Advice on a PC build

Tinkering
1

Hello,
I’m going to build a Roon PC.
It just needs to be able to run Roon.
The goal is for it to be as quiet as possible.
I have calculated the cooling for this.
Which LGA1700 processor is the minimum do you think and how much RAM does it need?
Fredrik :grin:

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If it’s just an occasional streaming, an i3 processor will suffice. Pentium is too weak. If a large own library is available or is being built up, everything from i7 is better and the cooling is only needed for intensive audio analysis when all cores are used (setting matter).

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I think that the advice given for how you dimension a Roon core is of its time. You have to consider a few things. Firstly Roon is essentially designed around the Nucleus products sporting 7th and 8th gen processors primarily designed for very small form factors or laptops. Consequently if you are freed from those constraints you can do a lot with what is in modern processor terms, less. For example:
Comparison
I’d go with 8gb memory or 16 if you want to future proof.

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Hi Fredrik,

I built my quiet (= passive cooled) Roon Core PC 2,5 years ago. I built it on LGA1151 with a Core i5 8600-K processor and 16 GB RAM. It’s running on Ubuntu server and has performed beautifully and totally stable.

The sizing of the Roon Core depends of course on your collection size (how many tracks do you have now, how many tracks are you expecting to manage in Roon) and your processing needs (how many zones for streaming, DSP, etc.).

So, what I would do if I had to build a quiet Roon Core right now is based on my previous experience. I would go for a mini-ITX board, probably this current ‘Corporate Stable Model’ from ASUS: Prime H610i-Plus D4-CSM.

As to processor, for passive cooling the lower the wattage, the better. I’d select the Core i5-12400.

I’d go with 16 GB RAM, a 256 GB NVMe disk for OS and Roon, and a second SSD for track storage.

I am partial to the HDPlex series of chassis; I built my Core PC around the H3V3 and I like it a lot. This model performed perfectly with 65W processors; the H5 model can cool up to 95W.

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