Current SSDs can saturate a SATA2 connection so a SATA3 connection is required to realize full performance.

New machines will have SATA3 but an upgrade scenario may not. An SSD attached to SATA2 will still be a lot faster than a mechanical drive. SATA3 add-on controller boards are available.

>Look for:
>
>I7 Processor
>SSD (as big as you can afford)
>At least 6 Gig RAM
>
>But you may be able to just install an SSD on your current machine and install VS on it.
>
>
>>I am starting to spend a lot more time in Visual Studio 2012 and am already growing aggravated with the unbelievably slowness, especially when it loads. This machine has an AMD Phenom II X4 820 processor running at 2.80 GHz with 6 GB of memory, lots of free space on the hard drive. Can anyone recommend a machine that will make VS run like greased lightning? Everything else I use runs with acceptable speed.
>>
>>Thanks in advance for any advice, especially if you are a VS 2012 user.