Will Skull Canyon NUC be Rock Ready?

I can’t speak to what level of processor is needed for what size library, but I think the NUC6i7KYK NUC is based on a quad-core i7. That’s a 6th-gen NUC. It’s worth noting that the thus-far-announced 7th-gen i7-based NUC (NUC7i7BNH) uses a dual-core i7.

You are right, Skull Canyon is a quad Core (and pretty much a one off it seems). I should have been a little more clear, I was mainly thinking of the couple of NUCs that have been specifically mentioned for ROCK.

I’m not trying to make a big deal out of this, but the fact is, I do have the Skull Canyon NUC in mind as a possibility for myself (if it turns out that it works with Thunderbolt), so I’ll just point out a couple of posts from @danny

David, it has been awhile on those posts. Maybe @danny can give us an update on Thunderbolt support and also about Skull Canyon as a whole.

My skull canyon also has hdmi…

the skull canyon nuc is a weird beast… it might work, it might not… thunderbolt definitely wont without some work. i’m also unsure if they will make another one of those…

anyway, you can always try and see what happens.

Its drawback is that it isn’t silent. And the case akasa was building for it seems to be back to the drawing board as it couldn’t dissipate the heat. It is fast though and, most importantly for my current usage, it does decent 4k out.

I might just try Rock on it for kicks, but expect Rock ends up on my silient i5 nuc in the end.

Would a dual core with a higher clock like the 7 gen i7 NUC 3.5GHz @4GHz not be faster than the quad core Skull canyon for most users ?
The skull canyon has a TDP Og 45W and the upcoming 7 gen i7 have a TDP of 28W but a smaller case. An Acasa case for this one would be great.
It will be interesting to see the first reviews of how much heat it generates.

I can’t see why Thunderbolt is so support important?
USB 3 is much faster than you will ever need for streaming and faster than any spinning platter HD.

Roon, like most software, loves faster CPUs

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I guess the question then is whether Roon makes efficient use of multi threading or not.
If memory serves me well I guess it is a mix, it does multithread, but doesn;t for instance multi thread dsp tasks, correct?

So, if you have multiple endpoints, all using dsp, a multicore is beneficial. If you use one end point with heavy dsp, a faster single core.

?

it does where it can, but giving Roon 8 slow CPUs will always suck compared to 2 fast ones. Taking advantage of multiple CPUs means not artificially bottlenecking things in a serialized process, but some algorithms are serialized (and changing to be not may not always be an option). DSP is one of those cases.

100% true, but some are (or will become) absolutely convinced that Thunderbolt is better. Just like putting their music on an SSD or those who believe that different brands of RAM sound better than others.

My experience to date with Thunderbolt under Linux hasn’t been especially positive. I know that there is absolutely no benefit to it for a dedicated Roon core but I’d love for it to work as I have a really nice 6 bay Thunderbolt-only disk array that is now doing absolutely nothing. Not looking for performance here, but would like to re-purpose some hardware I already own.

@danny - I have been using a Skull Canyon NUC as a Roon server under windows since it was released, I have been very happy with it. The fanless askaa case I believe will be released soon. I am very eager to try ROCK on it and am more than willing to work with you/whomever on testing things to get thunderbolt working, which personally I see has huge potential.

Here is also one Skull Canyon waiting for ROCK. I’am planning to use external usb3 drive and make backup routines to old QNAP to sync music (via smb) to it. I have mRendu serving Roon endpoint. Would also like to test direct HDMI connection to my AV-amp for 5.1 music. I really hope that nuc6i7kyk is supported option :).

Plus one on the Skull Canyon with ROCK.

pardon my ignorance but what is ROCK ?

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-optimized-core-kit-previously-reported-as-roon-os/14175/68?u=rugby

Rugby, thank you. Seems like my Apollo lake NUC wont be ROCK ready. But for my 1,800 music files it does a solid and fast job. I think folks who dont have huge collections dont need cpu power. My system seems to be running just fine with apollo lake chip.

or streaming to many zones simultaneously…
or using DSP features (especially upsampling)…

Or, just for peace of mind
or, just because we can

:slight_smile: