I do believe it - I was able to get the NUC5i3MYHE (same processor as the NUC5i3RYH) to perform DSP on multiple zones, including running convolution filters, DSD upsampling (to DSD128) and PCM downconverting without breaking playback.
However DSD upsampling isn’t something I have my Roon Core perform.
I do use a Convolution filter for a pair of Headphones, and that, for some higher formats, caused a RPS with my NUC7i7DNKE, but I only discovered the filter after migrating from the NUC5i3MYHE to the NUC7i7DNKE.
One different is that Music analysis, on upload/folder scan, is much faster, but that’s the quad cores being used for multi-threaded processing.
Maybe RoonOS 2.0 could use a multi-threading kernel library so breaking the dependency on the single thread performance?
NUC5i3MYHE is actually slightly faster than both NUC5i3RYH and NUC5i5RYH. The biggest NUC5i3MYHE downside is that it doesn’t support NVMe drives, so you have to use the slower SATA SSD. NUC5i3RYH / NUC5i5RYH / NUC5i7RYH do support NVMe drives.
It gets even more interesting when you start comparing RPS on different DSD upsampling rates.
5i3 may be faster on DSD64, but falls short on DSD512 …
PS. NUC5i7RYH and 7i7BNH smoke the 7i7DNKE on all rates. NUC5i7RYH gets 12.4x on DSD64 …
PS.2: I have tested over 20 NUCs in all power settings (the above is in the max power settings). The power settings make a difference on some NUCs, but not all …
Also these tests are from what type of file - a 16/44.1 Redbook rip, or a 24/192 PCM file?
Furthermore, what were the DSD Processing settings? As parallelizing the Sigma-Delta processing over multiple cores will have an effect, etc.
My NUC8I7BEH/Rock has met its match. Converting a DSD 256 - 5.1 channel file down to PCM 192 - 5.1 channel for playback via HDMI to my receiver.
Not a big deal, I have other MC DSD playback devices but I wanted to hear the track with the Room Correction only available when the receiver dac is doing the playback.
The signal path showed multiple PCM conversions down to 192. At first it was playing fine with 1x but towards the end of the track it stumbled and switched to the next track.
The NUC 8i7 has 2.7 base processor frequency. I’m curious if there is another NUC with higher base processor frequency that could handle the multiple down conversions without stumbling. Again, not a big deal, just curious.
Thanks for recommendation, I bought the 500GB version which I know is far above what I need but the 250GB was out of stock at Amazon, and the 500GB was only £10 more. Also got 2 x 4GB Crucial RAM so should be a decent spec overall. Both are coming tomorrow so hopefully get on it then.
One thing I noticed about my NUC is it has Windows 10 already installed by the looks of it, is this a problem for ROCK installation as I noticed the instructions for install said “At this point, there’s no operating system on the NUC, but it should boot and you should see the Intel welcome/splash screen”
Not for Rock, the installer will just re-format the drive and blow it away - maybe for you if you ever want to use windows 10 on your NUC, in which case, first remove/replace the drive and store it somewhere safe.
Nope, you don’t need to do this. You can just reinstall Windows on the original SSD - Microsoft keeps tabs on the hardware, and knows that it has a valid license.
That’s true, but, why go through the hassle of re-installation? The 500 gb hard drive is way above what is needed for ROCK anyway and may not even be an M.2 but an SSD.
I personally, would get a new and smaller M.2 drive. And just keep the other drive to go back to Windows if I wanted, or, use as the internal storage drive (assuming it is an SSD)
I think for that cost of a further NVMe 250GB SSD, it would be easier to get a fresh one for ROCK, leaving the original as is, if you ever want to return the NUC to being a Windows based machine.
I did this, when I bought my NUC7i7DNKE which came with a Windows image.
Just put a new Samsung 270 Pro 256GB SSD in and started from there.
Yes its an SSD. As well as a recommendation for that drive by @Adam_Arczynski I noticed it was also a recommended disk (one of many) on the Intel website - none of the disks they recommended were under 250GB, and as I said in my earlier post the 500GB version was only £10 dearer than the unavailable 250GB version on Amazon, so it was almost a no brainer.
Getting back to my previous post about whether Windows 10 was already installed, it was yet more misinformation from the listing of my NUC on Amazon. I opened up the NUC and to no surprise whatsover there was no disk already installed that Windows 10 could be installed on. I must admit that having known zilch about NUCs before embarking on this, one thing I have learned is that the information about spec etc on Amazon for various NUC’s that I researched is absolutely abysmal at best, and misleading at it’s worst.
Sorry Geoff, my post was badly worded. What I meant was they said in the description that Windows 10 was installed. So my basic understanding would be that for Windows 10 to be present it would need to have a disk already installed, or have I got that wrong?
Well I can’t prove the MiniAir 11 Mini PC doesn’t comes pre-installed with Windows 11 Pro as I never bought it. But given the price of this is just over a couple of hundred pounds I doubt it has a disk installed and is probably barebone. So unless there is a way of installing Windows on either of these machines that can be achieved without loading it to a disc then yes, neither of these claims are true.I am genuinely not sure, maybe it can be pre installed elsewhere. And to be clear they were not really my quotes, I just copy and pasted the product spec.
Your NUC8i7 may be throttling the CPU. After the cores reach a certain temp (on the 10i7 it is 94’C, not sure on the 8i7, but most likely similar) the CPU reduces the turbo clock speed to lower the core temps.
On the NUC10i7 I have on hand, the freq. multiplier goes to 39 for a period of time, but after the temps reach 94’c, the multiplier goes down to 30 (and the CPU freq drops accordingly).
You may try putting it in a Akasa plato case, but at those loads, it may overheat as well.
IMO for those kind of loads you need to build a custom server, using intel desktop CPU and MoBo where you can use more efficient cooling.
