Great, so the hardware supports accelerated decoding.

So, the question is not whether the CPU can decode the data in real time, but can any other hardware in the device (likely the graphics hardware) handle it? These machines have Intel HD 4000 graphics and, per my reading of the literature, they are capable of accelerating H.264 video decoding. In general, we have a video standard (H.264, which I’ll focus on for this post) and many bits of hardware are able to accelerate decoding. Whether or not a computer or device can play a video well depends on a lot of factors.įirst of all, looking at the raw speed of the general-purpose CPU inside of a computer as a gauge of video playback performance is generally misguided in this day and age. But then, I have been “in the biz” for a bit too long. He asked me which one would be able to play HD video at full frame rate. The only appreciable technical difference is the extra 0.3 GHz and the choice came down to those 2. The difference between the latter 2 is US$100. Then there are 2 Core i7 models: 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz. At the time of this writing, there are 3 desktop models (and 2 more “server” models). I have a friend who was considering purchasing a Mac Mini recently.