RAM vs. CPU for Large Word and .pdf Files and 20+ Web Tabs

[George-Washington]

Hello,

I've read every article I can find and am still confused by the RAM vs CPU question. I have an i7 CPU and 12 GB RAM and 512 GB hard drive at the moment, and work as an academic. I work with huge files, mainly Word and .pdfs, which contain text, photos, graphics, and many foreign languages. When I have a huge Word file open (an entire book I am writing, so 300+ pages of this), it often freezes up and I also get an "indexing" message. I have a similar issue with many web tabs open (20+), many of these also containing medieval manuscripts in .pdf form. The computer freezes up, often for so much time that I need to reboot

I am buying a 2018 MacBook Pro at the advice of a colleague who does similar work. I will get the 15 inch because of screen size. Would a bigger CPU or RAM be better if I have the choice? My inclination was to do the i9 CPU with 16GB RAM (and 512 GB SSD). Is this foolish, and I should step down to the i7 CPU and go for the 32GB RAM?

Thanks for the advice.

GW

 

[The Mercurian]

GW the problem here is not the hardware, its the software. Word just doesn't deal well with very large files, expecially if you include references and images and such stuff. The standard advice when writing a book would be to use Latex or something like Scrivener. I have edited a 323 page document in Word on a Mac and it was usuable - but every now and then I needed to wait for it to catchup with me, or the indexing went screwy, or occasionally word crashed.

If I were doing something that big again I would not use Word for it.

 

[Poki]

Yep, Word is horrible in handling large files. I currently use InDesign for these tasks. Even though it doesn't have great performance either, you can split documents and arrange them in INDB files, which is quite a clean workflow.

The Affinity Publisher Beta starts next month, maybe you might want to look into that too. Should be far cheaper than InDesign and Serif is excellent in optimizing the performance of their software.

 

[George-Washington]

Thanks. Yeah, Word is a necessary evil for me. I've used scrivener etc. and they are even more of a pain as eventually they need to be compiled to Word, and inevitably the formatting never lines up the way it needs to. It's only an issue with the "final" books. Individual chapters are small enough that it's not a problem.

I do still have the issue with the multiple web tabs, pdfs, other programs, etc. being open simultaneously. Not an easy thing to figure out for me.

 

[leman]

As others have said, the problem is not the performance, but the choice of tools. If algorithms used are inefficient, faster hardware can only do this much. In particular, Word and pdf plugins for web are not known to be best designed pieces of software around.

For large PDFs, try various standalone PDF viewers, those usually perform much better. For academic work, definitely LaTeX (or some tool that leverages it).

P.S. If you are obliged to submit your final work in Word format (you have my condolences), I suggest that you look into pandoc and its version of markdown. Its very easy to work with and it can generate both LaTeX files and Word files.

 

[poorcody]

Since you're stuck with Word, I would suspect that memory was more of an issue than CPU. But you can check that by opening up Activity Monitor and looking at memory usage. If there is a lot of swapping when working, then bumping up to 32GB will help more. Certainly when having a lot of browser tabs open with large files, RAM is more significant than CPU.

https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/welcome/mac
https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/view-memory-usage-actmntr1004/mac

 

[George-Washington]

Thanks! I'm using a Dell at the moment. Looking at the task manager, when I open up a bunch of files and web pages, everything goes way up in %...processor, RAM, hard drive...so as always, it's just clear as mud! I appreciate all the responses though. I'm probably overthinking it all at the end of the day.

 

[M.Rizk]

I am having similar issues too. Word suddenly starts using ~30% of the CPU on my Intel i7 4790K Windows PC even when minimized. I only have to plug-ins installed (Grammarly and Endnote). I think it is a Word issue.

I am planning on getting a new Mac soon and also unable to decide on what to give priority to, i9, or 32 GB RAM.

 

[Dave245]

Word really isn’t the best for large files, as a writer I use Final Draft for script but for notes and all other writing I use Apple’s Pages, it works really well.

 

[The Mercurian]

I am having similar issues too. Word suddenly starts using ~30% of the CPU on my Intel i7 4790K Windows PC even when minimized. I only have to plug-ins installed (Grammarly and Endnote). I think it is a Word issue.

I am planning on getting a new Mac soon and also unable to decide on what to give priority to, i9, or 32 GB RAM.

Could be an Endnote issue. That thing is the devils work I don't know why universities push it.

 

[leman]

Thanks! I'm using a Dell at the moment. Looking at the task manager, when I open up a bunch of files and web pages, everything goes way up in %...processor, RAM, hard drive...so as always, it's just clear as mud! I appreciate all the responses though. I'm probably overthinking it all at the end of the day.

Ah, you are using Windows. I am sure that your PDF problem will mostly disappear once you start using Preview or other applications under MacOS. I'd recommend you to avoid Adobe Reader if you can, its poorly coded (like most of Adobe software, alas). Office might remain a problem though.