8 cores with 32GB of RAM, should be plenty - and keep in mind, it was working fine (pretty much instantly) until I upgraded to the latest version.
No local node.
I'd like to help you narrow down which version this was introduced, but I skipped a few months worth of versions. Worst case scenario I could locate the .deb's and try each.
Before that, however, could you confirm that this issue is reproducible on your end?