Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Hardware with Roon Application Roon Hardware Options

Hi,

Is that for a headless Roon server?

Intel i3 may impact focus and search performance.
I assume you went for that as it has less cooling requirements.

Have you checked out the refurbished iPad Minis?

Regards,
Carl

Hey Carl,

Yes, it is for the designated standalone headless Roon server. I like to keep my living room clean to keep my wife happy!

The reason I chose i3 over i5 are

- cooling requirement (I don't like fan to come up too often, and the unit could have some cooling issues already, with internal 2T 2.5 HD installed)
- Energy savings (I am planning to run this 24-7)
- Size of my music library (only 2500 albums)
- It seems in normal operation (no turbo), i3 has faster clock speed than i5
- i5 has better internal graphics, but overkill for headless purposes
- and of course, cheaper

Oh, and yes the Mini2 is refurbished.

A weaker processor will have to work harder and surely spin the fans up more often?

I have a Core i5 for my core and it's making fan noise all the time...

I have a core i5 (Haswell, 65W TDP) in a passively cooled case (Streacom) and it copes even with quite demanding video processing.

I use an i5 NUC for Roon core and it doesn't make any noise at all. No fans. Maybe it is more model specific.

I was advised that i7 would more likely get fan noise as the chip would draw more power.

I can dig out the i5 model / spec if anyone needs.

I would appreciate that Nick. You may have seen my new post on the Roon forum. Looking for a core solution but not keen on the extra fanless expense if it isn't really needed.

En1omb

The new Intel Skylake CPU's have just been announced and NUC's with this CPU should be available soon, one of it's benefits is cooler running and lower power consumption, might be worth waiting for a little while?

Russ

Thanks. Not in a massive rush. Part of me is waiting to see what happens with MQA before I decide on a spec.

I built a totaly passive system, but it is acting as end point as well as server.

It uses a Streacom FC12 (black) case, a Gigabyte G1 Sniper B6 motherboard because it has a DAC dedicated USB socket, 8GB low profile memory, an i3 4370 (it's 3.8GHz but only runs at 54W), a Nofan cr-80eh passive cooler, an SSD for just the OS and Roon and a fanless Seasonic Platinum 460w PSU.

It runs very low temp when Roon is playing (max I've seen is 45C) and is completely silent. My music is on my NAS up in the loft.

I've had no speed issues from Roon what so ever and the iPad air as a remote is almost instantaneous.

If anyone is bothered I could post pictures.