Changing CPU allocation to Excel 2011 for Mac

[d4n13vt]

I am running some hefty Excel models and the calculations take hours to complete. I notice that Excel only ever use about 100% of 1 CPU and less than 800GB of RAM.

Since I have the MacBook Pro with 8 CPU's and 16GB of RAM, I would love to throw some more tin at the problem, but I can't seem to find any setting to change the CPU allocation in the Excel preferences like you did in the older versions of Excel.

Any ideas on where to change the number of CPU's attacking my excel calculation problem?

 

[maflynn]

There's no way to change an application to use more then one cpu. The application needs to be written to leverage more cores. Most apps aren't multi-threaded so they only take advantage of a single core.

 

[d4n13vt]

Excel 2011 for Mac - multi threading

Thanks Mike.

So are you saying Excel 2011 for Mac is NOT written to hyper thread like its PC version?

 

[Merode]

Thanks Mike.

So are you saying Excel 2011 for Mac is NOT written to hyper thread like its PC version?

MS Office for Mac is written to make you buy a PC.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Thanks Mike.

So are you saying Excel 2011 for Mac is NOT written to hyper thread like its PC version?

Yes.

Also, you must have good contacts inside Apple, since you have an octacore MBP.

 

[pacmania1982]

Thanks Mike.

So are you saying Excel 2011 for Mac is NOT written to hyper thread like its PC version?

You mean threaded. Hyperthreading is a completely different kettle of fish...

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Yes.

Also, you must have good contacts inside Apple, since you have an octacore MBP.

That's because there are 8 logical processors on 4 physical cores. Each core can execute two threads which OS X sees as 8 CPUs. This is what hyperthreading is.

 

[maflynn]

Thanks Mike.

So are you saying Excel 2011 for Mac is NOT written to hyper thread like its PC version?

Excel 2011 is based on old code and does not leverage the multiple cores that are available. As mentioned, its not hyper threading buy multi-threaded. Excel probably doesn't need to be multi-threaded that much as the calculations are fairly serial and cannot be easily divided up (AFAIK).

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Excel 2011 is based on old code and does not leverage the multiple cores that are available. As mentioned, its not hyper threading buy multi-threaded. Excel probably doesn't need to be multi-threaded that much as the calculations are fairly serial and cannot be easily divided up (AFAIK).

I don't know about the Mac side, but Excel on the PC side is both multi and hyper threading enabled. My Excel files use 4 threads (2 real, 2 hyper) when recalculating my spreadsheets. This is in Office 2007.