Midrange Laptops For The Core,Which Laptops Are People Using?

hi
im after more advice on building a system for roon core,i was thinking of building a pc for roon core now im thinking of going the laptop root with direct attached storage.
my question would midrange laptops be ok for roon core which models are people using my budget is around £500 for a new or maybe a used one,ive been looking at dells.
i will also be using a tablet for remote so the graphics on the laptop are not a biggy for me.
thank you
for the continued help from forum members
gary

@gary I use an i5 based laptop, it is about 18 months or so old so not the latest cpu, it has 8gb of ram and a 500gb disk and runs Windows 10 and is a dedicated Roon server, pretty standard stuff, I do however run Roonserver rather than the graphical version I found this to be very beneficial as it uses less system resources, my system which consists of Meridian endpoints (for now anyway :wink:) has been rock solid since I switched to Roonserver.

Russ

hi russ

thank you for the reply, which make/model are you using?

@gary It is a Lenovo, I have no idea which model as I am not at home at the moment, but any i5 made in the last 2 years from Lenovo, dell hp or others should be fine.

Russ

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@gary Have you considered using something like a NUC instead of a laptop? At the equivalent in USD you could have a a pretty capable setup. Heck for that price you could probably also put together a very nice ITX system, especially if the graphical element isn’t a necessity.

To answer your question though i have used a laptop for Roon when needed. Mine is not very powerful and i didn’t run into any issues with a 10k or so library. If I were to buy something specifically for it i’d look for an i5, good amount of Ram, and SSD (or a model that you could eventually add an SSD to).

I would stick 8g of RAM in this, load the operating system of your choice into an mSATA SSD and your library into a 1TB SATA SSD, run 64 bit RoonServer on it, connect it by Ethernet to your router in a cupboard somewhere, Send the audio to a RoonReady network endpoint also connected by Ethernet to your router, configure it with a tablet and never look back.

I’ve got a prior generation i7 dual core BRIX and have had precisely zero problems with it. I like the i7 because I use HQP. If you wanted to you could up the spec on the model above to cope with HQP and room convolution if that interests you. Otherwise that quad core i5 will run RoonServer until the cows come home.

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hi

i have had a look at the nuc on amazon uk but unsure what im looking at as im a complete noob with pc building,can you buy a nuc prebuilt if not could you link me the parts i would need from amazon uk,my storage would be on a wd duo external hd,i was thinking of connecting my system to pc dac which my pioneer av 87 reciever has.

thank you
gary

hi
ive been looking at a dell inspiron 15 7000 [i7559-763blk] with a ssd and 16g ram,im im trying to get a good cost effective soloution my storage would be on a wd duo i have 6tb plus of flac files and a few hi res files,i want to connect by usb to to my pioneer lx87 av amps dac to play the hi res not sure if you can play hi res over ethernet?
as with kevin reply to my question what would i need or can i buy a pre installed nuc/brix set up?

thank you for you continued help
gary

I’d get a Mac mini with an SSD (which is also what I did). Completely silent, runs cool, and in comparison to a NUC it has a built in PSU and is built to by Apple, so it both looks and feels like an expensive piece of kit.

Not exactly a laptop but a great Roon machine.

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The laptop you are looking at is plenty powerful. You would have no trouble there.

The Mac Mini and NUC based PCs are essentially laptops with no screens and keyboards attached. For a situation where it is running a headless server i think they make great devices. If you think you would want to make use of the screen a laptop would certainly be a good option.

As to you question on a pre-installed setup - Dell or Asus isn’t making anything these days that would fit the bill. I do see a company in the UK that does sell pre-configured NUCs as well as pre-configured fanless versions. The RAM and SSD they add are both quality parts. It is all fully ready to go and the price compared to a quick check on Amazon UK seems very reasonable compared to buying everything individually and assembling yourself, especially if you aren’t comfortable doing so.

The Mac Mini would certainly be an option if you are comfortable with that OS. The processor in the mid-range model is a bit older but still plenty powerful. With and SSD it can get a bit pricey it seems. I might wait for a refresh if choosing that option.

i want to connect by usb to to my pioneer lx87 av amps dac to play the hi res not sure if you can play hi res over ethernet?

You can. Older wireless might cause some issues but if your router is N or AC or if everything is wired you should have plenty of speed.

It does looks like your receivers USB input will play up to 24/192 and DSD64 files. To do so you should just need to install the USB driver on the PC, connect it to the receiver via USB and choose the driver output in Roon.

If the nuc is in a different room and want to use a network connection you can use the SOSE to run the USB to the receiver.

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hi thank you for the great info would the 6th Gen NUC Core i5-6260U, NUC6i5SYK (M.2 drive only) option on the site you link be better than the i3,are these processers ok or powerful enough for a 6tb plus of flac files,i see no i7 option.

thank you
gary

Doesn’t look like Intel released a 6th gen I7 version of the NUC. Im guessing there will be an i7 version later this year with the next chip releases. I looked at some benchmarks to compare the older i7 NUC with the current i5 NUC and they are pretty much neck and neck.

As far as performance goes i think it should be just fine but honestly you have a whole lot more files than i do (im at 400gb or ~14k tracks). See @brian 's post here. His opinion is certainly better than mine with that large of a library.

If there are performance concerns the same company sells these. I know its above your budget, and honestly starting to get pricey but a full quad-core i5-6600 processor should easily have enough power, well above an i7 used in laptops.

hi kevin
im watching a few youtube videos on the nuc and they like good little pc,the other model you linked me to is a bit out of my range i probaly could stretch to £700 for a system either a nuc or the laptop i will do a bit more reading up,

thanks again
gary

Sure. Just to help clarify the last system i linked while more expensive (650 or so with an i5-6600) is by far the most powerful as it is a quad-core desktop processor. It also happens to be in a pretty small case only a couple inches bigger than a nuc that looks decent as well. While i think a NUC or laptop would be fine just wanted to add that as an option that was sure to have the performance.

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