First time poster, so apologies if this isn’t in the correct format.
I’m currently running Roon on my QNAP NAS (Intel Celeron 5095 with 12GB of RAM) and am finding it sluggish. Given this, I want to change the hardware it is runnning on to make it more responsive. My options are:
Buying a 10th gen Intel NUC (likely i5)
Buying a 12th gen Intel i5 NUC
Repurposing my Ryzen 5 5600x from my current computer, which is due for an upgrade, and running a linux environment dedicated to roon (hopefully Roon ROCK)
My questions are:
On the Roon ROCK official page it talks about HDMI support for 12th/13th gen NUCs - is there any support for HDMI audio out on older Intel NUCs or Ryzen-based CPUs?
Does anyone have any reason (other than official support) why the Intel NUCs would be a better choice?
Notes:
a) I use Tidal 99% of the time and have about 500 songs locally (which I’m in the process of expanding).
b) I use 1 zone 99% at a time with DSP enabled for either room correction or headphones through OPRA
c) It will be located right next to my Anthem AVR, so I’d like to use HDMI audio out to the receiver
HDMI is supported on all of the NUCs listed in the compatibility list. 12th and 13th generation NUCs need to be configured (in the BIOS setup) to perform UEFI boot.
Other hardware platforms, including Ryzen-based devices, are unsupported. They may work or they may not. This applies to the HDMI interface but it also applies to other aspects of the device (for example networking). It just depends on whether the device drivers in RoonOS support the devices on the board.
Other than the predictable setup outcome implied by the support, not really.
If RoonOS (ROCK) does not work, a linux distribution of choice (or even Windows) can be used instead to host the Roon Server application.
If RoonOS does work, then there is no downside other than the lack of support.
Edit: there are a number of people reporting success with ROCK on Ryzen system in the thread containing this post:
There are other posts in this thread reporting success but note: it’s not the processor that causes ROCK incompatibility but the items attached to it - the NIC, the HDMI solution and possibly even the USB ports.
I’m the one who posted yesterday on my newly set Ryzen 7 ROCK. The size of your Tidal library also matters so pick an appropriate CPU. Ryzen 7730u is comparable to 13th gen i7 NUC and it is more than enough for me now.
As for your other critical question about audio, I see the five HD audio outs on Roon screen. The machine has 3 USB ports and 2 HDMI ports, so probably the HDMI sound out will work. I can’t speak for Ryzen 5 though.
If you’re going to retire the Ryzen 5, why not give it a shot? If it doesn’t work, I highly recommend Topton FU02. This is not just to cheap out, but it comes in a nice compact fanless case. Transplanting an Intel/Asus NUC into a fanless case is a bit of chore and costs extra.