Not sure if this is the right forum to post, so please move it if so. I have a Intel i5 NUC running Audirvana 3.5, its been going on for a couple of years with no problems at all. However tho, I feel it about time I upgraded the NUC, but to what model, any thoughts/ideas. Am in the UK if that makes any difference
No upgrade is needed for music play. A NUC i5 is plenty of horsepower for playing music with any music player (Foobar, Roon, Audirvana, JRiver etc.) Make sure you have enough RAM (16 GB or more wonāt hurt) and also make sure that you donāt have lots of other programs running in the background.
I have a NUC8i5BEH (16 GB RAM, 256 GB internal SSD) and built it in a fanless case (Akasa). My music library is on an external USB drive and on my NAS. In Audirvana I upsample to DSD256 and that is no problem for that system at all.
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Hi @Peter1
I also have a NUC series 8- i7, Win 10 Pro, 32Gb RAM, 1 x 1 and 1 x 2 Tb SSD.
I believe the 8 series is now discontinued so youāll probably have to pay a premium for the newer series 11:
https://www.scan.co.uk/search?q=NUC
16Gb RAM should be more than enough imo. Although more canāt hurt, right? 
How much do you currently have installed, perhaps you can re-use what you have to keep the cost down? Iām assuming you are already using an SSD as opposed to mechanical hard drive?
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I have it standing up, like the picture below.
Audiophile upgraditus an incurable mental health crisisā¦ā¦.just do it 
Glad itās never happened to me 
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Yep thatās the one @AndyLubke
Youāre obviously a man of impeccable taste 
I have mine laid horizontally and minus the end plates.
Lovely bit of kit, totally silent 
Would highly recommend it if youāre thinking about also upgrading the case @Peter1
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Well this weekā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦so farā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦
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Youāve still got a day and a bit to go!
Abstain, stay strong brother 
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Will you be my sponsorā¦ā¦ā¦.oh waitā¦ā¦ā¦
I would mate, but theyād only take cash money for the new DAC.
If theyād have taken beer bottle tops Iād still be in the black.
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I meant for a 12 step program but obviously Iām asking the totally wrong chap.
Howās the sexy new cable working, life changing eh
I think itās made a difference over the bog standard printer cable I was using previously, although as you say on the other thread could just be the placebo effect.
Was going to give Studio 2 a whirl today but got busy DIY-ing 
The BANE of my life!
I have 8.00 GB (7.89 GB usable)
its a marked difference, to my ears at least over the standard USB I was using before
TBH, 8Gb should be ok, although I would sling in another 8Gb if I were rebuilding, just in case.
Good luck with it, let us know what, if anything, you go with
EDIT: What series NUC do you currently have?
Intel(R) Coreā¢ i5-7260U CPU @ 2.20GHz 2.21 GHz
Series 7.
To be honest, I donāt think the outlay on a newer model will be justified by any increase in system performance (think of all those CDās/downlaods you could purchase with the savings).
If it were me Iād add a minimum of 8Gb DDR4, and if not already using them 2 x SSDās, one for the OS and the other for any locally stored music files if you have any.
Oh, and a fanless case as mentioned above. It may not boost performance but they do look smart
Good luck
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Iām running both Roon and AS on my 2017 MacBook Air. It has a 5th gen i5 dual core CPU and 8 gb of RAM. It is more than enough for my daily use. macOS on the internal SSD. Music on an external USB hard drive.
Iām not into DSD or upsampling and that kind of stuff. But for Qobuz en my local collection it handles everything like a champ.
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