[Qtrmeg]

However, for basic 4K/2K/1080p video playback, Intel i series NUC's are complete overkill and overpriced for Kodi use only.

This is where I have a problem because it seems you dismiss anything greater than a Chromebox as being unnecessary. I have a Chromebox on one TV and I would say that is the minimum. I spend a lot of time navigating around Kodi and from a pure hardware standpoint I want more speed, and if it costs me 10 cents more per day I am cool with that. The better hardware comes at a premium but I don't think it is "complete overkill and overpriced".

Ps. Wrxtasy, I don't have a problem with you in any way, in fact I have lost track of how many times I've had a question and you had the answer handy when I searched. Your work doesn't go unnoticed and I want to thank you.

I have a Sandybridge Celeron G540 with 4GBs or RAM , Nvidia 740 GPU and there is no difference in navigating libraries and basically anything in the Kodi menu on that versus my i7 workstation with 16GB or RAM or my Dell XPS 13 , unless i have nothing better to do than to to load up my development environment and 4-5 virtual machines while compiling code on the little Celeron HTPC while running Kodi, in which case yeah, the i7 toasts it. But then again, it`s a media player, not a workstation, i don`t do that stuff on it.

And considering the Chromebox probably has a better CPU than my old HTPC, you kinda get the point.

I don't really get the point, but I'm far from being a computer geek. On the face of it you are running a real computer with more memory, not a gadget. The Chromebox is also a Celeron but w/ 2GB memory, running single boot Openelec dedicated to a display. The computer I compare it to is this, running Kodi from within Windows, with the TV as a second display, both displays driven by CPU graphics. >>>

Q03 Desktop

One media library has over 5000 titles and the i5 blows the doors off the Chromebox. I don't know why but it does.

Well I do know why. A better computer will beat a lesser computer, it always has.