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Why does Roon require so much computer power?

thefsb

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I was reading about Roon Optimized Core Kit and surprised to see that they advise a i7-8559U chip for a large library. That's quite a lot of processor (4C/8T, 4.5GHz, 8MB cache, 28W TDP). Why does it need so much?
 

doctorjuggles

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It doesn't need that much unless you're going to be doing a lot of DSP (especially if you're going to do it across multiple devices)
I run a Xeon E3-1240 V2 and it copes perfectly well across 9 Roon Ready zones, and many NAS devices are able to run it too.
My library is a medium size (1,600+ albums), for whatever that's worth.
 

Costas EAR

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Big size of library doesn't mean high cpu usage, it's just space on hard disk.

Processing power is needed only if you use the dsp capabilities of roon.

Without the usage of roon's dsp functions, the processing power needed is minimum.
 

Soniclife

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I was reading about Roon Optimized Core Kit and surprised to see that they advise a i7-8559U chip for a large library. That's quite a lot of processor (4C/8T, 4.5GHz, 8MB cache, 28W TDP). Why does it need so much?
I'm doubtful it's really needed, once everything is setup and scanned, but their definition of large library (upwards of 500K tracks) is so large I have no idea. I can see it needing RAM.
 

martin900

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I think Roon devs are just playing it safe, instead of having to reply to countless topics on where people try to upsample to DSD on an old Core2Duo or i3/i5 laptop from 10 years ago and complain about intermittent playback, clicks, pops etc.
 

Costas EAR

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I managed to play roon without any problems by using an old qnap server as roon core server, with 3 GB of ram. CPU load was always low, but ram usage was close to 99% all the time.

Library was 4-5 TB, literally huge, flacs from cd's.

I had some delay with tidal though, i think because of poor internet speed.

Now i am using a new qnap server with 8GB of ram, TS 673. It is working without any problems.
 
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