Budget 0-20k Suggestions for HTPC with 4K Video Playback support

Hi All,

I am looking at buying a HTPC which would support smooth 4K playback support primarly.
Passive cooling would be great advantage as it would be great silent machine.

I was looking at ASUS J1800I-C but its good for 1080p , on this 4K video is lagging quite a lot and get 100% CPU utilization but its a great board for 1080p playback.

Need suggestions for
. Form Factor Micro ATX or Mini ITX
. APU [CPU with GPU] Quad Core probably
. a good cabinet with powersupply
. USB Wifi Adapter which would support 1080p streaming , i have a ASUS NT-

This would be running Win7 / Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Win 8.1 Pro depends havent finalized yet.
Browsers : Chrome and Firefox

Thats all that would go on this PC.
 
Only Intel's Quick Sync could handle 4k playback according to a benchie I saw a while back : http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-richland-intel-haswell-gpu_7.html . AMD's Kaveri APU has added 4k support, but I can't find any conclusive benchmarks.

Why 4k BTW? There's barely any content. Plus 4k/60Hz won't work on HDMI 1.4 due to bandwidth limitations.

1080p over Wifi is going to be tough without knowing what bitrate your movies are, and if the wifi link will have sufficient bandwidth, seeing as most USB wifi adapters are only N150. Which router do you have? You could get another router and set it up as a client. Else you could keep a local copy on the HTPC itself, or use a wired link.
 
Well i don't think 4k video over Wi Fi is a good idea.People are using category 6 or more gigabit ethernet cable for that kind of stuff.But basically its upto you and i am satisfied with 1080 p

Well about your question Intel NUC Kit DN2820FYKH-Mini PC is a good desktop PC size of mac Mini but with much better features.You can install some basic linux distro like

Puppy,archlinux,Raspbian etc. and tweak them to get better result.This are compatible with Windows 8 also but i don't advice that because it will eat up your precious processor power or resources
 
I have one NUC DN2820FYKH at home. It does a good job at 1080p videos. Works just fine with Win8, though Win 7 64bit drivers are a bit tricky.
This one has Wifi Card inbuilt too.Support for Sata for SSD/2.5 HDD is a plus, since old NUC have mSATA slots.
 
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