Dismantled my X7 to try to get to grips with why video playback of broadcast TV is throttling the CPU and frame dropping like crazy, when the Baytrail CPU/GPU combo should cope fine...

Once you've taken the base plate off (4 standard cross head screws) you can remove the large CPU board (well it's tiny in relative terms!) with another 4 cross head screws.

You then discover a small thin plastic pad stuck to the CPU and other chips. This doesn't conduct heat anywhere - it doesn't touch anything...

It feels to me like a decent heatsink might have been a better idea... Using a laser thermometer the plastic pad is hitting 50C playing video.

Looking at the two PCBs it appears that there is space left for additional USB-style headers to link the two boards with a further connection, and possibly space for two additional front panel components between the USB and Power LED - whether this is for an IR receiver, activity LED or something else I don't know.

What is clear is that the two internal PCBs are very neatly designed and very easy to remove. If someone wanted to make a much smaller unit they could, easily.

If the header that isn't used is a spare USB port - then an internal TV tuner would be a really neat addition too.