What are the best specs for a pc and Excel

[Sjhc1177]

Hi. I'm looking at replacing my work desktop pc.

I do a lot of data processing. And open many sheets at once.

I currently use a Xeon i7 (6700), 32gb and 1tb ssd.

What would be the best items to purchase for performance. What improves the system the most.

 

[cmajka]

I would definitely recommend 64 bit OS and 64 bit Excel

 

[Ken Puls]

Hi. I'm looking at replacing my work desktop pc.

I do a lot of data processing. And open many sheets at once.

I currently use a Xeon i7 (6700), 32gb and 1tb ssd.

What would be the best items to purchase for performance. What improves the system the most.

That spec is actually awesome, and should be MORE than enough for data processing. I personally have a quad core processor, 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD hard drive.

The big key is that in order to take advantage of your RAM (the most important part in this equation for Power Pivot), you MUST be using 64Bit Excel. If you use 32bit, you're capping your available RAM at 3GB no matter how much is in your machine.

Honestly, if you're upgrading because your Excel is slow, try looking at the bitness of your Excel version. If it's 32 bit, I'd just replace Excel with a 64 bit version and save the cost of the new PC.