Right computer for HEAVY EXCEL use

[boguslav99]

Good morning ... I am hoping to get some thoughts. I do very heavy excel work, 200,000 lines plus, a lot of complex if/or/and, vlookup, pivots, statements. My file is over 100mbs and my computer struggles to do the calculations. Probably takes 10 minutes every time i need a data refresh. As this is for work i have been approved to get a new computer that can handle such heavy excel load, but i am having issues figuring out which is the right decision.

Current set up is a Lenovo X220 8gigs RAM i5 2520 2.5GHZ lap top with a 32 bit office but 64 bit operating system

I am trying to make a decision on what to get that can handle the computations with no problem here are my choices

• HP Z820 workstation dual xeon processors 32gigs of ram
• Lenovo X1 Carbon i7 ssd 32 gigs of ram
• Dell 6540 i7 ssd 32 gigs or ram

I have a liquid cooled i7 computer at home that struggles a bit with the load also which makes me think that i should get the HP but i have seen some great statistics from the Lenovo X1.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Thanks

 

[RoryA]

If you have 32 bit Office, having 32GB of RAM won't really make a difference since Excel will only use about 2GB maximum. The faster the processor the better but beyond that you may be better off simply trying to improve the performance of your formulas etc.

 

[boguslav99]

That makes sense ... in your opinion would the xeon be better then an i7?

 

[RoryA]

Yes, if you can persuade someone to pay for them.

 

[boguslav99]

Thanks Rory! Looks like i will be placing a request for a Z820 today ... unless someone else on the forum has other ideas.

 

[RoryA]

You might want to at least test 64bit Excel first, if you can use it.

 

[mikerickson]

Are you sure that Excel is your best choice for software? Its a spreadsheet, not a data base. You might get better results from other software.