Processor for ROCK (8th generation)

[wklie (Peter Lie)]

@aKnyght

does the TDP matter? for a fanless chassis, is there a general TDP spec not to exceed?

Yes. Visit the Akasa web site and check out the fanless NUC compatibility list and you’ll see they only support fairly low TDP CPU. With a higher TDP CPU it gets really difficult and expensive to make a proper fanless case.

There were overheating cases with both fan and fanless chassis for NUC7i7BNH 28W TDP. Although not intuitive, this TDP figure can be exceeded in practice. This review measured it at 58.5W:

Kaby Lake i7 NUC Review 4/4: Fan, Power, Linux, Conclusions (NUC7i7BNH) - The...

Also check out this thread:

Cirrus7 fanless i7, will it work?

The choice of CPU is related to performance needs (e.g. DSP) and TDP, especially if you use a LPS or a fanless chassis. ROCK compatibility, if I’m not mistaken, is more concerned with drivers especially Ethernet. More on LPS: If one is intending to use a 36W LPS, then a 28W TDP is too high just for the CPU, since there are other things that need the power.

And this good example:

The Best NUC for ROCK?

While I prefer to have my Roon Server outside of the listening room (like I had in my previous house), my current setup in my apartment needs to have my Roon Core inside my listening room unfortunately. So I’ve picked up the NUC7i7DNHE with an Akasa Plato X7D fanless case. It took a few hours to put together because I’m extremely slow but also because I triple checked all connections because I never want to open it again. The beauty with this is not just the fanless case with no moving parts …

My advice is to forget about arbitrary high power CPU and use only a NUC that’s proven by other members in this forum.