"small profile PC to sit under my TV" this can and will get expensive. Dolphin needs a lot of power. I'd say about minimum requirement is the G3258 cpu(when overclocked), and an actual gpu. Anything midrange and up should be ok.
An alternative to this might be long cables. One hdmi, one usb cable, and one usb hub with active power supply should do the trick. Well, if you have a gaming desktop pc.
Since Dolphin is emulation, it needs to run at 100%, or games will lag, instead of just playing at lower fps. That's why you really need a strong cpu. Anything amd is out of the question right now, we'll see if amd's zen will change that. You have to consider that even the latest quad core intel cpu can't run all games fine, and that's with overlock(4.5Ghz) already.
An alternative to this might be long cables. One hdmi, one usb cable, and one usb hub with active power supply should do the trick. Well, if you have a gaming desktop pc.
Since Dolphin is emulation, it needs to run at 100%, or games will lag, instead of just playing at lower fps. That's why you really need a strong cpu. Anything amd is out of the question right now, we'll see if amd's zen will change that. You have to consider that even the latest quad core intel cpu can't run all games fine, and that's with overlock(4.5Ghz) already.