From a hardware standpoint, the more RAM the better. From a software
standpoint, anything you can do to reduce "overhead" within Excel will
be useful to you. Overhead is any type of formatting: date / time /
numeric etc formats, colors, pictures or graphics, or anything else
that makes the spreadsheet visually appealing (or even just readable).
Also, you might disable any formulas and particularly array formulas
that you don't need specifically.

I agree that Access has a steeper learning curve- but it handles
databases and large datasets well. I have a number of thoughts
regarding that but they're all editorials, so I'll do us all a favor
and quit now!