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RE: Just curious

Posted by AbeCollins (A) on July 6, 2016 at 08:28:16

In Reply to: Just curious posted by E-Stat on July 6, 2016 at 06:34:08:

1. Do you know which 2.6 Ghz model i7 you have?

My Mac Mini has the Quad-Core 2.6GHz i7-3720QM, Turbo Boost up to 3.6 GHz shown in the middle column below.

I think your processor is a few years older listed to the far left. The one to the far right was the standard offering by Apple. I paid a little more for the optional higher speed version shown in the middle column.

2. Are those utilization figures real time or just percent of tasks run?

The % CPU column in the Mac OS X Activity Monitor shows the percentage of CPU capability used by each process. I think you would call it real-time as the figure fluctuates as the process changes load on the CPU. However, as with any such tool there's a sampling period and the tool itself consumes some CPU resources. I don't know what that sampling period is. There's a link below with a detailed description of Activity Monitor.

Keep in mind that Roon Core and HQPlayer can be somewhat processor intensive and I'm running both on the same Mac then USB straight out to the DAC.

Another scenario (which I will play with again) would be to run a separate networked 'end-point'(NAA) like a microRendu or a DIY Raspberry Pi. These can run the much lighter weight Roon Bridge software or the HQPlayer networkaudiod daemon.

I played with full blown Roon Core on a Mac Mini 'server' and the same Roon Core on another Mac Mini networked 'end point'. It works great but Roon Core on the 'end point' was the same resource hog as it was on the 'server'. I later installed Roon Bridge on the 'end point' Mini and resource utilization was much lower, as it should be.

So for the server side you probably don't want to be running a low powered NAS, Atom, or Celeron class processor stripped of RAM (which many NAS use). However, there are a few QNAP and Synlogy NAS out there with heftier processors and more RAM that will directly support the server side Linux binaries.

If music player software consumes about 12% of a very capable processor - like a quad core i7, I can understand the concern of those about compromised performance using relatively weak ARM units.

True. But as mentioned above, one would run the much lighter weight software like Roon Bridge or the HQPlayer networkaudiod daemon on these networked 'end-point' devices.

• Activity Monitor on the Mac   (Open in New Window)

Edits: 07/06/16 07/06/16 07/06/16

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