Computer Specs for Excel Power Users !!

[MackWilk]

First of all, hello Excel gurus! I'm happy to finally join the community, especially that I had a pleasure to meet Bill Jelen personally a few months ago.

I would like to ask you about your dream computer specification for the purposes of financial modeling in Excel.

Right now I use Lenovo T410 with Intel Core i5, M 520 @ 2.40 Ghz (4 CPUs) + 4096 RAM, Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, Office 2007

Presumably I should ask for as mych RAM as possible and at least Excel 2010 to which I could allocate up to 8 TB RAM...

Please let me know what are your ideas

Cheers!

 

[hiker95]

MackWilk,

Welcome to the MrExcel forum.

My wife and I just purchased two Lenovo P500 IdeaPad's, with Intel Core i7, M 3520 @ 2.90 Ghz (4 CPUs) + 8GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive, Windows 8 Enterprise 64-bit, and, we are running the Enterprize Edition of Office 2007.

They are incredible FAST, and, get the job done.

The only complaint I/we had was getting use to Windows 8. But, now, I would not go back to my Lenovo T61.

More RAM is always good.

 

[Fazza]

I run Excel 2003 on a 2004 model Dell laptop and it is fast even with large datasets (number of records approaching the row limit of 65,536). Can't imagine needing anything better unless the spreadsheet wasn't efficient.

 

[Fazza]

Actually, it may be Excel 2000, not Excel 2003. I'll check when I get home.

 

[SydneyGeek]

Plug in another 4 GB RAM to your current setup and you'll have a low-cost upgrade.
Once you've got a Core i5 you won't find a huge amount of benefit in going to an i7, IMO. Excel 2010 has got a few extra features but they aren't backwards compatible so you can't really use them in workbooks that will be going to users on earlier versions.

Denis

 

[Firefly2012]

Are you using 64bit Excel? If not, there's probably not much point increasing RAM unless you have a lot of other memory hungry apps running at the same time