Excel hardware related advice

[Richard Schollar]

Hi Guys

Some Excel hardware related advice would be appreciated: having spent the last 4 years using a very slow Intel Celeron processor on my home computer (it wasn't a top-spec Celeron at the time I acquired it either ) I am now looking to upgrade my computer (which i will build myself). However, I am a little confused as to what spec hardware to go for - any thoughts on what processor to go for? The computer won't be used to play games, just Office and Office-like applications and also large databases (100 million records max).

I have posted questions in a "Build-Your-Own-PC" forum, but the problem with that forum was that they all seemed to use their PCs for gaming so wanted dual-core AMD processors and pricey DDR2 RAM. I am leaning towards a Pentium 630 and 2Gb of RAM (so that memory issues are unlikely to ever arise), but alternative thoughts would be welcome!

Thank you for your time

Richard

 

[boxcar]

A somewhat helpfull web site

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MVGSBG/article.php/3569696

It is geared toward gaming but the low end gaming PC with a price tag of $1000 I think would do just fine. The only thing you might change would be to up the RAM like you had talked about and perhaps more disk space if you need it. At any rate I like to see what they recomend. I find the prices they list are easily found on several web sites. I built my last computer using some of there sugestions and bought the parts from newegg.com. There return policy kinda sucks but it did not come up.

 

[Richard Schollar]

Thanks Boxcar!

I had a quick look, and will return there for more detailed study later.

I am doing my best to avoid over-speccing the PC (I can just see me thinking: ooh, I'll just add that, and that, and that ....) because at the end of the day I will only be using it for databases/excel/some programming none of which should require the latest graphics card/fastest processor or memory.

Richard