Hi,
I'm looking at buying a new PC for music server duties, and am considering either a used NUC or a 'recycled' rack mount machine, running W10 and JRiver most likely.
Not interested in any streaming, but might consider Roon at some point.
Music data will reside either on a NAS or a share drive - about 1.5TB so far.
I may also run some EQ/Tuning on this machine, but my main speaker & sub - room EQ/crossovers is done downstream, so this new machine would most likely only do surround channel EQ, or perhaps time (FIR) adjustments to the mains.
So - I'm looking for recommendations/suggestions/info - esp. on the plethora of used Intel NUCs out there (or comments about 1U rack mount ex-server machines - I have one spare "U" in my audio rack).
I'd like to keep the purchase around $200 if I can, but could go as high as $400 if necessary.
My main question is - how much difference do the different NUC generations really make? Should I steer away from Gen5 machines?
I'm assuming an I7 of any (recent) generation would make sense, but do the I5s in newer generations offer any significant advantages?
Really looking for the best bang for the buck here.
Comments or suggestions welcome & Thanks!!!
PS. I already have a spare Atom based W7 machine - about 5 yrs old! - I could use, but assume it would just be a waste of effort.
I'm looking at buying a new PC for music server duties, and am considering either a used NUC or a 'recycled' rack mount machine, running W10 and JRiver most likely.
Not interested in any streaming, but might consider Roon at some point.
Music data will reside either on a NAS or a share drive - about 1.5TB so far.
I may also run some EQ/Tuning on this machine, but my main speaker & sub - room EQ/crossovers is done downstream, so this new machine would most likely only do surround channel EQ, or perhaps time (FIR) adjustments to the mains.
So - I'm looking for recommendations/suggestions/info - esp. on the plethora of used Intel NUCs out there (or comments about 1U rack mount ex-server machines - I have one spare "U" in my audio rack).
I'd like to keep the purchase around $200 if I can, but could go as high as $400 if necessary.
My main question is - how much difference do the different NUC generations really make? Should I steer away from Gen5 machines?
I'm assuming an I7 of any (recent) generation would make sense, but do the I5s in newer generations offer any significant advantages?
Really looking for the best bang for the buck here.
Comments or suggestions welcome & Thanks!!!
PS. I already have a spare Atom based W7 machine - about 5 yrs old! - I could use, but assume it would just be a waste of effort.