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[whataboutbob1]

Hi, what are the recommended computer operating requirements to run MC 25.  Example: 8 gb of ram etc.

[swiv3d]

It really depends what you are going to use it for - audio doesn't require too much if you are using flac one of my pcs is a 4 gb quite slow processor - but I wouldn't try transcoding DSD files on it, but it plays flac files with no problem. If you are a blueray addict then a higher end video card is needed. Its horses for courses really.

[whataboutbob1]

I am going to use it to listen to music files up to DSD files.

[swiv3d]

Then 8GB with a good processor i3  quad core or equivalent would be good as far as I am aware. My little Gigabyte brix with 8GB of memory will happily play DSD files to my oppo dac. It is only if you envisage heavy cpu usage for transcoding that you would want more. You have to remember that what you want to do now and what you want to do when you are using MC for a while might be very different. My main machine now is a 6 core 32GB effort. So get the best you can afford!

[DJLegba]

I am going to use it to listen to music files up to DSD files.

My audio server is an Intel NUC with i3-4010U CPU and 4GB RAM. I have no trouble transcoding DSD to PCM when streaming to a DLNA device that doesn't support DSD. It's not powerful enough to transcode from PCM to DSDx4, but I only tried that as an experiment - it's not something I'm interested in doing.

Bitstreaming DSD files to your DAC puts almost no load at all on the CPU. Any old iron should handle it.

[swiv3d]

If you are going to use a dedicated audio server then as djlegba says any old iron will do it but if like me you are going to be using the machine for audio and other processes simultaneously then something slightly faster might be required.

[whataboutbob1]

All these comments are very helpful !

Is the RAM the most significant number I am looking at or are there other "numbers" that are important to check out before I pull the trigger on a computer purchase?

[swiv3d]

8GB would be ok. As I said it is all down to what you want to do with it. If you are only going to use it as a file server with no other functions then 4 GB is fine. In that situation it only going to be sending the file to the dac, But remember tomorrow is a new day.

[RoderickGI]

It also depends on the operating system. I wouldn't buy or build any PC with less than 8GB of memory if it was intended to run 64bit Windows 10. Most new Windows PCs are going to be running 64bit Windows 10.

I would like to say that if you are buying a pre-built PC, you should tell the place you are buying from as much as you can about how you are going to use it, and they should advise. But with online shops and pure retail outlets with non-technical sales reps, that isn't often possible these days. Unless you buy from a decent PC store which builds PCs to order.

[whataboutbob1]

So I'm looking at different numbers and the other number I am seeing is about the processor. I'm currently looking at a machine that has 8 gigabytes of RAM and the processor is a 2.48 gigahertz Intel Celeron processor. Does the processor number figure into determining if this is a good fit to run Media Center 25?

[DJLegba]

So I'm looking at different numbers and the other number I am seeing is about the processor. I'm currently looking at a machine that has 8 gigabytes of RAM and the processor is a 2.48 gigahertz Intel Celeron processor. Does the processor number figure into determining if this is a good fit to run Media Center 25?

That machine will have more than enough juice.

[Manfred]

It depends, what you want do to and the size of your library and data.
My media renderer has 8 GB and an i3-6100 + GTX 960 + Win 10. During audio/video playback %CPU < 20% and memory always < 8GB. I upscale all my video content to 4k. Today GTX 1050 TI 4GB or GTX 1060 6 GB is the choice to go.

My media server has 16 GB ram and i3-7100, if you want to re-anlyze audio for all audio and video data again and say have 20 000 files, this takes some hours@100% CPU utilization and ~8 GB memory. If you do this kind of tasks more often an i7 or multi core Xeon is the better choice. I do it rarely. If you want to transcode video in real time on the server to playback a video on your iPad,  i7 4C4T or similar is better.

For audio i3 with high sample frequency + 8GB RAM is a good choice.