHOUT doing a clean install?

Is it a legitimate, licensed copy of Office? Because if it's not, you can probably stop right there.

These are all considerations that could be affecting your performance in Excel, because, like I said, even with a dual core CPU, unless it is a very old model it should be fully capable of running any size spreadsheet and performing advanced calculations without experiencing the kind of lag you are talking about. I have a core2duo machine, pretty old, with only 8GB of RAM, and the largest spreadsheets with very advanced calculations do not take more than a few minutes, tops. Usually much less than that.

On anything as new as FX or Ivy bridge to present models, there should not even be anything like that going on unless there is another factor involved.

its a late 2013 13" macbook pro running dual os with windows 7

That is a model, that is not the specs. That does not tell me what CPU, memory, drives or anything else you have. Since you seem to be resistant to offering much in the way of information, I'll leave off to these others to sort it out. Good luck.

the late '13 13" macbook pros all have the same specs.
2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor
256GB storage
8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory
Intel Iris Graphics

and thats all it tells you on their website

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, so that should be plenty to run Excel at any needed level of use. That's a Haswell era i5-4258U and with 8GB of RAM there really shouldn't be much trouble with that. Of course, I don't know how complex your calculations are or what else you might be running on that system, or how well that Windows 7 installation runs on Mac hardware aside from the known factors of the i5 and 8GB of memory, but spec wise you are pretty good.

Are you running 32 or 64 bit Windows 7?

Are you running the Mac or Windows version of Excel?

Are you running 32 or 64 bit Office?

What VERSION of Office (2007, 2010, 2013, etc.)

These things make a difference because if your configuration or software are not allowing you to use more than the ~4GB of a 32 bit system, that will somewhat affect spreadsheet performance. Memory capacity is definitely a factor when you have big documents or a hell of a lot of rows and columns. If you have calculations that are factoring entire rows and columns, or combinations of rows and columns, then CPU performance AND memory are big but even though that is a mobile processor, not as capable as a desktop variant, it should still be really capable with just an office spreadsheet.

If you really just want to do a desktop, which of course WILL be more capable, that is totally up to you and practically ANY desktop platform from the last three or four generations of Intel or any Ryzen 5 or 7 configuration should be more than enough to handle what you are doing so long as you are using a 64 bit OS with 64 bit Office, in order to take advantage of the larger amount of memory. Especially if you are multitasking or running other applications or many browser tabs simultaneously.


There are also some other things you can likely do that will aid in reducing the demands of the spreadsheet and gaining some performance.

I won't go into all those, but suffice to say that there are a lot of things you can do to reduce the footprint of an Excel spreadsheet when it comes to resource demand. Opening a new instance of Excel for EACH spreadsheet is one. Simplifying or actually using BETTER formulas is another.


There are a bunch of things you can do listed here:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-excel/can-you-suggest-pc-specifications-for-working-with/64fa3b20-28e6-4058-acc2-191cf96df241?auth=1

And I'm sure there are many other potential changes you can make to improve Excel performance to be found at some of these links.

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&safe=active&source=hp&ei=KnuDWrH9A47OjwOzu6iwCQ&q=how+to+increase+performance+in+excel&oq=how+to+increase+performance+in+excel&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i22i30k1l9.1401.12520.0.12825.37.36.0.0.0.0.140.3429.26j10.36.0..2..0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.36.3426.0..0j0i131k1.0.Ra5_7PtCZaM

 

[vexicus]

Get a ryzen CPU...1500x would be sufficient fr ur kind of workload

 

[Yogi2367]

I run huge Excel sheets as well along with VMs and DBII databases. I use Excel 2016 on an i7-4960K, 32GB Ram, and a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO. They run pretty quick on that. However, the Ryzen 1700's in the office, also running 32GB Ram and Samsung SSDs make the Intel chips look like they are running backwards. Since Excel 2016 runs as many cores as it can get its hands on, the more you have available, the better off you are.
If you are running an older version of Excel, the very first thing you should do is upgrade your software.
Also, Microsoft Answers has a link to solutions that ensure you get the best performance out of your hardware when using Excel.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_excel-mso_win10-mso_2016/how-to-utilize-multiple-cores-in-excel-2016/76fef7bb-750d-42f7-95ca-91d2694479c1?auth=1

 

[mikeglaw]

I work with massive excel spreadsheets, like 50-60 MB big,. it takes 20 minutes to do one calculation on my current computer (8gb ram, dual core). What would be the best machine for handling these spreadsheets? I was thinking a ryzen 1700 with 32gb ram?

 

[mikeglaw]

Any current multi core cpu(2.6ghz or higher), 32gb m3mory, and a ssd drive for reading/storing info.

 

[sirmaxpowerz]

I run huge Excel sheets as well along with VMs and DBII databases. I use Excel 2016 on an i7-4960K, 32GB Ram, and a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO. They run pretty quick on that. However, the Ryzen 1700's in the office, also running 32GB Ram and Samsung SSDs make the Intel chips look like they are running backwards. Since Excel 2016 runs as many cores as it can get its hands on, the more you have available, the better off you are.
If you are running an older version of Excel, the very first thing you should do is upgrade your software.
Also, Microsoft Answers has a link to solutions that ensure you get the best performance out of your hardware when using Excel.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_excel-mso_win10-mso_2016/how-to-utilize-multiple-cores-in-excel-2016/76fef7bb-750d-42f7-95ca-91d2694479c1?auth=1

 

[sirmaxpowerz]

Everyone always under estimates Excel. It's a fine line and depends on how the workbook is setup and what other apps the user uses. Currently testing 8700k and one of my users has wait time of 30 minutes on a 6300u with SSD. If that doesn't work will be going all out with a 1950x at twice the price. Will report back. 64 bit is a must and newer than office 2010.