Small Green Computer i5 vs. 2014 i7 iMac

Audio Gear Talk
21

Symbolic Links are just Aliases on steroids. I use one to change the default location of the Roon DB.

Info here
Graphical UI App here

22

Thanks for your help.

23

Roon’s Web site notes that ROCK runs on certain NUCs. The high-end system has this configuration: NUC7i7BNH with 8GB RAM and 64GB M.2 SSD. Roon links to Amazon components for that configuration. The components total $500 to $600. Obviously, with those components, the user must install ROCK.

Do the turnkey systems (or SonicTransporter), which for a similar configuration can run around $2,500, offer any advantages, other than the preinstallation of the Roon OS, over the relatively cheaper NUCs whose components that Roon links to on Amazon?

Separately, I noticed that the links in this forum to NUC components go to fan-based computers. Does Roon recommend any fanless NUCs?

Thanks again for your help.

24

We run Sonicorboter OS which has a lot of other features such as automated CD ripping, other server such as XBMC, and a host of other options. You can also run HQPlayer directly on the sonicTransporter.

If you want to use a fanless case (and you should for a music server) just get a fanless case for the NUC7i7BNH. That way you still have 100% support for ROCK.

If you want low cost check out or sonicTransporter i5. It’s is very similar in price to building your own fanless NUC ROCK box but with no work.

25

Hi @agillis, is the current iteration of SonicTransporter i5 powerful enough to run Roon Server and HQPlayer Embedded, upsampling Redbook to DSD256 using one of the more resource-challenging filters I’ve read about like the non-2s poly-sinc-xtr? What i5 processor are you using these days? Thank you!

26

We are using a dual core i5. It can run HQplayer very well but if you are running filters that require high CPU it’s much better to get the i7. The sonicTransporter i7 has a full quad core i7 7700. This is also much faster then a 2014 mac.

27

Thank you, @agillis. I watched Hans Beekhuyzen’s review from your site. He said that you’re using an i5-5257U (5th Generation released Q1 2015) dual-core processor at 2.7GHz. The TDP of that processor is 28W at 2.7GHz. There are much more powerful quad-core i5 8th Generation processors (and i7 processors for that matter) that range between 15W TDP and 28W TDP. Could you help me understand why you’ve chosen to stick with a processor that was released 3.5 years ago?

28

We did this for cost reasons. If we used that processor it would push the cost to almost as much as our sonicTransporter i7. The sonicTransporter i7 uses a full quad core 7700 CPU that is even more powerful then the low TDP 8th generation CPU.

The sonicTransporter i5 is very powerful and works very well for most customers. It has a great power/price ratio.

For customers who want to do extreme DSP (upsampling to DSD 512 for example) we have the i7.

29

Understood, @agillis. Thank you.