Advice on buying a new PC (and O/S) primarily to run Quartus and Modelsim - thanks!

Rough rules of Thumb in order of things that cause the biggest spead-up + slowdown

1. RAM - dont have enough and your compile will slow to a crawl, if it even works at all. Ensure you have enough that virtual ram is not needed.

2. Processors - Faster processors are better, more cores are only good to a certain level. Most of the compile will probably be done on only 1 core, so the faster the better. Ensure you have actual cores, not virtual or hyperthreaded.

3. SSD might speed up a little, though this is unlikely to make a difference.

Having done compiles on the same PC on a local disk and network disk, it didnt really make a difference, unless the network was heavily loaded.