I'm not sure what your server specs are but I'm running in a single CPU VM with 2 GB of RAM. Certainly minimal server specs and it's snappy as can be for me. Very responsive and a real improvement on v7.

Edit (specs description)

On v7, I'm using nginx with a tuned psql. On v8, I've been testing out of the box with the builtin Odoo server. So the amounts of data between v7 and v8 are different in my case. However, in spite of the tuning differences, v8 feels quite responsive on my local network. I don't use SAS so I can't answer for the hosted version.

Myke, it's a world question. Odoo is lazy for nature. I tested into Odoo official server and see the same slow. Some blogs said that Odoo is slow because the version of database, the Firebird, but looking around the software, I convinced that the show happen because de way of requests. Apparently, ever request are JSON, and make it's a lot of strings loading, by http protocol.

My apologies for my mistakes in english, I'll improving! lol ..I hope I've been able to help you.

Best regards,

A 'localhost' installation of Odoo is quote a bit faster than what you experience online.  Under windows, with a 2GB virtual Ubuntu machine, all menus resolve to a view within a second with the included demo data.

What are the specs of your machine?