I'm shopping to replace my current Mac Mini in our home theater setup, and because I use it for other odd tasks besides just Plex I'm pretty set on replacing it with another Mac Mini. We set up our little headless 2010 model a while back as a proof of concept, and while we've decided we love using it, it's priving just too anemic for a lot of our content (and various other tasks).
Since the primary function of this box will be Plex, I figured I would ask here whether an older quad core i7 Mac Mini (model 5,3) or a newer dual core i5 Mac Mini (model 7,1) is generally considered more apt for PMS? My understanding is that since the software doesn't use GPU acceleration at all, the newer Iris graphics wouldn't really be an issue. So it seems to me that for basically the same price, an older used quad core Mini is the better idea, especially since they're i7 versus i5. Just seems like more horsepower all around, and the server threads out pretty well to utilize more cores right?
Looking forward to feedback from anyone else who's considered this decision. Thanks in advance!