Quietest NUC for ROCK

Audio Gear Talk
1

I have a small library, one room system. The NUC which I will install ROCK on will be in my listening room/living room. I am trying to decide between

  1. Intel NUC 11 Pro BNUC11TNHI30Z01 Tiger Canyon Intel® Core™ i3-1115G4 $299
  2. Intel NUC 10 Core™ i5-10210U Processor Frost Canyon BXNUC10i5FNHN1 $287
    both from Newegg
    I may go with NUC 11 i5-1135G7 Performance Panther Kit $309 from GEEKNUC if I can confirm they are reputable.
    Is there a way to tell which of these will be the quietest?
2

Worth thinking of installing your NUC in a fanless case like the well-regarded Akasa Newton. I have a NUC on one of those (earlier version) that has worked flawless for 5 years now, mostly as a Roon server with internal SSD music storage.

3

I have a 10th gen i5 NUC in an Akasa case.

It runs ROCK and it has been pretty much flawless and is completely silent with an M.2 boot disk and an SSD for music storage as well

I highly recommend this kind of setup and the Akasa cases are like pieces of industrial art

4

Why does it matter? Ideally, Core will be located in a closet or office with only power and Ethernet cables connected. Within reason, fan noise is inconsequential.

5

I live in a very small 900 sqft house. The only logical place for it is the living room with the stereo.

6

Mine lives in media cabinet underneath the wall mounted TV and is in an open shelf.

The quietest is a difficult measure, but silent is silent and my wife has not complained since I put it in the Akasa case.

I could occasionally hear the spinning HD after that, but I have never noticed hearing it since I swapped out the HD for an SSD, though it was quite expensive at the time.

7

Michael, thanks for the help. I already bought the SSD and memory recommended as they were on sale so I am good there. Now I just need to buy the NUC.

8

Might be the wrong way around, but the same result. Good luck with this and I am sure it will work out great for you.

The NUCS are fairly easy to take apart and put in a silent case, and YouTube walkthrough videos were available when I did mine. They helped give me the confidence to do it in one sitting.