A system for performance-based system design configuration generation as preprocessing for optimal system performance simulation, the system comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory memory having stored thereon modules executed by the processor, the modules comprising: a design configuration module configured to receive seed designs, a specification of requirements for a system design, and user defined goals for the system, and to generate a set of system design configurations, each system design configuration comprising a unique set of components that satisfy system goals and system requirements; an explainable recommendation module configured to: perform a requirement decomposition that decomposes requirements into function and physical block representations that are mappable to the components; determine, for each system design configuration, an estimated system performance value associated with each component of the system design configuration, wherein the value represents the component-based contribution to performance of the system configuration based on a simulation model; and rank the list of system configurations according to system performance values; and a user interface module configured to communicate information exchanged between a graphical user interface and the explainable recommendation module, wherein the graphical user interface displays a design dashboard that presents the system configurations in rank order, and for each system configuration, the estimated system performance value for each of the system configuration components; wherein the top ranked system configurations are recommended to the user for performance simulation setup. a processor; and a non-transitory memory having stored thereon modules executed by the processor, the modules comprising: a design configuration module configured to receive seed designs, a specification of requirements for a system design, and user defined goals for the system, and to generate a set of system design configurations, each system design configuration comprising a unique set of components that satisfy system goals and system requirements; an explainable recommendation module configured to: perform a requirement decomposition that decomposes requirements into function and physical block representations that are mappable to the components; determine, for each system design configuration, an estimated system performance value associated with each component of the system design configuration, wherein the value represents the component-based contribution to performance of the system configuration based on a simulation model; and rank the list of system configurations according to system performance values; and a user interface module configured to communicate information exchanged between a graphical user interface and the explainable recommendation module, wherein the graphical user interface displays a design dashboard that presents the system configurations in rank order, and for each system configuration, the estimated system performance value for each of the system configuration components; wherein the top ranked system configurations are recommended to the user for performance simulation setup. a design configuration module configured to receive seed designs, a specification of requirements for a system design, and user defined goals for the system, and to generate a set of system design configurations, each system design configuration comprising a unique set of components that satisfy system goals and system requirements; an explainable recommendation module configured to: perform a requirement decomposition that decomposes requirements into function and physical block representations that are mappable to the components; determine, for each system design configuration, an estimated system performance value associated with each component of the system design configuration, wherein the value represents the component-based contribution to performance of the system configuration based on a simulation model; and rank the list of system configurations according to system performance values; and perform a requirement decomposition that decomposes requirements into function and physical block representations that are mappable to the components; determine, for each system design configuration, an estimated system performance value associated with each component of the system design configuration, wherein the value represents the component-based contribution to performance of the system configuration based on a simulation model; and rank the list of system configurations according to system performance values; and a user interface module configured to communicate information exchanged between a graphical user interface and the explainable recommendation module, wherein the graphical user interface displays a design dashboard that presents the system configurations in rank order, and for each system configuration, the estimated system performance value for each of the system configuration components; wherein the top ranked system configurations are recommended to the user for performance simulation setup.