Yea sophisticated malware checks how many CPU cores PC has, how much hard drive space, some even check hardware temperature or if any debuggers are present. Windows malware got pretty sophisticated in the last 30 years.
I'm not a reverse engineer or a white hacker but I like reading about it. Most of the malware is made for Windows OS because of the Windows' enormous market share.
Majority of information about Windows malware I get from big computer security companies' research blogs like:
Majority of the research combes down to researching malware's capabilities regarding malware persistence, anti-VM techniques and anti-debugging techniques.
Here is for example good compilation of malware's anti-debugging and anti-VM techniques: