Hardware specification for dealing with large files (Excel 2003 and 2007)

[benjrees]

Hi All

Apologies for repeating parts of other subjects, but I was wondering
what people thought were the most important hardware requirements for a
machine to effectively calculate large Excel spreadsheets.
Specifically, I have problems at the moment both with re-calculations
(can take a few minutes) plus things like re-calculating cell contents
(when copy-and-pasting formulae) can take forever, often leading me to
kill the Excel process.. We're currently on Excel 2003 but are looking
to upgrade when the new version comes out.

As a starter for ten, I'm guessing the following are the important
factors:

1) Processor - as fast as I can get. Is it worth getting a dual
processor? I read somewhere, "No" for Excel 2003 but possible for 2007.
2) RAM - as much as possible. I'm thinking 2Gb.
3) Hard disk - not as important because I should, hopefully, have
enough RAM to deal with the spreadsheet.
4) Display cards etc - more or less irrelevant.

Thanks

Ben

 

[jkend69315]

Ben, the processor is important. Do NOT get a Celeron, because they do
not have math co-processors. Because of this, a real Pentium rated
slower than a Celeron will be faster than the Celeron in crunching
numbers.
James

 

[aaron.kempf]

James;

I'm just curious; do you have some evidence for that?

I think that it sounds like a load; personally.

I'd just love to find out more about it. For example; would a math
co-processor help a database server?

Back in the day; these were on the motherboard; and not the processor..
right?

Any way to make a db server faster; by adding a math co-processor card?

just curious


-Aaron

 

[Harlan Grove]

(e-mail address removed) wrote...

Ben, the processor is important. Do NOT get a Celeron, because they do
not have math co-processors. Because of this, a real Pentium rated
slower than a Celeron will be faster than the Celeron in crunching
numbers.

....

Celerons don't have co-processors per se. They have built-in floating
point units (FPUs), which have been part of Intel CPUs since the
80486DX. The FPUs process the machine instructions formerly processed
by math co-processors (through the 80387).

 

[jkend69315]

I got talked into a Celeron against my better judgement when I first
got this very machine built. It just crept along on doing number
crunching. It was so slow I had to take it back and get a real Pentium
installed. The difference was amazing. I was told the difference was
due to the Celeron's lack of a math coprocessor, so that may not be
exactly right. But I can say from experience a Celeron is not a good
choice for number crunching. James

 

[aaron.kempf]

it's just fascinating.

i've never had a celeron.

is the same thing true of 'semprons and durons' vs athlons?

 

[benjrees]

Based on the above I'll avoid a Celeron but - what about the issue of a
dual processor? As I say, I read somewhere that Excel 2003 will only
use one processor, making it pointless to have two, but that Excel 2007
will provide this functionality. Also though, surely it would help
having two, even with Excel 2003, because the other processor could,
theoretically, deal with all the other stuff (Email, Word, Internet,
all the other processes that seems to run on a modern PC which I have
no idea what they does), whilst the first processor looks after number
crunching..

Ben

 

[jkend69315]

Ben, My dismal experience with the Celeron is about the limit of my
experience on hardware issues. Seems like two processors would be
better than one -- the two heads better than one axiom -- but I have to
admit ignorance. I guess everyone knows that you just can't have too
much RAM. And there are graphics accelerators that are good for that
kind of thing. And of course, laptop processors are a different
animal.
Aaron, I haven't had an AMD processor since the old K6 days. The K6
was a very good product. But the shop I've been using for my PCs for
the last few years uses Intel. I wish I knew more about hardware
issues. There must be a newsgroup out there somewhere on this subject.
James

 

[Harlan Grove]

(e-mail address removed) wrote...

I got talked into a Celeron against my better judgement when I first
got this very machine built. It just crept along on doing number
crunching. It was so slow I had to take it back and get a real Pentium
installed. The difference was amazing. I was told the difference was
due to the Celeron's lack of a math coprocessor, so that may not be
exactly right. But I can say from experience a Celeron is not a good
choice for number crunching. James

....

The big difference between Pentium and Celeron is the on-chip cache:
the Pentium's is larger than the Celeron's. For some types of number
crunching, that could be critical. Cache faults require memory access,
and that in turn involves differences in bus speeds between Pentiums
and Celerons.

 

[Harlan Grove]

(e-mail address removed) wrote...

Based on the above I'll avoid a Celeron but - what about the issue of a
dual processor? As I say, I read somewhere that Excel 2003 will only
use one processor, making it pointless to have two, but that Excel 2007
will provide this functionality. Also though, surely it would help
having two, even with Excel 2003, because the other processor could,
theoretically, deal with all the other stuff (Email, Word, Internet,
all the other processes that seems to run on a modern PC which I have
no idea what they does), whilst the first processor looks after number
crunching..

It's true that Excel 2003 and prior won't use multiple processors.
However, that implies that multiple processor support is built-in at
application rather than OS level, and that would mean that Windows
can't use one processor for Excel and another for everything else.

The OS, Windows, may use both processors, but I believe it only
provides one set of time slices. That is, Windows won't run one
application on one processor and others on the other processor at the
same time. Rather, Windows runs all applications in repeating sequence,
giving a few milliseconds of processing time to App1, then a few to
App2, then a few to App3, then back to App1, etc., and when any of
these apps is running, it can make use of multiple processors or not.

IOW, Excel 2003 and prior derive NO BENEFIT from running on systems
with multiple processors. Other applications may, but not from running
in parallel on one processor while Excel runs simultaneously on the
other processor.

Excel 2007 supposedly can spread processing over multiple processors.

 

[aaron.kempf]

again; i'm just curious.. do Durons and Semprons have the same problem;
are they missing a math co-processor?

it could just be that I've had performance problems doing trivial tasks
in Excel because I'm not aware of these hardware requirements for
excel.

-Aaron

 

[Harlan Grove]

(e-mail address removed) wrote...

again; i'm just curious.. do Durons and Semprons have the same problem;
are they missing a math co-processor?

....

Check the processor specs online. Google search on Duron or Sempron.

With regard to Celerons, they have on-chip FPUs. That's *NOT* how they
differ from Pentiums. They differ in terms of on-chip cache size and
clock speed/bus speed differentials.

 

[aaron.kempf]

thanks Harlan.. glad to see correction of mis-information
I was curious; because I haven't heard of that math co-processor
explanation before

so it's not like it's a 10:1 performance difference; it's like a 20%
performance difference right?

 

[Harlan Grove]

(e-mail address removed) wrote...

again; i'm just curious.. do Durons and Semprons have the same problem;
are they missing a math co-processor?

....

Check the processor specs online. Google search on Duron or Sempron.

With regard to Celerons, they have on-chip FPUs. That's *NOT* how they
differ from Pentiums. They differ in terms of on-chip cache size and
clock speed/bus speed differentials.

 

[aaron.kempf]

I googled duron and sempron and i got a lot of hits

I can get general performance benchmarks on
www.anandtech.com
www.tomshardware.com

I just was hoping for some more specific hardware specs using Excel; I
mean-- since MS is getting rid of the limit on Rows and Columns; I
assume that people are really going to start bitching when Excel chokes
on 70,000 records lol

-Aaron

 

[Harlan Grove]

(e-mail address removed) wrote...
....

I just was hoping for some more specific hardware specs using Excel; I
mean-- since MS is getting rid of the limit on Rows and Columns; I
assume that people are really going to start bitching when Excel chokes
on 70,000 records lol

It'll choke well before that. The on-chip cache is unlikely to hold
more than a few thousand rows from spreadsheets OR records from
databases.

 

[aaron.kempf]

16mb cache on the new xeons.. right?

I swear; if it cost $4 grand??

probably not that bad of an investment.

 

[jkend69315]

Harlan, Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I
interpret your reply to mean that if the processor cannot cache
sufficient data to perform its current task(s), it must resort to the
bus to communicate with RAM or other memory external to the chip. And,
in this case, the processor's speed in handling bus fetches will affect
how much this operation slows down the process. Regards, James