PC Recommendations for Financial Modeling
Hi WSO,
I am a sophomore, and I am getting ready for Junior fall IBD SA recruiting. I'm also currently going through a comprehensive training program involving Accounting, Modelling, Corp Finance..., the works. I am new to modeling on excel, and I am determined to master it as quickly as possible. One thing that's possibly holding be back is the fact that I currently only have Excel 2016 on Mac. I have heard from many sources that excel on Mac is NOT the way to go for excel modeling...so I'm considering buying a new PC. Does anyone have any PC suggestions? My budget's upper limit is ~$1500. Also, is modeling on Mac Excel THAT bad?
Thanks!
To your last question: Mac = Fintech PC = IB There is no alternative
Mac Office 2016 is a vast improvement over previous versions, but there's still no alt key so it's not that great.
I hear the Dell XPS 13 is the best PC by a wide margin. Just make sure that there's dedicated F keys and pg up/down/delete keys because more and more laptops are merging the two.
Are you looking for a laptop or desktop?
Laptop.
I also have a mac and am considering a new pc for similar reasons What if I run bootcamp with a windows keyboard? Does that make it workable? Never used bootcamp though so no idea about how it performs compared to a dedicated pc
If you are looking for a laptop, you can't go wrong with the Dell XPS 13 line. I have the kaby lake version and I have minimal complaints after 3 months or so of usage.
Honestly most PCs within your price range (also those significantly under your budget's cap) will let you model to your heart's content.
Any PC built in the past 5 years will work. It's not like working in Excel requires large amounts of processing power... I'm sure you could literally walk to your local public library, jump on a comp with excel and model your heart away.
Anything with an i7-quad core and 16GB+ of RAM is more than enough. All other features are a nice to have assuming you have a fully functional keyboard and a gaming mouse. Costco.com has some great deals on HP Envy laptops.
Lenovos are also very common PCs throughout the business world - Thinkpads (X1 Carbon, T series, etc.) are standard issue at many shops.
You can buy a really shitty PC (~=$600) that will serve as an Excel training ground just fine. For finance, ditch the mac.
Thank you all.
As long as you have a solid state drive and enough ram (16 GB preferred) then you will be fine.
Modeling Tests - PC Type (Originally Posted: 10/11/2015)
Planning on getting a new laptop, and am also in the process of prepping for PE interviews. Obviously every place is different, but was hoping if you guys could let me know what type of laptops are generally given to you when you're given a modeling test at interviews? I'm assuming possibly the generic ThinkPad/Lenovos.
Asking since I wouldn't mind picking up a similar one to be as acclimated as possible.
Get a Lenovo - realistically it won't matter.
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