At least not anymore, thanks to Intel's Thin Mini-ITX platform, which it debuted roughly a year ago at Computex.

ENGADGET: Intel's Thin Mini-ITX platform gets stuffed inside a monitor

In addition, it conforms to Intel Thin Mini-ITX standards, meaning even the motherboard is upgradeable, a first in the PC industry.

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The main board is the same footprint as Mini-ITX (that's a 6.7-inch square), but it calls for a much shallower construction -- with horizontally stacked RAM and a shorter port cluster to keep the whole thing under an inch tall.

ENGADGET: Intel's Thin Mini-ITX platform gets stuffed inside a monitor