Hi. I’m a total noob to Roon and am wanting to get a mini PC to run Roon OS as it seems it would be the easiest to do and would meet my needs which do not include a massive library or huge number of endpoints. I saw the hardware recommendations on the Roon site in the ROCK section and have what might be a stupid question. Roon recommends an Intel NUC, but as I’m looking at Black Friday deals, I’m running across some really good deals for mini PCs that run AMD hardware. The specs are far beyond what Roon recommends. I’ve included the one I’m considering below. Would this or similar be okay.
Rock is designed purely for NuCs and then only supported on certain models. If you want to use other hardware then you’re best looking at other Linux distros or Windows. ROCK can work on other pcs I did for years but best use intel based rather than AMD either way if you don’t use the supported hardware your own support wise for server stuff. Why not buy the Nucleus One it would support your needs.
Thanks for letting me know. Is there a list that I just haven’t found yet that has all the hardware that is supported or is the model listed on the ROCK page the only supported one? I would love to find a Black Friday deal. Regarding the Nucleus, the only reason I’m hesitant is that I’ve already taken advantage of some Black Friday audio deals and my wife’s patience is running thin. 
If I can’t find a supported piece of hardware on Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal, I’m definitely leaning toward the nucleus.
I would purchase a new Roon Nucleus One.
After pricing out a mini PC that is supported and considering the potential effort that I will expend not only building it, but also loading and configuring, etc. I’m going to go the route recommended by the experts here and get the Nucleus One. It’s just not that much more expensive for such an easy solution. My only regret is that I wish I could afford the Titan with some of the available inlays because damn if that thing isn’t sexy. Honestly though, my library isn’t nearly that big and when it is, I’m sure I’ll be in a position to upgrade.
Thanks to all of you for your input and guidance. I look forward to future conversations after I get it connected and have questions. You guys are much better than most of the guys in my audio groups. I’d ask them about a pair of Sennheiser HD650s and they would insist that I need the HD850 so I’m glad no one recommended the Titan as I would have been tempted. Happy holidays!!
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Do what you want. But you can get a mini pc that is fanless and one third the cost of a Nucleus One. Official support for ROCK is not necessary.
AJ
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I’d second what @WiWavelength said. If you are scared of computers and don’t want to think about any maintenance, a Nucleus makes sense. If you can install an OS, and then install Roon on top of it, any old mini (or not too mini) PC would be both a better value and give you more flexibility and control. You can’t even get ROCK to shut itself down cleanly if it is connected to sa UPS and it loses power…
And if you just want to plug it in and go, for $499, a Roon Nucleus One is the way to go. I’m tempted to buy one to replace my Roon Nucleus Rev B, just because I like the way it looks.
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Agree with @Boris_Molodyi and @WiWavelength here. I run a fanless N100 mini pc fron AliExpress which took less than 5 minutes to install Rock/Mock and get up and running. It cost me less than £90 shipped.
I love the idea of the Nucleus One but, frankly, for what it is, I feel it is overpriced. I appreciate it is a supported product but Roon ROCK is a very mature product at this point and I’ve run it on a variety of mini pcs without a hitch (j4105, N100, N5105, Lenovo m93 i5 etc).
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Thanks to everyone for the feedback. I was already a bit hesitant about running ROCK on a mini PC and the stability because I went down this same road with Home Assistant and HAOS. It was nothing but issues with the system freezing a couple times a week and the frustration on having to constantly deal with it. I’ve found a RasPi to be much more stable. I’m going to go with the Nucleus since it should be super stable and require no thought and also, and I know this is silly, but it looks really sexy and will be nice in my rack. Thanks again.
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Aesthetics is part of it.
I’ve run Home Assistant on an Atom Z8350 Mini PC for over a year without any issues (bare metal install - 5w TDP). I found raspberry Pis to be way underpowered for it. Just shows that all our use cases vary wildly.