[arokh]

My question here is simple, aside from the extra small form factor and mostly silent operation, why is everyone choosing to go this route instead of just building your own box?

As far as I can see it has just about everything you need except a decent GPU. Don't get me wrong I know Intel 4400/5000 is good enough for the gui and playing high quality HD video. But that's about it, no? Say I wanted to install Win 8 + Dolphin emulator, this would not be sufficient correct?

I totaled up a small build yesterday on Newegg and in the end it's not too much more than what this + ram + msata + wifi... Yet I'd have a much better video card.

I'd like to turn it around and ask "why not the NUC?". Yes, you can build something small and silent yourself but is it worth the effort? I don't know about you, but I do have other things to do with my time. Enough time is wasted playing around with Linux and XBMC on my HTPC in general, I can't be bothered building all my HTPC's as well.

The NUC is a perfect fit for me, has all my requirements.

- Small and nice form factor, fits right in together with my hifi stuff
- Silent operation
- Intel based (HD audio and perfect 24p)
- Cheap (I also count the time I save building my own)

I don't know about Dolphin, but I play all Retroarch cores (including PSX/N64) and Dosbox without a hitch on mine with high quality shaders enabled. I think you are underestimating the i5 Haswell and HD5000, these things can play Counter-Strike:Source decent at high resolutions. Same spec as in 2013 MBA, check out some benchmarks of that laptop to see what it can do.