[noggin]

Thanks wrxtasy and Sam for the replies.
What I don't understand is how a ChromeBOX with a 1.4 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM runs Madnox perfectly but the C2 with a 1.5 GHz/2GB RAM or the Vero 4K with a 1.6 GHz/2GB RAM would struggle. Any science behind that?

You can't compare frequency rates between ARM and Intel x86 processors. The Celeron 2955U in a Chromebox is a cut-down Core i3 - which is a massively more powerful processor in CPU terms than the ARM cores in the Amlogic S905X in the Vero 4K.

The science is that the CPU of the Core-based x86 processor is much more powerful (i.e. does a lot more computation in a cycle) than the core in the ARM SoC. Comparing clock rates (i.e. CPU frequencies) between different architectures, as a way of estimating performance, is pointless.

The S905X SoC in the Vero 4K has a much better VPU implementation for video decode (4K HEVC 10 bit at 60Hz) than the Celeron 2955U's (which I think maxes out at 4K AVC 8 bit at 30Hz), but the CPU in the Celeron is significantly more powerful.

So if your skin is CPU-intensive, you'll find x86 Core series (including Core-series Celeron like the 2955U) boxes do a far smoother job than an ARM-based box I suspect.

The penalty for this higher CPU performance is more heat generation, higher power draw etc.  (Compare the PSUs between the Chromebox and the Vero 4K, and the cooling requirements...)