Excel 64bit on Intel i7 slower than Excel 32bit (64bit Windows) on i3

[Will from London]

Hi

I have run exact copies of an Excel file (mainly normal Excel formulae, some custom formulae and a macro that loops by copy/pasting a reference number into one cell, recalculates and then copy/paste special values a single cell result, adds one to the reference number). Calculation is manual.

Anyway running it on the local C:\Temp drives (so network isn't relevant) of each of the following:
PC 1: Intel i3-2120 3.3GHz, 8.00 GB RAM, Windows 64bit (7 Enterprise Service Pack 1), Excel Professional Plus 2013 32bit) it took 7 hours and 46 minutes.
PC 2: Intel i7-6700T 2.8GHz, 8.00 GB RAM, Windows 64bit (7 Enterprise Service Pack 1), Excel Professional Plus 2013 64bit) it took 25 hours and 22 minutes.

I'm sure that the Excel file could be more efficient but can anyone help me understand why the 64bit Excel took over 3 times as long as the 32bit?

EDIT: It saves the file once at the end of the whole process and not during the 7 or 25 hours of calculations.

Any help much appreciated.

Will

 

[mole999]

so what is the file size, how many formulas and cell formats, are the sheets optimally sized for the data, are you using 64 bit windows or 32bit, xlsx, xlsm, or xlsb, what virus scanners, SSD or normal hard drives, how many cores, and cores used etc

 

[Will from London]

Thanks for your reply.

The file is about 40 MB, 200 columns of 700 rows of calculations, END-HOME used to identify and remove blank rows columns, both PCs are on same Windows 64 bit, XLSM (as macros).

PC1 is quadcore, PC2 is oct-core (but both are 50:50 between real and virtual). I do not have Administrator privilages at the office so I cannot see hard-drive details (I can ask our IT guys of course). I'll need them to run the Resource Monitor if that would be useful?

Regards

Will

 

[mole999]

I did read somewhere about using 3 cores of a multiple cores for spreadsheets > https://fastexcel.wordpress.com/201...tion-speed-by-changing-the-number-of-threads/. SSD would be faster though I don't think by the massive difference you are seeing

maybe some of the formulas could be optimized, maybe run in VBA as it seems to me that many are volatile which is why they update slowly

 

[Derek Brown]

Another article that may be of interest:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/bb687899.aspx

You could also consider using FastExcel to analyse the workbook:
Why FastExcel V3 - Decision Models

 

[jimrward]

You mentioned that there is some virtual element depends on the virtual host how it interprets available resources to run the virtual machine

 

[mole999]

Just another thought, has the file been compiled under each setup?

 

[jimrward]

Are you able to do any benchmarking of performance of each machine out with excel to be sure each is running at optimum

 

[Will from London]

Thank you for all of your replies.

My question is more to do with the relative performance of the PCs (i3 & 32bit Excel vs i7 & 64 bit) rather than the absolute efficiency (or otherwise) of the Excel file.

I just copied the file from our network to the C drive of each PC and clicked the macro run button. No compiling.

I will try running them both with just 1 calculation thread on each over the weekend. (When I referred to virtual core I was meaning with hyper-threading, i.e PC1 has 2 physical cores and PC2 has 4 but all can be hyperthreaded).

 

[Will from London]

Jimrward, would you recommend a strategy/article to assist with benchmarking?

EDIT: Ideally one which does not require Administrator rights, if possible, please.

Thanks