Forum Discussion

AlphaEra's avatar
AlphaEra
Copper Contributor
Aug 22, 2025

Will I save resource when adding an If function before complicated functions?

Hi! I just have a simple question. Will I save resource by adding an IF function before doing complicated functions? Or Excel will do all the functions first and return the result, no matter if the...
excel
office 365
SergeiBaklan's avatar
SergeiBaklan
Diamond Contributor
Aug 22, 2025

Not exactly. Let say we have formula

=IF(A1=TRUE, AVERAGE(SORT(UNIQUE(SEQUENCE(100000,500)))),0)

It takes couple of seconds to generate result if in A1 is TRUE. If we change on FALSE, zero will be returned immediately.

However, if we remove AVERAGE() and formula returns big enough spill, changing TRUE on FALSE could take even more time than direct calculation - Excel cleans the grid removing that spill.

With

=IFS(A1=TRUE, AVERAGE(SORT(UNIQUE(SEQUENCE(100000,500)))),TRUE, 0)

both TRUE and FALSE take about couple of seconds to return result.

m_tarler's avatar
m_tarler
Bronze Contributor
Aug 22, 2025

Sorry let me clarify.  If the conditional is an array.  So if we tweak your example:

=IF(A1:A2=TRUE, AVERAGE(SORT(UNIQUE(SEQUENCE(100000,500)))),0)

Even if BOTH A1&A2 are False it will still take a second or so to calculate

  • SergeiBaklan's avatar
    SergeiBaklan
    Diamond Contributor
    Aug 23, 2025

    Oh, yes m_tarler​ , you are right. With array of conditions it first evaluates each expression and after that builds array of results depends on values in conditions array. With only exception of single element of conditions array, e.g. ={FALSE} in A1.

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