Suggested hardware

If you’re going for a headless Mac Mini you may want to get a ‘dummy display adapter’. There is an issue with the GPU of Mac Mini whereby they behave sub-optimally if there is no display attached.

Take a look here and here for details.

I thought this was only with older Mac minis.

Nope, also with recent ones. The HDMI dummy works best – in case your mini has HDMI out.

Thank you.
I will probably run an HDMI cable out through to my Oppo if I have to view the screen.

Intel NUC with Skylake is coming this year and it seems (crossing my fingers) that it will have the normal HDMI connection (not mini) so a touch screen with the NUC hanging on the back connected using a CYP flexi-form cable should be a snug fit.

Mike, I’m not sure my system would meet the minimum requirements - can you please advise: It’s an Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33GHz and 4G RAM on a 32-bit OS and x64 based processor. Not sure how that compares to the “i5 Ivy Bridge” you mention? Thanks.

To give something concrete, when I run two streams I use 30% of a thread on my Mac. Its a 6 dual-threaded core Mac Pro running at 3GHz. For other processing, I’ve compared it to a 3GHz 2 dual-threaded core i3 and core-per-core the load is very similar for similar tasks. Note that these are full power desktop CPUs, not the mobile processors found in Macbooks, NUCs, etc.

I’m thinking of installing my first and only always-up Windows instance to run a Roon Core on, since Windows is your porting base and it all apparently runs more efficiently on Windows than on the operating systems I usually trust.

Does your recommendation of Windows 8.1 still stand, or is that Windows 10 the kids in Redmond have been pushing now a better choice? Is a desktop Windows flavor a better choice than any of the available Windows Server versions?

Note that I’m explicitly talking about a place to run the Core; there would be essentially no direct user interaction with this box.

Thanks!

I ran the Core on Windows 8.1 on my main desktop; then I set up a dedicated NUC for Roon and put Wondows 10 on it. I find no difference in how Roon works. But Win 10 is just a better experience in general. I now have Win 10 on all machines in the house.

Quesiton: Just picked up the NUC I7 and noticed it runs integrated graphics (Iris 6100) planning on adding a dell touch screen and not sure how all this will impact once I load the Roon software. It calls out that it is better to have dedicated graphics but with the NUC it comes with Iris 6100. Any thoughts? Did get the 16GB Ram and 500 ssd so think i should be good there. What is the display you are using with your NUC?

I am running almost the same setup except a 1TB SSD and am driving a 27" 4K display with no problems at all, the Iris 6100 is a great adapter for this in my opinion. Not up to games playing but otherwise fine for all standard desktop apps.

Many thanks to the Roon team for this very helpful forum. Has anyone tried running Roon on the Intel Grass Canyon NUC, which comes with a Pentium N3700 and Windows 10 installed? I plan to use the NUC headless with a library of <1000 albums. I understand from this discussion that the N3700 would suffice, but I’m curious to know if anyone has experience suggesting that there would be a performance benefit to going with an i5 model instead.

My opinion: with a <1000 album collection, running in headless mode, there will be few if any observable differences in the overall experience.

The only thing that gives me pause with that NUC is the 32gb eMMC, assuming you’re planning to boot from it–I have some experience running Roon’s database on that sort of media, and I’m not totally happy with the way it performs. That said, with <1000 albums, it may not matter.

Thanks very much. I am planning to add an internal drive; I’ll make sure to boot from that.

with the nuc5i5xxx models, you cant go wrong… especially with a samsung evo m.2 ssd (80mm)

@brian is right about your library size, but if the i5 is in your budget, I’d suggest you get that. You wont regret it.

Ok, I’m sold on the i5. Thank you both!

If I get a smaller m.2 (120GB) to use as my boot drive and place my music library on an internal HDD, will I get the full benefit of the SSD for Roon?

I use an m.2 120gb SSD with an i5 NUC. Music files are on a USB drive and NAS. Performance is excellent. Boot time and database load is very quick. The m.2 are really very fast.

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hi

im in the process at putting together a windows based server with the roon core installed,i have 6tb of flac files.
which processer should i be looking at i5 or xeon im a complete noob with processers which models of i5/xeon as there are many models and they just go over my head.
how much ram would i need i was looking at 16gig would that be enough?
all help welcome.
thanks
gary

i7 is what I use for the core. 16 gb sounds good. But purchase so you can increase later if you need to, i.e. assuming 4 Ram slots, put in 2x8gb instead of 4x4gb, so if you need more ram you can put more in without removing any

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I5 Intel NUC with 2 x 8gb RAM is working great for me.

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