[noggin]

4K h.265 would probably be problematic but I tried a few 10bit h.265 1080p movies on my old i5-2500k machine and they played perfectly. The CPU usage goes somewhere between 12-20%. With HW decoding (I'm using a GTX-1050), the CPU usage goes down to 1-2%.

You can get a cheap low-profile gt-1030 later if you feel like GPU decoding is needed for your usage. I actually think your i7-4790 will be able to handle most of the 4K-10bit-h.265 content with SW decoding (very heavy CPU usage obviously) since your CPU has much more raw power than my 2500K.

My old i7-2600K struggled with 2160/59.94p HEVC 8-bit stuff with software decoding - but that was 2-3 years ago and I suspect software decoding has been optimised since then. 23.976p stuff will be less demanding as well.

I'd expect 1080p H265 stuff to be fine on a recent i7 even with software decode - though the CPU may kick in some cooling which may not be ideal (and would be less likely with hardware decode).

My fanless, US$50 S905 box plays 2160/59.94p HEVC silently though...

[wrxtasy]

My fanless, US$50 S905 box plays 2160/59.94p HEVC silently though...

And S905X's (HDR + VP9) are getting cheaper, some even come with DRM extras like this $39 MECOOL

[gotiuser01]

My fanless, US$50 S905 box plays 2160/59.94p HEVC silently though...

Yeah, my rk3288 box also works great in my living room thanks to the firmware developed by freaktab folks. (It was pure crap with the stock rom). But you can tell that OP actually wants a multi-purpose HTPC as he went for an i7 machine with 16GB RAM. Another thing that has to be said is his i-GPU (HD4600) is actually much more powerful than that GeForce 210 card he planned to use.

[nickr]

Granted, but he may not have thought outside that particular box and the suggestions offer a good alternative.

[MatteN]

Got a http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J3160DC-ITX/, installed LibreELEC on an old SSD, it plays http://jell.yfish.us/media/jellyfish-110...d-hevc.mkv without any problems, havent tried 4k as i only got a fullHD tv.