# Which CPU is fastest for handling large excel calculations?



## jeremypyle (Aug 11, 2016)

Hi,

I have a i5 4690K CPU which currently goes to 100% usage everytime I do big excel formulas. I have to wait for a few minutes for it to finish.

Is there a better CPU that I could get that would make it many times faster? For instance a high end extreme cpu with more cores (say 8 plus), though it seems the mores cores they have the more the clock speed generally drops on them. Would I benefit from having more cores and threads, or having a higher clock speed? 

At the moment I have my chip maxed out at 4500ghz. Its a four core/four thread chip. I'm prepared to spend quite a bit in upgrading it, but would it make much difference?

I read in a blog online that someone ended up buying a really expensive CPU with more cores and then excel ended up getting slower instead of faster, because the clock speed per core was lower on the new one:
https://fastexcel.wordpress.com/201...tion-speed-by-changing-the-number-of-threads/

His suspicion was that excel doesn't use all the cores/threads anyway, and that having a higher clock speed was more beneficial. Would love any thoughts and advice!


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## starl (Aug 11, 2016)

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li...e2007excelPerf_MakingWorkbooksCalculateFaster

It used to be that the printer type affected calculation speed.. I think ink jets were faster than laser? It's been a long time and I don't know if that's still relevant


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## jeremypyle (Aug 11, 2016)

I'm not interested in printing. It is to do with formulas and how fast they calculate


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## FDibbins (Aug 11, 2016)

I think what starl meant was that the print driver (dependent on the printer type) could impact on processor performance, and therefor calc speed.


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## shg (Aug 11, 2016)

Another avenue to consider is whether the workbook efficiency could be improved by a few orders of magnitude.


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## FDibbins (Aug 11, 2016)

Good point, shg


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## RoryA (Aug 12, 2016)

I think it's fairly obvious from Charles' blog that there is no 'one size fits all' solution. If your calculation chain can't be broken up into parallel chunks, then more cores won't help, but more speed will; equally, if it can be split up into multiple chunks, more cores will be better, especially if they are physical cores.

The phrase 'big Excel formulas' always concerns me - it may well be, as shg said, that reworking the formulas is the best solution. I have often found that people use overly complicated array formulas when one or two helper columns greatly simplify things and improve performance.


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## jimrward (Aug 15, 2016)

Post some of your sample big formula stuff, many ways to skin a cat as they say


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