Recognizing this issue, Intel introduced an option based on the 1.1GHz Celeron 847, but that chip is awfully slow and at $180, the barebones box it comes inside still isn't a particularly good value. To date, we think it's safe to say that NUC is a cool idea that has been hamstrung by poor hardware choices and unattractive prices -- a trend that Gigabyte hopes to buck with its new NUC offerings.

Gigabyte's pint-sized "Brix" systems come in four different processor configurations, including the 1.8GHz Celeron 1037U, 1.9GHz Core i3-3227U, 1.8-2.7GHz Core i5-3337U and 2-3.1GHz Core i7-3537U. Those seem much more powerful than Intel's lineup and that's certainly enough to warrant our attention, but it's worth noting that Brix also offers more USB 3.0 ports and Wi-Fi out of the box.

Granted, while the Core i5-3337U-powered Brix system is faster than any of Intel's NUC options, it's also more expensive at $420 -- a sum that will increase well beyond $500 after you purchase memory, storage and an operating system. We're thinking 8GB of 1600MHz SO-DIMM RAM, a 128GB mSATA SSD and a copy of Windows 8 Professional seem like a proper fit, and they add another $330.

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