This is a big plus as 10-bit HEVC content seems to get more and more common. The NUC7i3BNH supports HEVC 10-bit decoding even at 4k resolutions. Unfortunately I don’t have a 4k HDR television that I could use to test this now. According to the spec sheet for the MegaChips LSPCon that is used in this NUC the chip should also be able to support High Dynamic Range (HDR). The Kaby Lake SoC does not support HDMI 2.0 natively, but instead Intel has added a LSPCon that will convert the DisplayPort signal to HDMI 2.0.

VP9 hardware decoding is also included with both 8 and 10-bit content support. Even 10-bit HEVC video decoding is supported by the hardware. In addition it has a HDMI 2.0 interface (needed for 4k at 60 Hz) and it features full hardware decoding of H.264 and HEVC video even at 4k resolutions Hz refresh rate. Lively performance, small size and quietness are just a few of them. The Kaby Lake NUC should make a nice HTPC due to a couple of reasons. I would not suggest anything much older than that as the Kaby Lake GPU and the WiFi adapter are not properly supported in older kernels… HTPC Credentials Ubuntu 16.10 has kernel 4.8, which is quite fresh. If you’re interested, the kernel log from a boot can be found here. The WiFi and Bluetooth adapters were working fine, there were no issues with the GPU and in general things seemed to be fully functional. The installation was uneventful and the system booted up just fine. I downloaded Ubuntu Linux 16.10 Desktop (Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS does not have a new enough kernel for supporting the WiFi adapter) and set to install it from a USB stick for quick test how does it work with the NUC. Part 3: Kaby Lake NUC as a HTPC and Conclusions.Part 2: Performance and Benchmark Results.

If you came here via a search engine, be sure to visit the other parts of this review as well. In the concluding part of the Kaby Lake NUC review we install Ubuntu Linux on it and try how it works as a HTPC.

Mpc hc linux