It really needs to have intel quicksync as that’s the part that decodes the video smoothly. And I just checked and they all have it so any of them should be fine. The 4th gen clearly outputs 4k. The others are less clear on that ability.

The chip choice depends on what you want to do with it. Streaming may need a better graphics capability (may, or may not depending on how you generate the stream).

The choice is between th ei7 2nd gen, or the i3 4th gen.

• The i3 is lower power consumption: 54W vs 95W. A big difference.
• They are about the same single thread performance, so no real difference.
• The i7 has much better multithreading capabilities, so this may come in handy for the multiple streams. It has 4 cores, 8 threads vs the i3 2 cores, 4 threads. A big difference.
• Both use DDR3, and the i3 can take slightly faster memory, but not a big diffrence.

So, I’d be going for the i3 if power consumption is an issue. Otherwise the i7 may give you better CPU capacity if you run more than one thing at a time.

Either way, you’re going to love the journey.

Wireguard is what you want!