fallinlight
Distinguished Member
If your only playing movies at home to the likes of smartTV's or other kit with built-in plex or media servers then they will play files without the need for transcoding which even a lowly old i3 NUC could easily handle if your on good home network (gigabit wired or high-speed wi-fi).
Family can be watching stuff from my server remotely (son at uni, best mate at his house & brother-in-law at his house) over my 50/20mbps internet. That could lead to 3 simultaneous transcodes to downsize my media files to each (normally anywhere from 3mbps 720p to say 12mbps 1080p transcodes). If the source file is a 4K rip it can be a big load on the NUC.
If your not streaming, why go for the i7 ? It will have a higher power usage (I also like to keep this to a minimum).
I'm obviously pushing the little NUC hard on occasion.
I think I over spent, someone else told me the i5 would have been fine for me. But I watch the full metadata 4K HDR film file. This is at 120" diagonal. Thought I might turn it into a capa le gaming PC if I geel like it, too by adding an external GPU - excellent that it is Thunderbolt. So, thought I would just get the i7 to be safe.
Anyway, almost all of my film viewing is from disc still.