Please Recommend a PC Configuration for Heavy Excel Calculations

[dima777]

Quote from Scataphagos:

If what you really want is a laptop, you'll have to pay up for lesser performance. And for spreadsheets, don't you want to display more info at one time? This notebook shows SXGA resolution, 1680x1050. You could get one with UXGA.. 1920x1200.

If you want the most bang for your buck, desktop.

What makes a machine a "gamer" is mostly a hot graphics card and at least an adequate CPU. But for trading and analysis, no sense in spending money on a hot graphics card.

Thank you for your answer...I am quite use to my 15" Sony so I can concentrate more on the processing power - even if I wish to have a larger display for sure - given the size of the model I am working on right now.

 

[dima777]

Quote from opt789:

Your laptop is clearly out of date and a new system, especially a desktop, would help a lot, but you can try a few things in Excel. Do you need everything calculated all the time, or just once in awhile? Do you know simple visual basic?
I ask because I spent a long time recreating an option analysis spreadsheet in Excel 2003 to make it take a reasonable amount of time to calculate, but I used Excel’s visual basic. Don’t know if trying something like that would help you.

Thanks for your suggestion) Yes - I need the whole workbook to be calculate at the same time. I am thinking of learning the VB as I do not wish to leave my beloved Excel)) Can you recommend any book for the beginner?

 

[dima777]

Quote from MandelbrotSet:

I agree.

You should continue your work in excel Dima77, while also beginning a entry level course in visual basic, and progressing on in your programming knowledge from there.

You're already analytically inclined, so I will even go so far as to say that it shouldn't take you more than six months (18 months tops), to get totally up to speed and rewriting your []entire program[/u] in a programming language.

While you definitely can get a more highly powered PC, the truth of the matter is that your programming needs and quantitative abilities have outgrown excel.

Best-O-Luck to you.

Thank you for this inspirational message))) I have been thinking of converting the excel logic into a faster code but only by myself...Can you recommend me a good book on the VB?

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from dima777:

Thanks! What you mean by "budget mobo"? I think to spend up to 1000$ on the new setup - this desktop is sold at close to 500$ but without the monitor - the 19" or 20" monitors here are sold at 150$

Budget mobos have "onboard" video. That's OK if you want to run 1-2 monitors. If you want to run more, you'd benefit from a better one.

 

[dima777]

Quote from MandelbrotSet:

And another idea is porting your model over to Access (MS Database) in whole or at least part to deal with the massive data manipulation that your program has to do.

***

But I still "much" prefer the idea of you getting up to speed with programming and taking it from there.

Thanks but I think that my Access skilss are quite limited for such an operation)

 

[dima777]

Quote from risktaker:

Are you using DDE data in this workbook?

Nope...I am not using DDE...

 

[dima777]

So all in all you recommend that I go with the desktop solution? I have heard that having 1 GB of RAM is all what is needed for Excel 2003 - in other words it cannot access the rest if you have more...You heard this?

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from dima777:

So all in all you recommend that I go with the desktop solution? I have heard that having 1 GB of RAM is all what is needed for Excel 2003 - in other words it cannot access the rest if you have more...You heard this?

No. It's not a matter of "how much Excel might use", but rather the Operating System.

1-2GB of RAM is plenty for XP. For Vista, 4GB is right for 32-bit. For 64-bit, the more the better.

 

[EdgeHunter]

If you work with excel 2007 instead of 2003 it is more optimized for heavier financial calculations and programming...

It works in a multi-threaded process... and It allows more ram to be utilized... than 03

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687899.aspx

 

[opt789]

Quote from dima777:

Thanks for your suggestion) Yes - I need the whole workbook to be calculate at the same time. I am thinking of learning the VB as I do not wish to leave my beloved Excel)) Can you recommend any book for the beginner?

I have a new i7 chip desktop and I really like it, so if you can afford it and get a desktop I would recommend that and a 64 bit operating system so you will be ready for the future. As far as Excel VBA goes it is really easy to learn a lot just from the program because you can “record” macros and then look at the programming code, and it has a good help system. I am not sure as to a book because I don’t know your overall programming knowledge and aspirations, but amazon has good reviews on all their books so searching there should get you what you need. You can also search the web for Excel specific sites where you can post questions about how to make your worksheets better and faster.

Excel is not, and never has been an efficient program so if you have to do something very intensive then you will have to grow beyond Excel, but for a beginner you can do a lot once you learn some VBA.