Which Intel NUC to choose?

Roon Software Discussion ROCK
104

I just checked here in the UK - around £12 difference!

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105

but then again the 500GB version is also at least £12 faster in write and IO performance :slightly_smiling_face:

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106

How about this one:

107

I’m using a NUC8i7 with upscaling to DSD256 and the CPU is sitting at around 20%

Roon shows a processing speed of around 3x so is just about doing that

EDIT - when I checked before I was upsampling to 384k which is 20x but DSD256 is 3x

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108

I’ve build a NUC-Rock this week based on NUC8i5BEH, 2x4GB RAM / 256GB M.2 (couldn’t get smaller and pricing is only a few euro’s apart) / 256GB Samsung 860EVO. In the BIOS (press F2 on start-up) there is a tab for “cooling”. Here you can disable the fan BELOW a user-definable temperature. The i5 can run on 73C constantly (according to Intel). The highest temperature that can be set in BIOS is 48C so I choose that. It has been running for almost a week now, playing from internal storage, Tidal, Radio etc. The fan has not turned at all and the NUC is still pretty cool, educated guess would be ~30C. My Mytek DAC+ feels a lot warmer. In my case this is an exellent solution. There also seems to be an option to put the unit into “low power”, lowering TDP from 28W to 20W. I did not check that yet but if that works then the total power consumption would be around 30…35W leaving more options for the external supply if needed. A Sbooster comes to mind.

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109

Hi Peter,

I have the U1 Mini for a week and am liking it. Can’t wait for 3rd week when it is fully broken in! Well done!

Next step is to get a NUC to set up Roon Core.

I have about 10,000 titles (1.47Tb worth of files) and would love to use Roon Core to upsample my music and play Tidal HiFi.

Will set up Roon Core for 3 zones but will primarily use in my music room.

I read the forum and concluded that I am better off with Gen 8 (vs Gen 10).

I found a local shop with a ready built Gen 8 i5 with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD (both from Adata).

Would this suffice or shall I build a new one using Gen 8 i7?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Wing

110

That should work, unless you use heavy DSP.

111

Thx, Peter!

I have been using the Lumin app…do I need to change anything on the Lumin app to take full advantage of Roon Core, such as DSP and upsampling? Or just use Roon Core and play away?

A separate question – I have a nice coaxial cable – I wonder if I should use it instead of the Wireworld Starlight USB cable to enjoy warmer sound? I understand DSD256 can only be achieved thru USB…

Thanks!!

112

Good point about using headphones. Seems to me that if you’re using the Roon “client” on a device other than the NUC/Rock you can use your headphones on that device. I’ll have to play with that.

Regarding your other advice… The answer to “What kind of X should I get?” is not necessarily “Get the biggest, baddest, most expensive X because ‘your needs will change over time’.” I came to this thread because I have decided to build my own Roon server and want to understand what the real-world requirements are. I sincerely doubt that 32 GB of RAM will ever be needed based on what I’ve read. Your tricked out device would probably cost $2000.

None of us knows the future of Roon but I suspect there are some good guesses. Is Roon processor-intensive? How much processing power is needed if you don’t have a large local library? What are the pros/cons of getting a lot of onboard storage via SSD vs. a NAS?

From what I’ve read so far, it seems that the plus of Roon Rock on a dedicated device is that the Roon software can run on a bare-bones system without distraction from competing Windows processes. I’ll keep reading but I’m betting that an up-to-date NUC with i5 and 8 GB RAM is future-proof enough. I use a NAS with RAID for my files because I like the safety. With my limited physical album library I doubt that disk I/O will be a bottleneck. I don’t want to spend a ton of money on a device that will only run my music server. For others like me, I doubt that a “screaming machine” like you’ve recommended is needed.

FWIW, I purchased a NUC in March 2017 – nearly four years ago – with Windows 10. I’ve used it for photo editing primarily (which is somewhat compute intensive) and it still feels fast enough to me. I’m running the Roon software on it right now and it’s fast enough as is. It has 16 GB of RAM.

I’m going to purchase something in the $500 range and I’ll bet it’s going to be just fine as a dedicated server.

113

It’s your choice and your money. This forum is full of posts from people that thought they made the right choices. Majority of issues posted here are related to hardware.

114

I am far from computer savvy, but my nephew is a computer engineer and audiophile. He took an existing Asus media PC that I was no longer using, and turned it into a Roon ROCK server. It’s got 8 GB of RAM and a 500gb Samsung SSD. It’s working fantastic. He’s not a nuc fan, as he’s had three fail in the last couple years. I do not want to annoy any nuc users, but in my case using what I already own was a better option than spending over a thousand bucks on building a nuc. Hope that helps someone out there.

115

Sure. There’s a small risk that a future software update will break what your nephew has built for you. These “MOCK” servers are run-at-your-own-risk and not officially supported. From the KB article:

More about ROCK’s hardware support…

  • We have worked with Intel to support its Intel NUC line of products. They are low power high performance easy to install units that work very nicely as a Roon Core Server. The models we support are:

    • NUC5i3xxx
    • NUC5i5xxx
    • NUC6i3SYx
    • NUC6i5SYx
    • NUC7i3BNx
    • NUC7i5BNx
    • NUC7i7BNx
    • NUC7i3DNx
    • NUC7i5DNx
    • NUC7i7DNx
    • NUC8i3BEx
    • NUC8i5BEx
    • NUC8i5BEx
    • NUC8i7BEx
    • NUC10i3FNx
    • NUC10i5FNx
    • NUC10i7FNx

  • Any hardware configurations other than the above are unsupported. Although they may work now, they may also stop working at any time due to updates.

For this reason, I generally recommend that folks with hardware not in the list above install Roon Server on MS Windows or one of the Roon tested Linux distros (Arch Linux, Fedora Server or Ubuntu Server). This gives more flexibility (you can actually login and see what’s happening) and may be slightly less likely to break with a future update.

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116

I have the same figures, 4000 albums and only 3% disk usage of 227GB.

117

I completely agree with you, and I try to always take your advice. In this situation he does all my computer related work. Like setting up several different backups, and most computer maintenance. He set it up on a virtual computer first to test it out. If it fails, I have lots of spare parts. lol
But thank you for your input. I always learn something when we chat.

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118

I think about buying a second hand NUC (I only intend to use it for Roon Server or ROCK, currently with about 3K albums / 45K tracks) and I’m eyeing now one with the following features:

NUC5i7RYH:

  • i7 5557U
  • Iris Graphics 6100
  • 8GB Ram
  • 120GB M.2 SSD
  • 640GB Festplatte
  • Wlan und Lan
  • Bluetooth
  • mini Hdmi
  • mini DisplayPort
  • 2x USB2
  • 4x USB3
  • Mic & Kopfhöreranschluss
  • Adapterkabel mHDMI auf HDMI
  • Netzteil mit Kabel (CH)
  • Win 10 PRO, aktuell & aktiviert

Since the NUC5i7RYH is not on the ROCK hardware support list, I’d probably be better off installing Roon Server on the Windows 10 OS, as @David_Snyder suggested, right? Would you see anything that speaks against buying said NUC?

119

ROCK on NUC5 cannot boot from m.2 NVMe. You’ll need to find an appropriate m.2 SATA drive to boot it, or a 2.5" SATA drive for booting it but leaving no physical space to hold another SATA drive for music.

Or you can run Windows.

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120

I don’t see any obvious problems with this configuration if you’ll be running the provided Windows 10. I’ll add that Windows 10 Pro is preferable because it enables you to run the NUC headless (no display)…you can manage it from another computer via Remote Desktop. Ubuntu Server could be a good option too. I described how to do this in some detail here.

121

Thanks @David_Snyder @wklie … I think I’ll run Windows, thinking about upgrading it to Windows 10 Pro!

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122

Here is a tip, its not officially supported for ROCK but I have read about people using it with ROCK and it works (as it should), more than enough power for most DSP as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdel®-Powerful-i7-10510U-4096x2304-DisplayPort/dp/B087J9WFXD/

Very good price/performance compared to regular NUCs, and fanless.

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123

I would have a chance to get a second hand mini-PC with these specs, would this work as ROCK?

Specifications

  • CPU Intel Core i5-4250U

  • Motherboard Intel D54250WYB

  • RAM 8GB 1,600MHz DDR3

Here’s a link: Tranquil PC Abel H2-5 NUC PC Review | bit-tech.net
Only to be used for streaming Tidal.