Roon Core with Intel NUC

Hello,
I apologize if this question is redundant, but having been in the market for a streamer for a while now, someone on reddit redirected me to Roon+Raspberry PI.
Now, I started Roon’s free trial to explore. From what I understand, even if I get a PI, with and optical out HAT, and use it as a roon endpoint to stream to my DAC into my system, I would still need a Roon Core running at all times.
As of now, my core is my desktop computer. However, with a 1000 Watt PSU, it seems like a gargantuan waste of energy to have it on all the time. Also, if I did that, I wouldn’t need the PIE, since I could just use my computer to stream.
However, I read that I could buy an intel NUC, and use that as a Roon Core. Would that work with a cheap NUC, running a celeron processor? And then, I could just use the optical out and feed that into my DAC, removing the need for a raspberry PI.
My Goal is to have something on/on standby that I can just stream to when I come home, without needing to fire up my desktop or my TV (via chromecast) and possibly even fall to sleep to music, with the Roon sleep timer feature. (obviously I don’t want light everywhere when I do that.)

Would appreciate any advice, or redirection if that topic has already been covered. Thanks in advance!

What you describe is ROCK running on a headless (no screen or keyboard) supported NUC. All info is here. https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/roon-optimized-core-kit

Lots of helpful ROCK posts in forum. I run ROCK on NUC and it is brilliant and so far trouble free.

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Thanks a lot mate! I’m looking into buying the NUC8i5BEH atm, can pick it up for roughly 300$, and about 450$ with 16gb of Ram and a 512gb SSD.

Theoretically you can get away with 8GB ram.
If only running ROCK the 512GB (assuming) M.2 SSD is overkill. I found it difficult to get anything smaller than a 250GB drive now so go with that. If you could get a 128GB drive, it would be ideal. The M.2 would only hold ROCK, no O/S such as Windows 10. Keeps everything lean.

This would make your NUC venture more budget-friendly.

Hey Stephen,
Thanks for the insights. To be honest, I’m looking into cheaper options. 8 gb of Ram definitely seems like the way to go.
As for the hard drive, I payed 12$ more for 500gb than for 250gb. To be fair, I could pick a 128gb M2 ssd of Amazon, but I don’t know the brands and their reputation. That being said, it would cost me 30$ instead of 55$

I read the guide, and they recommend the NUC10 with and i3. I can get the NUC8 with and i5 for the sams price. Which way would you go?