First I tried a HEVC encoded 4K video (3840×2160, 29.97 fps, 80 Mbps), which is scaled down to 1920×1080 on my screen (which increases the load even a little bit more), as I don’t have a 4K screen at my disposal. According to Intel 3840×2160 at 30 fps is also the maximum resolution and frame rate that the device can support. As expected, NUC5PPYH manages this just fine – CPU load constantly under 10% and playback is smooth.
Finally a test of HEVC encoded 4K video at 60 fps. This was too much for the N3050 powered model, but would the quad-core Pentium with 16 EUs survive it? It seems that the result is identical to the N3050. Judging with plain eye the video seems equally bad, even if there are 33% more EUs in the GPU. It could be that the driver or the HEVC support in MPC-HC is not yet fully up to the task, or it could be that neither of the CPUs will simply be able to handle 4K video decoding at 60 fps. I guess this is something we’ll see in future.
Anyway, even if you would have a 4K TV, there’s no way that you could get a 4K picture out at that resolution as the maximum that is supported by the HDMI 1.4b interface is 4K@30fps. The only situation where you would need this is if you have 4K video stream at 60 fps and you would like to watch it downscaled to full HD (1920x1080p). Movies these days are typically at 24 frames per second (so called 24p), which the NUC plays just fine.