2017-02-27, 08:37
@blackbanana : All your tested HEVC-files are Main10-level very high bitrate 10-bit files and your GTX 970 does not have HW-decoding support for these. So your machine is doing very demanding SW-decoding, which quite probably chokes your CPU.
I would suggest to invest to more modern GPU, if you plan to stick in NVidia-family just for HW-decoding even the cheapest GTX 1050 would handle these files easily. But if you are planning to use Kodi DSPlayer with MadVR, the GTX 1060 for example could be a better choice: those clever MadVR-algorithms can be very GPU-tasking.
I would suggest to invest to more modern GPU, if you plan to stick in NVidia-family just for HW-decoding even the cheapest GTX 1050 would handle these files easily. But if you are planning to use Kodi DSPlayer with MadVR, the GTX 1060 for example could be a better choice: those clever MadVR-algorithms can be very GPU-tasking.