[tfouto]

Hello everybody,

I am just planning to buy the NUC as my HTPC. I have read this whole thread and tons of other review websites and now I am a little bit confused. I am deciding between NUC5i5RYH and NUC5i3RYH.

My requirements:
Playback of all possible video codecs and normally used bitrates including HEVC (H.265) in 4K
File and backup server for my home network (Samba, Bittorrent Sync - or any other cross platform cross devices sync)
Git repositories mirror (Gitolite)

From the above I have chosen Ubuntu with Kodi and USB 3.0 external RAID to be the best combination supporting my requirements, but any suggestions or comments will be apreciated. What I do not know is whether i3-5010u is sufficient for the playback of HEVC (H.265) in 4K. I have read one post here that the user experienced some shuttering with single-channel memory setup and that I was OK with dual-channel, but I was just a one video in one bitrate. Would i5-5250u do a big difference?

In my country the i5 NUC costs about $100 more than i3 NUC and I am not sure whether I will have any benefit form the i5 with my use cases - especially whether it will play movies smoother as other reqirements are not so demanding. As the NUC will be powered on 24/7 the lowest possible power consumption, especially idle one is required.

Thank you for any tips, suggestions or experience sharing.

Tom

I am not sure if Broadwell will manage to handle normal bitrates HEVC in 4k. Like 16Mpbs... The drivers are getting better, but i am not sure it will handle well. If you want a future proof, then it's better wait to next NUC generation. If not the i3 should be perfectly fine.

There are lots of low bitrate 4k that the nuc handles it. Like:
http://www.libde265.org/downloads-videos/

3.8 Mbps. but those are really low bitrates...

Usually h264 1080p mkv's have around 10mpbs. For 4k in future, i guess that at least 10mpbs, since 4k need more pixels, and more bitrate even if it's more efficient.