Roon Nucleus RAM Upgrade?

The specs for nucs in general has DDR4 listed. Don’t know if DDR5 will work or not.

This specification

Thanks, does it also support 16GB or even 32GB RAM of the same spec?

Apologies I am not current with the RAM specifications, what are the keywords I should be looking for?

Need not be current with anything but the use of a mouse button to be able to click on @ged_hickman1’s cited recommendation by the Nucleus designer himself. It will lead you to the Amazon page where you can select the size of the desired RAM sticks. Just make sure to keep ‘2666 MHz’ selected.

You have the option to select 8 GB (2 x 4 GB sticks), 16 GB (2 x 8 GB sticks) or even 32 GB (2 x 16 GB sticks). The exact specification is given on the recommendation and on the linked Amazon’s page, should you wish to buy from somewhere else.

Can confirm. I have a Nucleus Rev B and also installed 2 8GB modules. The Nucleus is, indeed, considerably more responsive. Loading in via the Roon Remote on my spec 'd-out Windows PC (and with my android phone) are both noticeably snappier—particularly album art loading times. Along with upgrading the main M.2 drive with a faster Samsung 970 Plus drive the Nucleus now feels like a speed machine. Highly recommended.

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Why stop at 16 RAM is cheap. I went overboard and put 32 in my new NUC

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I run 32 in my N+. I regret nothing.

I would probably regret the unnecessary power draw of memory that will never ever be used! I’ve always put 16 in mine.

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I used 12GB in a Nucleus (non plus) Rev A with 335K tracks no issues - that’s the i3 7th gen NUC, I’ve also used 16GB for the same setup but i7 7th gen NUC running ROCK, both are much happier with the extra ram. Over 16GB I wouldn’t bother unless you are getting into the 4-500k+ track realm and then you really want to be going with a full desktop class processor.

For my main core now I use a Win10 i7 10700 10th gen CPU with 32GB ram for the same library. This was mainly to run ZeroTeir for external Roon access, but now I have ARC this could change back to one of the NUC’s or perhaps my 32GB i5 6500 fanless build running ROCK.

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From Crucial:

As a rule of thumb, however, you want to allocate around 3 watts of power for every 8GB of DDR3 or DDR4 memory.

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Here’s their DDR4 XLS power calculator:

https://media-www.micron.com/-/media/client/global/documents/products/power-calculator/ddr4_power_calc.xlsm?la=en&rev=5e97be39078d4a1b8619cb85c96bbe63

Tom’s tested the full voltage, desktop RAM (DDR4-2133, which is the same frequency that my Nucleus+ revA runs at), for peak power consumption under full load:

image

I would expect the laptop RAM that NUCs used to have lower standby and peak power draw than what Tom’s saw.

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Yeah, but the most likely cause by far is operator error by not wearing an earthing strap.

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I own several and for years always used them. I stopped for no real reason but have gone sans strap for so long without incident that I’ve filed under “boogeyman” in my head. Your post might inspire me to do better again.

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I have never killed anything either without one. But short of the operator using a chisel to remove the old RAM, it seems that little can kill a NUC when changing RAM. So, even though maybe unlikely, I still consider a missing strap the most likely cause, and in this case Roon would certainly have the right to opt out of warranty

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Hi @danny – what’s the latest recommendation for nucleus + RAM? 16? / 32 a waste?

it’s all a waste if you arent running out.

the overwhelming majority of people work fine with 8gb.

I have a very large library and took your advice to go to 16 GB RAM and it’s worked wonders. My brother has an even larger library and is thinking of going to 32 GB. Might that help with his intermittent drop-out problem?

RAM is cheap, try it and see. It’s very likely that it’ll help, but not a given.

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I upgraded my Nucleus from 4 to 8 and found the exact matching chip on Amazon. I later upgraded from 8 to 16 just for something to do that day. Obvious overkill.

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