excel 2007 iterative (benchmark?) run

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hello everyone;
i don’t know if this posting belongs here, otherwise i’ll appreciate redirecting it to where it is appropriate.

my desktop pc [hp dx5150, 4gb ram, 250 gb hdd, amd64 processor], runs w7 32 bit home premium [hp], latest service pack, which i installed from 32 bit cd i bought to M$ when upgrading from xp.
my recently purchased laptop [lenovo T410, 2gb ram, 250 hdd] came with w7 professional 64 bit oem installed.
both machines have SAME office 2007, mozilla ff [MF], thunderbird [TB] email client and SAME other applications, and run them without any problem whatsoever.
i have a home-group network, and can access files so declared “shareable” between them; no problem there either.

nevertheless, there is a better performance in the laptop in terms of TB and MF access.
a recent posting in the w7 forum got me the knowledge that 64 bit OS makes a BETTER use of ram, thereby rendering faster operation.
given that the pc has the AMD64 processor, and that i ALSO have the 64 bit cd for w7 hp, i would like to have a way to run a (benchmark?) iterative file, seeing how long it takes in both machines.
i believe that comparing results will help me decide if going to 64 from 32.
backup to external storage is no concern; i have means to do it. another partition has all the data and work produced.
what comes to my mind would be some “excel iteration” which ALSO registers (COUNTS!!!) the seconds [and fractions of], it took until the iteration stopped (a sort of elapsed timer…).
i really don’t know if using visual basic could provide what i’m after, if affirmative, i would like to appeal to the goodwill of some members of this forum which i know very knowledgeable in that regard for your help.

comments / suggestions / recommendations / warnings / alerts and of course, links to site having what i want [do i have to emphasize FREE?], will be kindly appreciated

daniel rozenberg.

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Daniel,

There are free benchmark tools out there that are designed to test stress your PC in all areas of performance including memory, CPU, GPU, and hard drive. A taxing spreadsheet is by no means an efficient method. Google Novabench or 3D Mark.

As far as moving to a 64bit OS is a no brainer. 64 bit OS can also handle files more efficiently; it has become the standard. Today, drivers for just about any device have a 64 bit version. All your 32 bit applications and hardware should still run smoothly. With 32bit, maximum usable RAM is about 3.35GB. Throw in your OS, background processes and antivirus software, you have much less. If your system shares memory with its GPU, your running on “E”. Open a couple of applications and you will notice your hard drive running as it is now being used for virtual memory. Unless you have an SSD, your hard drive used as virtual memory is 1000 time slower than RAM. Your PC ends up in a crawl. With disk in hand and memory as cheap as it is, just go ahead and upgrade. You will notice a major climb in the Windows index. Keep in mind that there are hardware limitations with motherboards as to the upgrade limit with RAM but you can be comfortable knowing that even with much older PCs you are most likely guaranteed at least 8GB. Newer PC limits, theoretically 128GB.

There are so much more in this discussion but I will leave it there for others to contribute.

HTH,
Maud

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thanks, Maude.

i’ll go to 64.

also thanks for your reference about Google Novabench; which i’ll give a try.

danielr2

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