Looking to buy a Gen8 Intel NUC later this month to set-up a Roon ROCK server
Firstly, given the advice with previous, older generations seemed to be i3 was ok for all but the largest libraries/most multi-room usage, I thought that an 8i5 would be plenty powerful enough but I notice so many people building with 8i7. I’m currently only using Roon in two rooms (and never at the same time) with a library of just under 20,000 tracks, so am I to assume an 8i5 is likely to do me for the foreseeable unless there’s a drastic change?!
Secondly, is there a significant performance difference between 1x8GB stick of RAM vs 2x4GB sticks, given how ROCK utilises the memory?
Finally, I’m trying to work out if I should just make use of a space 128GB SATA SSD for the ROCK install or pony up for an M.2 NVMe. Is the latter likely to yield a significant performance difference for ROCK?
An i3 is more than enough. Don’t know your music buying habits, but it seems like it will take you a long time for you to get a large enough collection to tax the i3. The Roon Nucleus only uses an i3.
Intel machines use memory in such a manner that two sticks are better than one, even though the capacity is the same. There’s little price difference between the two choices.
An SSD is sufficient, but I suspect an M.2 NVMe runs cooler. Dunno. An M.2 will fit in a slimmer case. The price difference between the two choices is negligible.
As in all things audiophile, money is a factor. If the money spent is a consideration than my recommendations hold. If the money to upgrade to the bigger and better is chump change to you then, with the possible exception of more than 8GB of RAM, your can’t go wrong by over-engineering.
I think Danny said no. However, if you plan to have local music storage (instead of NAS or USB HDD) it’s best to leave the SATA port for 2.5" music HDD and use the m.2 slot for SSD for Roon database.
No. SATA III SSDs top out around 500MB/s sequential. That’s already 80 times the bandwidth of the worst-case music files (DSD512) and closer to 2500 times the bandwidth for redbook audio. NVME is total overkill. Also, if this is for your boot/system drive, NVME requires UEFI boot, and as I recall, ROCK still doesn’t support UEFI – only legacy BIOS booting.
NVME MIGHT be a performance boost while analyzing a library. But even then, its not purely IO during analysis, so the CPU might hold you back from exceeeding SATA III SSD speeds anyway. And analysis is typically a one-and-done operation per track, so not something to spend a lot of extra money for…
It occurs to me to add that although Roon recommends updating BIOS for ROCK, you don’t need to do that for the newer GENs. I didn’t need it for my GEN7.
Also, Intel makes a nifty utility for its NUC that will alert you to the availability of new release of BIOS and/or new releases of various drivers. If you do feel the need to update your BIOS, this utility is preferable to, as I remember it, the kludgy way the ROCK doc would have you do an update.
I think this recommendation has its roots in the fact that when ROCK was first released, it was at the time that Gen6 of the Intel NUCs were hitting the market. Soon after they did so, an issue was discovered with the voltage regulator circuitry that caused a percentage of the NUCs to turn themselves into a doorstop. Intel hurriedly released an BIOS update (0042, April 2016) that corrected this, and advised everyone to apply the upgrade asap.
Cheap as compared to same capacity from different brands, not compared to historical prices. I recall there is a thread here when someone purchased a SSD from an unknown brand, and resulted in his non-working Roon setup. Some of the cheapest SSD actually uses flash chips that do not pass the QC tests from large manufacturers. The QC-passed flash chips are sold at a normal price, while the others are sold at lower prices, sometimes under a different brand. So you get what you paid for.
Just pulled the trigger on an order for a NUC8i5BEH and a couple of sticks of 4GB DDR4 RAM for ROCK. I was going to get an NVMe drive too but they’re almost all 240GB now and I struggled to find a decent 120GB unit for a suitable price.
Initially I ordered a Kingston SUV500M8 120GB m.2 drive but it dawned on me that it’s unlikely to be any quicker than the SATA SSD drives that are sat in my house in an unemployed state, so I cancelled this. In my mind, by the time SATA SSD drives fall to the price where it’s sensible for me to consider having one for the actual music library, I’d be willing to buy an m.2 NVMe for the boot drive at that point.
Looking forward to having the dedicated Roon Core and not needing to have my PC on all the time!
So whats the verdict on i5 vs i7? I see there’s a $100 between each: 8i3 - 8i5, & 8i5 - 8i7. Is 8i5 the sweet spot? What about wasted watts and perhaps wasted multi-core performance?
