[HN Gopher] Framework's first desktop is a strange-but unique-mi...
___________________________________________________________________
Framework's first desktop is a strange-but unique-mini ITX gaming
PC
Author : perihelions
Score : 295 points
Date : 2025-02-25 19:39 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| what is the pitch, because desktops don't have a problem with
| replacements, repairs etc.
| sunshowers wrote:
| 256 GB/s memory bandwidth for $2000.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Which should also be available from all the usual motherboard
| manufacturers. Possibly well before this one, since it
| doesn't ship until Q3.
| sunshowers wrote:
| Will it? I'm not aware of any other than the HP
| workstation. Maybe one or two of the Chinese mini PC
| manufacturers. But nothing you can buy as a mini-ITX
| motherboard.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Of course you will. Asus et al have heard the buzz, have
| the connections, and can spin up a product far quicker
| than the 5-9 or months before Strix Halo is available.
| sunshowers wrote:
| Sure, to the extent that happens, the Framework will
| compete with them. Competition is great.
| zamalek wrote:
| It's soldered RAM, which is a fantastic trade-off for
| specific scenarios (inference). If all you care about is
| local inference, this thing is basically the same price as
| a 5090 (I think?) with multiple times the memory, and no
| need to purchase "everything else" (mobo, CPU, etc.)
| alongside. And given that home inference will typically be
| serving a single user at once, a handful at worst, you
| _really_ have no need for a GPU. I 'm guessing that this
| product will be uniquely positioned for quite a long time.
|
| For every other use-case? Yeah, just get a desktop.
| lytedev wrote:
| It seems to be squaring up directly against the mac studio with
| its efficient APU and big memory bandwidth use cases with a
| cheaper price tag. At least that's the loose sense that I got
| based on their keynote.
| jackbravo wrote:
| Nvidia project Digits seems to fall in a similar category,
| no?
| sunshowers wrote:
| It is, and the keynote briefly mentioned it.
| theossuary wrote:
| It's a bit different. Digits is based on the Tegra CPU,
| which is an ARM chip with integrated nvidia GPU. It's
| nearly COTS (commercial off the shelf), but not quite.
| Tegra CPU support isn't in mainline linux, so you have to
| run their fork of Ubuntu or build your own kernel. The
| integrated GPU is a special class in nvidia drivers, and
| some things just don't work on it (they only work on a
| discrete GPU) for seemingly no reason too.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Right - there was no major market gap here. With laptops there
| was, but not desktops. Not sure the point of this. I hope they
| didn't spend too much eng time on it, rather than on their
| laptops. The F16 could use a new rev...
| dvtkrlbs wrote:
| 128GB unified memory
| boricj wrote:
| If that was available when I started to build my homelab
| server, I'd have bought it. My requirements were a low-power
| but modern and punchy mini-ITX board with an AMD processor in a
| very compact build with a 48v DC power supply and SmartOS.
|
| That was basically unobtainium and I've compromised down to a
| AliExpress mini-ITX motherboard with a mobile AMD CPU, a AM5
| heatsink and firmware that is... flavorful, powered by a
| screaming TFX power supply crammed in an absurdly tight 3.8L
| noname case running on Proxmox (when you start reconfiguring
| PCI Express bridges through the serial port kernel debugger
| because that's just about the only device the Illumos kernel
| enumerated at all on what is supposed to be your main server,
| it's time to give up on SmartOS).
|
| It works, but it's a little box of pure hatred and heresy
| that's quite far off from what I've wanted initially. It _is_
| actually an improvement over my previous main server, somehow.
| dangus wrote:
| No offense but your requirements make very little sense for
| that use case, unless you really needed PCI-Express.
|
| I'd have bought a Beelink or similar mini PC if I wanted
| small size and low power along with low price. You lose some
| modularity compared to ITX boards but I am almost certain you
| spent more money and deal with more noise and maybe even more
| power consumption.
|
| For me personally my homelab PC is just an ATX mid tower in
| the closet because those parts are dirt cheap and you can get
| lots of performance with essentially infinite modularity.
| h14h wrote:
| Repair-friendly form factor for a "Unified Memory" platform.
|
| For $2000, you get 128 of system RAM, 96 of which is
| addressable as VRAM. Only ways of getting 96GB of VRAM in a
| desktop are to either:
|
| 1. Drop ~$5000 on a (very non-upgradeable) Mac Studio 2. Drop
| ~$20k on a dual RTX 6000 workstation
|
| For running local LLMs, there's nothing on the market presently
| even remotely like this.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| You can get a M3/M4 Max with 128 GB of RAM as well. The
| Studio will give you > 128 GB.
|
| I have a max with 64GB RAM, which is good enough for 70b
| models with a 3 bit quant. Even if I had more RAM to run
| larger models, my GPU would be the bottleneck.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > You can get a M3/M4 Max with 128 GB of RAM as well.
|
| To get an M4 Max so you can have 128GB, you need a macbook
| pro. The cheapest macbook pro with 128GB is $4700.
|
| M4 Max does have the benefit of more memory controllers, so
| it has twice as much memory bandwidth as Ryzen AI Max. But
| that's a lot of money to pay for it.
| orangecat wrote:
| _To get an M4 Max so you can have 128GB, you need a
| macbook pro._
|
| By the time the Framework ships the Mac Studio will have
| been updated to the M4 Max. Although 128GB will still
| probably be around $3k.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Yep. You can get an M3 Max refurbished, but will make
| some tradeoff with GPU performance.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| Framework is REALLY pushing the envelope here. /r/localLLaMA is
| waiting deperatly for Strix Halo.
| JohnDeHope wrote:
| I hate to be a hater, but having built myriad gaming PCs in my
| time, this doesn't really seem like much of a step forward. I'm
| hoping it's just the beginning. I'd love a modular plug-and-play
| PC parts ecosystem. This doesn't seem like that, yet.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Imagine being able to swap components between their laptops and
| desktops! That would be pretty cool. Not sure how practically
| useful, but cool nonetheless.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| You can do that with https://www.coolermaster.com/en-
| global/products/framework/
|
| This announcement is bog standard mini-ITX.
| mariusor wrote:
| Which is developed together with which company? Could you
| guess?
| usrusr wrote:
| Technically, those tiny USB-to-whatever blocks of their
| laptops can be considered components and you can supposedly
| swap them with the desktop:
|
| > _(note the two bays for Framework 's expansion cards at the
| bottom)_
| pitaj wrote:
| https://frame.work/
|
| > Your estimated wait time is 1 hour and 3 minutes.
|
| Ouch
| mariusor wrote:
| Back to the internet of the nineties. But even then there
| wasn't a queue to "view" a website.
| favorited wrote:
| It's actually a pretty nice system when you're trying to
| purchase something. You have a reasonable estimate of when
| you'll be at the front of the queue, and when that time
| comes, you're more likely to be able to complete your
| transaction because the site isn't overwhelmed.
|
| It would obviously be better if they could limit it to
| something like `store.frame.work`, rather than putting a
| queue in front of their entire site...
| mariusor wrote:
| Yeah, for the shop it makes total sense, but for the front-
| page not so much.
| 9dev wrote:
| This makes zero sense, absolutely ever. Magento was able
| to properly cache the view-only parts like 15 years ago.
| No matter the traffic spikes, serving read requests
| shouldn't require hour-long waiting times for visitors.
| whatever1 wrote:
| Can we also have a desktop keyboard trackpad combo?
| evantbyrne wrote:
| The framework website currently has a strange message about
| putting users into queues just to view the homepage. Might be
| time to start thinking about setting up Varnish
| ortusdux wrote:
| It looks like their event drove a lot of traffic towards
| frame.work - Cloudfare is giving me a 1hr 9min wait to access the
| site.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/twcxJjr.png
| christophilus wrote:
| Same. This is the first time I've ever seen the Cloudflare
| queue screen.
| imp0cat wrote:
| I waited 20 minutes. And it was worth it.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| Isn't the entire purpose of a CDN like cloudflare to enable
| bursts like that?
| 0x457 wrote:
| CF can only handle static websites, I suspect the issue the
| store-backend side not being able to catch up.
| fragmede wrote:
| I should still be able to click around the pages to browse
| the products, even if full cart functionality isn't there.
|
| Whoever is in charge of that website gets an L.
|
| For that matter, it makes me reconsider my hosting of
| things with Cloudflare. I know nothing about framework's
| site's configuration, but I know I don't want my site to
| have a waiting line like that.
|
| edit: also, the timer went down and then went back up, so I
| have thoughts about this enterprise Cloudflare feature.
| edaemon wrote:
| It's a feature you have to activate and it's only
| available to Business/Enterprise sites, you're not at any
| risk of it showing up unless you want it to.
|
| https://developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/
| fragmede wrote:
| until the user logs in, the cart functionality is
| implanted client side with cookies, and incurs no db hit.
|
| guess it's true what they say about hardware vs software.
| you gotta pick one to be good at, and the other is going
| to suffer for it, to varying degrees. (inb4 someone
| mentions Apple. Apple is a hardware company. Their
| software's alright but it's full of bugs and they're
| simply not as good as it as they are with hardware.)
| 0x457 wrote:
| I assume you're going to skip marketing material and go
| straight to "build my own" or whatever they call it. I
| assume they didn't expect such influx in site visitors.
|
| E-commerce is hard. I worked at a company where we could
| use 1% of infra at its peak every day of the year except
| 15-20 days. We knew exactly when floodgates will open,
| and we still would suffer extra high latency or even
| downtime.
| fragmede wrote:
| you're right but loading the front page at
| http://frame.work shouldn't incur the "build your own"
| hit.
|
| e-commerce _is_ hard. that 's why we get paid so well.
| hiring the smartest teenager that your nephew knows to
| setup some bullshit for $15/hr vs hiring a senior SRE at
| $100+/hr, when it directly leads to lost sales is a
| choice.
|
| the senior part also comes after having failed to scale
| in production, and learning the lessons there, leading to
| a site that stays up on the next black Friday/cyber
| Monday, and stands up to various ddos attacks. (this was
| before Cloudflare, mind you)
| spacemanspiff01 wrote:
| How about Nvidia, they have both good hardware/software.
| starkparker wrote:
| The 12 isn't even up for preorder, but its landing page is
| gated by Cloudflare all the same.
| miyuru wrote:
| site just loaded for me and its just a marketing page.
|
| I bet the waiting room makes it worse, since it cannot
| cache the page due to having the waiting room.
|
| also the page has `via2.0 heroku-router' header.
| perihelions wrote:
| Here's a screenshot (WEBP 1452 x 16383) of the product page,
| for anyone who wants a glimpse at what's behind the Cloudflare
| wall:
|
| https://i.ibb.co/Y4n5Qhzm/framework.webp ( _" Framework Desktop
| is a big computer made mini"_)
| bastardoperator wrote:
| thank you
| sdwr wrote:
| Banana for scale!
| onli wrote:
| Framework is great because they took an entshittified category
| and made a good and repairable product in it, upgradeable in a
| way the other vendors refused to enable. That was the laptop. Now
| they made a less repairable desktop PC. This brings nothing to
| the market.
|
| The soldered ram is particularly unacceptable. I get and believe
| that they could not make it work otherwise, but then they should
| have stopped the product instead of just adding to the e-waste.
| sunshowers wrote:
| There's no other way to get 256 GB/s of memory bandwidth for
| this cheap, and that's quite valuable in many workloads. I'm
| curious to get one for compiling code too.
|
| You can get similar bandwidth with server boards that cost
| 5-10x as much, or with a Mac Studio that costs 2.5x as much.
| i80and wrote:
| Note that this is what CAMM[1] memory is intended to solve,
| although it remains to be seen to what extent it catches on.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAMM_(memory_module)
| pitaj wrote:
| According to Framework, CAMM / LPCAMM is simply not
| compatible with this line of AMD chips, do to signal
| integrity reasons.
| aseipp wrote:
| CAMM will be fine on laptops and other smaller form factor
| devices for CPU-class memory speeds, but it does not have
| the bus width or lanes to match solutions like Strix Halo,
| Grace, Apple M-series -- the memory bandwidth being a large
| part of their appeal. Increasing the bus width on CAMM
| modules is going to compromise many of the other
| advantages.
|
| The problem is that these are integrated shared-memory
| systems with a single RAM pool. That's nice for a lot of
| reasons, but GPUs need many more memory channels and larger
| bus widths than CPUs do in order to do work and remain fed
| at a reasonable power draw. It's an inherent design trade
| off. I don't see a CAMM style solution for GPU memory
| coming anytime soon except on the low end.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Or the NVidia Project DIGITS device at 1.5x the cost, but,
| also Q2 2025 instead of Q3.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > You can get similar bandwidth with server boards
|
| Could be wrong, but I don't think you can. The bandwidth
| limit, AFAIK, is a problem with the DDR5 spec. These soldered
| solutions can go faster specifically because they aren't
| DDR5.
| sunshowers wrote:
| Hmm, I think a Threadripper 7965WX can get you there.
| Probably around 4-5k all in so I guess similar pricing to a
| Mac Studio.
| nolist_policy wrote:
| Desktop platforms only have 2 memory channels, amd's latest
| Epyc servers have 12 channels _per socket_. Strix Halo has
| 4 channels.
| kingsleyopara wrote:
| A Mac mini with an M4 Pro and 64GB of memory has the same
| bandwidth and costs PS1,999, compared to PS1,750 for the
| Framework Desktop when factoring in the minimum costs for
| storage, tiles, and necessary expansion cards.
| sunshowers wrote:
| True, but less RAM.
| kingsleyopara wrote:
| One thing to note on the more RAM: for the 128GB option,
| my understanding is that the GPU is limited to using only
| 96GB [1]. In contrast, on Macs, you can safely increase
| this to, for example, 116GB using `sysctl`.
|
| [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amds-
| beastly...
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| On linux, the gpu can go up to 110 GB.
| kingsleyopara wrote:
| Apologies, I stand corrected. Do you have a reference for
| this? I'm genuinely curious why the 96GB "limit" is so
| frequently cited - I assumed it must be a hardware
| limitation.
| watermelon0 wrote:
| It's mentioned in LTT video:
| https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY?t=126
|
| (video also features Framework's founder/CEO)
| colingauvin wrote:
| That's a Windows limitation. On Linux it's 110GB.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| The soldered ram was necessary for Strix Halo. There is a large
| group of people who really want Strix Halo, and are willing to
| pay for it. There is no reason they should have avoided making
| this product.
|
| (The 32GB config is silly, though. With that little RAM, there
| is nothing it does better than a cheaper machine with a
| discrete GPU.)
| onli wrote:
| There is a reason and I think my prior comment made it clear:
| When your declared purpose is to limit e-waste, making a new
| product that does not foster that goal risks alienating the
| people you won with your purpose description.
| thomasfortes wrote:
| > The soldered ram was necessary for Strix Halo
|
| In the LTT video the framework CEO explains that AMD wasn't
| able to make LPCAMM work because of signal integrity over the
| bus reasons.
|
| But 2000 dollars for up to 110GB of VRAM in Linux makes this
| a VERY interesting little machine, so much that the framework
| website has a cloudflare queue right now...
| h14h wrote:
| This isn't competing with normal desktops.
|
| Better to think of it as a competitor to Mac Studio & Nvidia
| Digits, which are much less repairable by comparison. The
| soldered memory is an unfortunate reality of these "unified"
| memory systems.
|
| The only way to get a traditional desktop with 96GB of VRAM is
| to spend upwards of $10K loading it up with 2-4 GPUs.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| A big product category that is developing right now is
| hobbyists running LLMs on their own computers - more likely
| desktops rather than laptops. I presume they want to build
| expertise and market in this category, and that is why they
| think the compromise is worth it.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Up to 128 GB RAM available for running AI models.
|
| Theoretically awesome, but this might have some interesting
| market consequences for everyone else.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| $2,0000 to $3,000 desktop devices with 128GB of shared GPU/CPU
| RAM seems to be a segment that is seeing lots of announcements
| from lots of vendors.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| The bandwidth still doesn't quite compare to a GPU, and 128GB
| doesn't fit DeepSeek R1, however. If they bump it to 512GB for
| $5000 or so, that will disrupt the market.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| 256GB/s is on par with the M4 Pro at a much lower price.
|
| You could run R1 671B using unsloth's quantized version that
| fits in <80GB. Not sure why that would be a benchmark though,
| there's nothing that can run the model at full precision
| right now except for (very slow) server hardware.
| josephg wrote:
| You've gotta deal with amd's AI software stack though. How is
| that these days? I assume cuda is still king?
| rglullis wrote:
| I've been running ollama on an XTX7900 (AMD GPU with 24GB of
| RAM) with any model that fits in it, and absolutely no issues
| there.
| ac29 wrote:
| > You've gotta deal with amd's AI software stack though
|
| Not if you are using the CPU. I am under the impression most
| inference use cases are memory bandwidth limited, not compute
| limited, so running on the GPU would gain you little to
| nothing unless the GPU has faster access to the shared
| memory.
| ein0p wrote:
| With what memory bandwidth? Remember, without e.g. speculative
| decoding you need to read the entire model and KV cache for
| every token. Let's be extremely generous and say you get
| 512GB/sec in memory bandwidth, on par with a high end M4
| MacBook Pro. This means you can only read the entire DRAM 4
| times a second, generating at most 4 tokens per second. Smaller
| models will of course run proportionally faster, but 128GB
| isn't by itself a sufficient statistic to say whether this is
| "theoretically awesome" or not.
| jsheard wrote:
| > With what memory bandwidth?
|
| 256GB/sec, so roughly M4 Pro throughput.
| coldpie wrote:
| Two other Framework announcements:
|
| New 12-inch laptop form factor with 360 degree hinge (ie "tablet
| mode") and a touchscreen. No price announced, but it is aimed at
| students: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/frameworks-
| laptop-12...
|
| New mainboard upgrade options for Framework 13 models:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/framework-gives-its-...
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Reserved one of the updated base model 13's. Battery life for
| this gen of Ryzen seems solid in other laptops so I'm hoping
| it'll do reasonably well at stretching the FW13's 61Wh battery
| for low intensity tasks, particularly in power save mode under
| Linux.
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| I really want to get a Framework to replace my aging IdeaPad,
| but they don't ship to my region yet.
|
| I was planning on ordering the 7840U version to where I'm
| staying in a trip to the US, but now it feels a bit of a let
| down to order a last-gen model since the new one might not
| arrive in time for my trip in mid-April.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| Have you considered looking into a personal freight
| forwarder? I used these a few times while traveling through
| Europe.
| delfinom wrote:
| I wish they let us get rid of the pointless speakers and get
| a few more whs of battery instead.
| roxolotl wrote:
| I still think very fondly of my 11" MacBook Air. The idea of a
| 12" framework laptop is very appealing.
| scarlehoff wrote:
| Same here. I'm still using my 11" MacBook because it is the
| only one that fits in my handbag :)
| kbouck wrote:
| I had a coat with large side pockets _just_ big enough to
| fit the 11 " air. Not that I would ever use them for that,
| but it sure felt nice to have the option...
| znpy wrote:
| Unironically i went looking at 11" MacBook air listings on
| ebay earlier today.
|
| Nowadays i don't do much heavy computing on my personal
| laptop and i have an external 34" display anyway.
|
| So yeah, a 12" would be very interesting.
|
| Also i have fond memories of coding everyday on my 10"
| netbook when i was 16 :P
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Yet another 1080p garbage screen. Please! I had tablets with
| higher DPI 10 years ago!
| pcdoodle wrote:
| 1920x1200 / 16:10. It's perfect for a 12" IMO.
| ge96 wrote:
| yeah that's tough to get right even on a 14" 1440P is
| almost too much (problem is scaling, particularly with
| external monitor and your laptop, depends on OS)
|
| I also have a 13.5" 3000x2000 laptop and it uses 200%
| scaling, fractional is blurry. Initially I was trying to
| use Ubuntu but the extend monitor scaling was so bad
| (Chromium, VS Code), just decided to stick with Windows for
| this device.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| No, it is not. It would be perfect for a 6'' phone, maybe.
| The goal is to have at least double the pixel density, and
| my 2016 tablet can reach this ( ~2700x1800 at 12'' ).
|
| Even Surfaces have been using 1440p at 12'' since 2016, and
| 2880 x 1920 since 2018! Why would Android & Apple tablets
| at much smaller screen size have higher DPIs, if 1080p was
| perfect? Do you expect to put Android tablets closer to
| your face than x86 tablets for some reason?
|
| Sigh... since when has DPI started _decreasing_ again? I
| refuse to accept this trend, in the same way it was stupid
| back in the 2000s when LCDs became a thing.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> Since when has DPI started _decreasing_ again?_
|
| The human hardware isn't getting any better, so we must
| accept that there exists some upper bound beyond which
| improving resolution isn't a selling point for most
| people, especially given the necessary tradeoffs in
| battery life, processing power, memory usage, and input
| latency it entails. Now consider that this ceiling may
| have been hit 20 years ago, and that the continued
| dominance of 1920x1080 may not be because manufacturers
| are lazy, but because most people are happy enough with
| it.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| This is a ridiculous thing to respond to someone who
| complains that this hardware is worse than what was
| available at the same size 10 years ago.
| kibwen wrote:
| It's not. Finding the ceiling is always going to involve
| overshooting the ceiling and then walking back from
| there. It sounds as though you're not willing to consider
| even the possibility that this may be the effective end
| of progress for this combination of technology and use
| case, at least for values of "progress" that involve
| increasing resolution, rather than values that involve
| decreasing cost.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Or rather it sounds as someone misreading me again as
| asking for "progress" when I'm just asking not to skimp
| over on what was already offered 10 years ago and
| practically everyone else still offers today.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > Since when has DPI started _decreasing_ again?
|
| Since the pandemic. I have a still functioning Galaxy S8
| in my drawer, which shames modern phones with its 570ppi
| density.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Having to render all those pixels drained the battery
| faster, though. It was more practical to keep it at
| 1080p.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Which is exactly why they did do it and definitely do not
| continue releasing phones with 500ppi to this day.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S22#Display
| poisonborz wrote:
| Only because of Samsung's VR headsets, it was ridiculous
| and useless otherwise.
| ziml77 wrote:
| It's higher DPI than a 24" 4K monitor. It is plenty
| dense, especially for a battery powered device where the
| power needed to drive the display is a real
| consideration.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| That's why this has half the resolution of my current
| same size 12'' tablet, even though my current device has
| also half the battery capacity, and likely costed half
| than this thing will cost.
|
| Even if you use today's prices, the cheapest iPad has
| almost double the resolution. No, 1080p at 12'' it is not
| plenty dense. You do not put this smaller thing as far
| from your face as a 24'' monitor.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Triple the DPI? Are you doing the calculations right? The
| DPI of this screen is 189. The iPad Standard, Air, and
| Pro at 11 and 13 inches have a DPI of 264. The iPad Mini
| is a standout at 326 DPI, which is 1.72x the DPI.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| You are correct; I am using number of horizontal lines
| rather than computing the actual DPI. But this barely
| changes my argument, since even when they are at screens
| of similar size cheap iPads have double the number of
| horizontal lines. I have updated my post to reflect that.
| saurik wrote:
| The way to analyze this is using pixel density: 1900x1200
| on a 12" display is only 187 PPI, which is frustratingly
| below the "retina" range at the usual distance of a laptop
| screen (much less a tablet one, and this one is part
| tablet). The resolution you want for a 12" screen is
| 2560x1600, which is also 16:10 but at a much more usable
| 251 PPI.
| yellowapple wrote:
| It's a downgrade in DPI compared to even the 16, let alone
| the 13. Does it at least correspond to a higher refresh
| rate like with the 16?
|
| Hopefully that's upgradeable someday in any case.
| bryanhogan wrote:
| For me it's the perfect resolution on a laptop currently. I
| don't need a higher resolution and by not unnecessarily
| increasing it I get better performance, better battery life
| and a lower cost.
| 6SixTy wrote:
| It's likely chosen for cost. There's a couple of brand new
| fairly cheap laptops with exactly the same screens on paper
| and a few other similar sized laptops that are in the
| ballpark.
|
| Skimming Google, there are pretty much are no laptops 12" and
| higher resolution than 1080x1200 that's current nor made by
| Apple.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| On sibling thread I already mention the Surface Pro
| (convertible) at 12'' and it's 2880 x 1920. The next 2025
| convertible that I found, Latitude 7350, is also 2880 x
| 1920 (at 13'', though). In fact, most of the 12''
| convertibles with 1080p are either sub$800 (which I doubt
| this thing is) or come from Lenovo (whom you really do NOT
| want to compare with regarding screen quality --
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Enough-with-the-cheap-
| screens-... ).
|
| And let's not get started on 12'' Android tablets...
| desireco42 wrote:
| I can see that you have strong feelings about it, but let's
| be honest, this is perfect resolution for the laptop. And
| since it is Framework, they might have upgrade in the future.
| ktallett wrote:
| The 12 inch is what I will be considering purchasing as I
| already have a 13 inch AMD that I am pretty happy with.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I wonder if the 12-inch form factor could be modified to
| support a 360 deg hinge? I enjoyed the Lenovo Yoga's tablet
| configuration.
| justinsaccount wrote:
| It is a 360 hinge.
| martey wrote:
| I know the comment you're replying to called it a "180 degree
| hinge", but the linked Ars Technica article states that it
| "flips around to the back with a flexible hinge, a la
| Lenovo's long-running Yoga design". This is not clear from
| the pictures in the article, but was on display during the
| livestreamed event earlier today.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Good! Strange that their photos don't show this off. Lenovo
| ad-spend showcasing tablet mode was enormous.
|
| https://frame.work/laptop12
| mlhpdx wrote:
| This is the first time I've ever seen a CloudFlare "wait
| time" screen at "15 minutes".
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Looks like their entire website is behind a waiting room
| at the moment.
|
| You'd think they could make their most popular pages
| static for now and serve them out of the CloudFlare
| cache, though.
| katmannthree wrote:
| Was over an hour earlier today.
| coldpie wrote:
| Sorry, my mistake, as others have noted. I corrected my post.
| jefurii wrote:
| I would love to see one of these hinges as a mod for the
| Framework 13...
| tencentshill wrote:
| Having seen how students treat school-provided Chromebooks,
| those IO modules will get lost and damaged at light speed.
| KeepFlying wrote:
| They're locked in my an internal screw. So they'll at least
| last a few days.
| kibwen wrote:
| That's what we call a canny business model!
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| I interpreted "students" to refer to university students.
| Seems more likely to be Framework's target audience.
| xnxn wrote:
| Patel mentioned in the announcement presentation that the
| device was originally developed with a very clear focus on
| high school students.
| preisschild wrote:
| They can get screwed down by an internal screw. They
| explained that for this specific use case in the
| linustechtips video.
| skykooler wrote:
| Here's hoping that touchscreen becomes available as a component
| for the 13 as well.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The 12 inch screen is a different aspect ratio so it would be
| unlikely.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Apparently it comes with an optional stylus, so there might
| indeed be a touchscreen there.
|
| Their website was hugged to death, so I can't confirm.
| lawn wrote:
| They briefly mentioned a new keyboard. I would really like QMK
| for my framework 13, but alas it was only available for the
| framework 16...
| lawn wrote:
| The 12-inch laptop might be interesting as a potential upgrade
| to my remarkable, with the obvious benefit of also being usable
| as a laptop.
|
| I wonder how writing on the touch screen feels?
| jzb wrote:
| Oh, that's far more interesting to me than the desktop thing. I
| have a 13" Framework now, but a 12" would be super-nice as a
| travel laptop -- and the tablet conversion might let me use it
| as a on-the-go ebook reader.
| bryanhogan wrote:
| For me as well, this sounds much more exciting.
|
| A laptop tablet hybrid that I can actually repair would be
| great. Would use tablet mode for image editing and hand-
| written notes.
| sounds wrote:
| The desktop is fascinating if AMD can pull off Rocm this
| round. 128GB of unified memory for only $1,999, but you get
| an AMD GPU.
| 65 wrote:
| Still no haptic trackpad!
| nobankai wrote:
| You could mod one into the hardware if you really wanted. The
| drivers for the Magic Trackpad are pretty much flawless on
| Linux, you could engineer your own plug-and-play solution
| with COTS hardware if you found the motivation.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Why would you want haptic trackpads? Having used modern
| Macbook trackpads they feel like a massive downgrade compared
| to either of my Frameworks. The vibration-based simulation of
| haptics feels uncanny and unsatisfying compared to the real
| deal.
| forevernoob wrote:
| > ...the first Framework Laptop 12 motherboard is going to use
| Intel's 13th-generation Core i3 and i5 processors
|
| I _really_ hope they launch an AMD version (perhaps with an
| iGPU) soon after that. That and preferably with Libreboot
| support. This would make it the ideal portable laptop for me
| and thus I'd be able to (finally!) replace my X220T.
| brunoqc wrote:
| Why would you prefer AMD? price, heat/fan noise?
| aljgz wrote:
| I don't know about the GP. I won't buy anything from Intel
| unless things change dramatically. My last Intel laptop had
| serious thermal throttling problem that could be completely
| avoided if Intel cared a bit about users. The one before
| had some other problems. In past 20 years, anytime I bought
| (or was given by a company) AMD I was happy, and as time
| goes by I get less and less happy with Intel.
| forevernoob wrote:
| Considering Intel's track record on hardware
| vulnerabilities, I'd much rather prefer AMD.
| starkparker wrote:
| Framework shipped AMD 7040-series and 13th-gen Core
| i-series alongside each other for the 13.
|
| The 13th-gen Intels had miserable battery life and heat
| issues under load. If you could manage that, all four USB-C
| ports were full Thunderbolt ports equally capable of
| driving displays, PD, and USB 4 throughput.
|
| The AMD line had considerably better performance-per-watt
| but rougher firmware support (and early on, really broken
| Linux kernel support that required Fedora or other rolling
| kernel release distros). It also couldn't deliver the same
| "every port does everything" promise that the Intel boards
| did, with some ports not supporting displays or USB 4,
| which significantly reduced the value of the expansion-card
| model to kind of a novelty.
|
| On the 12, if it's likely also going to have a smaller
| batter than the 13, going only with 13th-gen Intels means
| it likely will be either a further step back in battery
| life vs. the 13 or throttled to extend the battery.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| I don't quite get why framework focuses so much on Intel and
| AMD. ARM laptops are in the rise, and don't need active
| cooling. It's hard for me to think of upgrading to another
| laptop with fans when so many fanless (I.e.: silent) options
| are available.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Strix Point AMD laptop CPUs are just better than non-Apple
| ARM CPUs across the board, and don't have the whole host of
| compatibility issues. There isn't really any point to them.
| znpy wrote:
| They are a fairly small company, and going for amd/intel
| means reaching the widest audience.
|
| Linux on arm is very mature, but windows on arm not
| completely.
|
| That being said, other companies could very well develop and
| sell boards for the frameworks laptop. So much so that iirc
| sifive did release a risc-v laptop board to use in the
| frameworks laptop case.
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| To the best of my knowledge the ARM ecosystem is an absolute
| pain to work in, you can get Phone/Tablet SoCs painfully
| encumbered with out of date drivers and binary blobs. Or you
| can get enormous server processors that will cost $1000+.
| There just isn't much that's suitable for making a desktop or
| laptop that would meet Frameworks markets expectations.
| izacus wrote:
| Because AMD chips achieve ARM efficiency without dealing with
| ARM compatibility mess.
| saurik wrote:
| They don't seem to care about needing a fan, and the
| community on their forums is actively hostile--even brutal--
| to people who don't want a fan (the zeitgeist there seems to
| believe that any compromise to performance at all costs is
| incompetence). It is particularly frustrating as you don't
| even have to go ARM to drop the fan: there are chips even
| from Intel that do not need fans, such as any of the ones in
| all of the 12" laptops I have used for the past dozen or so
| years (including the one I am using right now, which also
| happens to have a much much better screen than this new
| Framework: a Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360, whose only flaw
| is it doesn't have enough RAM).
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| It seems unframeworky
|
| Memory, CPU and GPU once piece of metal, sitting in a tiny box.
|
| A regular PC in a regular case, it a lot more modular and
| upgradable.
|
| It does seem like an interesting box, and matches against Apple
| Studio I would presume.
|
| Yet customers of Apple are used to having (near) 0 user
| modifiable parts.
|
| It might well have a good market, It might b a great box. It is
| unframeworky.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| There is a balance between forgetting your purpose and thinking
| too narrowly about your business.
|
| At first, Framework is "laptops that are repairable". But if
| you broaden what they are, they are a disruptor of direct-to-
| consumer computing equipment, with a core competency of
| repairability and upgradability.
|
| An integrated CPU/RAM is a decrease in that measure, but it is
| for a valid benefit - a large improvement in performance for
| low-power graphics and AI software. They aren't sacrificing
| upgradability for aesthetic, and they continue to offer fully
| upgradable laptops.
|
| I wonder if modular memory will continue to evolve and be
| competitive bandwidth wise with soldered.
| jsheard wrote:
| > I wonder if modular memory will continue to evolve and be
| competitive bandwidth wise with soldered.
|
| That's the promise of CAMM2, which is supposed to enable
| socketed LPDDR with almost the same performance as soldered-
| down LPDDR. It's still pretty bleeding-edge though so it's
| hard to blame Framework for sticking with soldered memory for
| now.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It's on package memory that AMD sells bundled to OEMs.
| ac29 wrote:
| Strix Halo doesn't have on package memory, are you
| thinking of Intel's Lunar Lake?
| preisschild wrote:
| Apparently that AMD CPU isnt even compatible with CAMM2
| because of technical reasons. Framework CEO explained it in
| LinusTechTips video.
| aseipp wrote:
| CAMM2 only has a 128-bit bus so it's going to severely
| compromise performance for workloads that want higher
| interconnect bandwidth, which Strix Halo is targeted at.
| For things like that, wider busses are always going to give
| much better performance/watt than upping clock speeds.
|
| I'd be more than happy to see CAMM2 in general laptops, but
| it will probably always be much weaker at shared GPU/CPU
| designs like Strix Halo, Grace, Apple's M series, etc.
| rdedev wrote:
| https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY
|
| The ceo kind of explains why in this video. In essence it seems
| to be a limitation of the chip from AMD
| fragmede wrote:
| So don't make it then? If a particular vendor's product isn't
| in line with the company's mission, the CEO is the one to
| make the call to proceed with manufacturing.
|
| edit: it's not for me and I can totally just not buy one, but
| if one identified with their original mission and sees this
| as betrayal of that, it'd be hard to justify getting a
| framework laptop when it's their turn to upgrade.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| If you're not the audience, you're not the audience. Don't
| buy it. But a whole bunch of folks will be interested in
| this, and it lets framework dip their toes in the "not
| laptops" market without going bankrupt over it.
| sdwr wrote:
| I think their ethos is more about being user- and
| developer- friendly.
|
| RAM upgrades at reasonable prices, being able to buy the
| main board sans case, and supporting multiple OSes all
| point in that direction, without strictly being modular
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _RAM upgrades at reasonable prices..._
|
| The RAM is not upgradable.
| hug wrote:
| Parent clearly means upgrade at time-of-purchase.
|
| FTA:
|
| > Because the memory is non-upgradeable, we're being
| deliberate in making memory pricing more reasonable than
| you might find with other brands.
| starkparker wrote:
| "Details of Framework's Environmental Ethos and Long Term
| Mission": https://knowledgebase.frame.work/details-of-
| framework-s-envi...
|
| > July 7 2022 3:26pm
|
| > Framework's mission is to fix consumer electronics -
| and we are doing that by respecting you and the planet.
| We have put this vision into everything we do by
| providing you with amazing products that are meant to
| last as long as possible by letting you upgrade and
| modify them over that lifetime to support your specific
| needs.
|
| > Our mission is to reduce the amount of waste that is
| generated and energy that is expended and reduce our
| overall consumer electronics footprint, while providing a
| better product than you can get anywhere else. This
| includes using post-consumer-recycled aluminum and
| plastic in our products as well as recycled and
| recyclable packaging.
|
| > We have just started this journey, and we are
| continually looking for ways to reduce our footprint and
| be even healthier for the environment. We're happy to get
| ideas and suggestions on how we can do this. The
| Framework Community is a great place to share this.
| Spivak wrote:
| They saw an underserved niche and went for it. Based on the
| wait time for their site seems to be working for them.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > So don't make it then?
|
| You presume to have internalized Framework's core-values
| more than the founder/CEO? The box is not my cup of tea,but
| they are free to experiment.
| mhitza wrote:
| > You presume to have internalized Framework's core-
| values more than the founder/CEO?
|
| His reaction in the livestream was along these lines when
| he semi-jokingly said "I'm surprised no one from the
| audience threw something at me"
|
| At a larger event I would have kind of expected a "boo",
| but it seemed like a rather small gathering where most
| people knew each other. Unlike the live 12k Youtube chat,
| that was very surprised and disappointed at times.
| fragmede wrote:
| I presume that my core values, which I might know just a
| teeny tiny bit, align with what the corporation has
| stated as their values. But at the end of the day,
| the"core values" of a corporation are just some words on
| a webpage on the journey to more profit and I mean, hey,
| I like money too, so it's not like I can really fault
| them for pivoting.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| This is literally the same product they've been selling
| with just one more component soldered on (memory). I
| think it's a bit of a stretch to call it a "pivot".
| preisschild wrote:
| I disagree. Modularity is good, but if there are real
| technical reasons why it is not possible (like in thise
| case), then it could be a worthwile compromise.
| fragmede wrote:
| that's a fair point! soldered on ram currently has more
| performance than socketed. it's definitely a compromise
| and I'm being an uncompromising motherfucker. It's not my
| company though and I'm just some rando on the Internet
| expressing an opinion.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It's not for you then
|
| FWIW I find the small form factor combined with the CPU and
| high-powered integrated GPU very appealing. I don't think I
| could build something with this form factor using off the
| shelf parts (someone correct me if I'm wrong)... it would
| end up needing a larger dedicated GPU.
|
| I suspect their competition isn't actually people who build
| their own PCs, but people in the market for Mac Pros --
| they have a number of benefits over Apple here.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| From 7:40~ "The signal integrity doesn't work out."
|
| I don't understand, but maybe someone else could explain.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| I think there's like electromagnetic interference if
| signals across various buses in computers are too close
| together, making it more likely that the signals get
| corrupted or noisy, which could increase latency for trying
| to clean the signal or make it impossible to get any data
| of value.
|
| Not an engineer though so please correct me. I only have a
| vague understanding of this.
| nomel wrote:
| > which could increase latency for trying to clean the
| signal
|
| There's none of that here. That's a concept for
| uncontrolled interfaces. This is a memory interface,
| where you either have a good signal or a flawed design.
| Things like ECC do exist, but those are to detect bit
| corruption in the memory, but a _flawless communication
| between_ is still required.
| smarx007 wrote:
| See https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/29141/i
| nterc...
|
| At some point (if you go to high enough frequencies), the
| capacitance of the copper traces will become high enough
| (i.e. without any capacitor component connecting to a trace
| between a CPU and a RAM module) to prevent further
| frequency increases. One way to deal with that is to have
| shorter traces. This is exactly what CAMM memory modules do
| - they have shorter (total) traces than DIMM. Even shorter
| traces are possible if you get rid of modules completely
| (i.e. solder the RAM chips to the motherboard). Better yet
| is to place RAM and CPU cores on one chip, skipping even
| the motherboard traces between the CPU and RAM chips.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The mac studio uses apples upgradeable FU.2 NAND module
| interface.
| Spunkie wrote:
| Honestly to me these announcements read as an outright
| abandonment of frameworks supposed mission.
|
| Feels like a stab in the back.
| shaw00000 wrote:
| I was really hoping for an ARM laptop. Hopefully they'll develop
| one soon.
| coldpie wrote:
| You can get, uhhhh, RISC-V. We have ARM at home?
| https://frame.work/products/deep-computing-risc-v-mainboard
| delfinom wrote:
| RISCV is garbage for real use currently.
|
| Arm laptops are plenty competitive with the x86 space with
| the snapdragons now.
| nobankai wrote:
| RISC-V chips tend to be slower, but architecture-wise
| there's not much an ARM chip can do that a RISC-V one
| can't. Both are pretty well-supported for the coding/web
| browsing use case laptops get employed for.
| jsheard wrote:
| Isn't the Snapdragon X Elite pretty much the only part that
| would fit the bill? Framework might not even be able to get
| those, Qualcomm generally won't even give you the time of day
| unless you commit to buying a bazillion units.
| 6SixTy wrote:
| Yes but Framework doesn't have to and probably doesn't want
| to. Snapdragon laptops often ship with very few user
| serviceable parts including RAM which would be tough for the
| Framework mold IMO even if they got something working with
| LPCAMM (though that's likely an inevitability). But Qualcomm
| making a Framework compatible board in part as development
| kits would likely be beneficial for both.
| shaw00000 wrote:
| I was really look forward to an ARM laptop. Hopefully they will
| develop one soon.
| wmf wrote:
| They should wait for Snapdragon X2 and Nvidia "N1".
| ozaiworld wrote:
| Soldered memory and no x16 PCIe slot on a desktop are interesting
| choices. Not sure who the target market is. Seems like the
| interconnect between boards is also pretty slow compared to
| Nvidia Digits or even thunderbolt 5.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Laptop chips often only have x8.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Looks like the Ryzen AI Max chips do have x16: https://www.am
| d.com/en/products/processors/laptop/ryzen/ai-3...
|
| But you probably want M.2 slots over a single x16 slot.
| preisschild wrote:
| Probably geared towards being a LLM workstation in a small
| format, similar to a Mac Studio.
| harrison_clarke wrote:
| would have been cool to know about this a month ago
|
| i just built a mini ITX gaming PC for a friend, and this one
| looks pretty good for quality/$. good enough that i wouldn't be
| surprised if these get snapped up and re-sold for more than the
| sticker price
|
| i think it makes more sense to think of it as a high-end console,
| given that basically everything is soldered, though
| 9283409232 wrote:
| It's always interesting watching different segments people react
| to a product announcement. When Intel announced their new GPUs,
| AI people talked about how lame it is and they should've put my
| VRAM while gaming people talked about what a steal it is.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| Wait, so I'd have to use ROCm for compute?
|
| That sucks. I've had better luck with Intel's drivers for their
| _first series_ of dGPU's.
|
| If this works with tinygrad's AMD driver, that would then
| interest me.
| toast0 wrote:
| The i740 did have some nice drivers....
| h14h wrote:
| My hope is that the popularity of this hardware creates
| pressure to improve ROCm software support.
|
| Me & my 7900 XTX will be quite grateful if it does.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| Same, would love that. TinyGrad's driver would be pretty
| awful to use if it would even work since I think it would
| prevent using the GPU simultaneously, though I may be wrong
| there.
|
| Otherwise as it stands the 128 GB configuration seems pretty
| niche.
|
| EDIT: looking deeper it seems like the "Ryzen AI" is it's own
| thing with a different implementation than ROCm, so it could
| be interesting but might not help with ROCm.
| Etheryte wrote:
| One interesting angle here could be if this had good
| compatibility with SteamOS to the point where it supported
| most/all the games the Steam Deck does. That would make it a very
| appealing offering, since right now DIY SteamOS setups are a
| pretty wild west.
| TingPing wrote:
| Even if not official, it is perfect hardware for SteamOS and
| probably works out of the box.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| As is you can buy a decent AMD mini PC for about $500 and just
| install Linux on it. It works very well for the most part, and
| a few distros offer steam OS like experiences.
|
| For my mini PC I couldn't get the EGPU to work with Linux so
| I'm stuck on Windows for now... But I play a few games that are
| Windows only ( anti cheat) so this is for the best.
| kibwen wrote:
| Ideally what you'd be paying for is Valve's first-party
| partnership, and therefore a commitment to tailor Proton
| development to specifically ensure that this hardware keeps
| working (at least as well as a Steam Deck works, anyway). I
| believe this is what Valve has done for the Lenovo Legion Go
| S.
| nobankai wrote:
| That is ideal, but also pretty unnecessary. The only thing
| AMD has to support on their end is Vulkan, and the work on
| that front is effectively finished. What Valve can offer is
| HID support for handheld hardware and potentially shader
| caching servers for huge swaths of identical hardware
| models.
|
| With a desktop there's a limit to what Valve can commit to.
| There's not a single controller firmware to support, and
| probably not even a consistent GPU setup to cache for. The
| extent of realistic support for these AMD boards is kinda
| fully realized at this point. Proton is, and will remain, a
| plug-and-play experience for AMD users that own supported
| hardware.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This misses the point. The whole idea of a first party
| partnership or similar is that there is a known set of
| hardware and support for it.
| nobankai wrote:
| The "support" is complete. Proton has only a few critical
| dependencies and they are officially supported by AMD's
| GPU drivers already. I cannot name a single part of their
| hardware stack that would not get supported on-parity
| with the Steam Deck.
|
| Valve as a company could shut down tomorrow, and AMD
| users could still use Proton to play Windows games as
| long as their GPU is Vulkan 1.2 compliant.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Just about any Linux desktop or laptop supports most/all the
| games the Steam Deck does (and then some, given the less-severe
| performance constraints).
| rcarmo wrote:
| It will. Bazzite has been providing that to me on older Ryzen
| mini-PCs for a long while now.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Why this over a traditional ATX work station? The article even
| points out the motherboard will fit in an ATX case, so size
| doesn't seem to be the major selling point.
|
| For gaming specifically, so many micro ATX motherboards offer Gen
| 5 PCIe, which can handle a proper video card, double the RAM, and
| the smaller cases are only slightly larger than this Framework.
| jsheard wrote:
| The main selling point is the unified memory, the GPU isn't as
| fast as a discrete GPU but it can address quadruple the RAM of
| the biggest consumer dGPU. It'll be good for inference if the
| software stack works.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Is the audience truly gamers? Presumed this was just poor
| journalism from ars
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I could see myself going for something like this for gaming
| actually.
|
| My gaming needs are pretty tame to the point that my current
| 3080Ti has been and remains overkill (usually 2+ year old
| titles @ 2560x1440), and as time has gone on I've come to value
| silence (which the FW Desktop seems good at, overcooling a
| laptop APU with a single fan desktop cooler) over raw power. In
| addition, the discrete GPU story continues to escalate to all-
| new levels of eye-wateringly expensive stupidity which makes me
| not want to buy any discrete GPU until Nvidia and AMD bring
| their prices back down to earth and that whole mess with the
| new Nvidia power connector is properly resolved, and that's to
| say nothing about the unstoppable creep of GPU size, heat, and
| power consumption.
|
| If I could sell my full size gaming tower and replace it with
| an effortlessly inaudible yet reasonably powerful air cooled
| SFF box, I might just do it. In all truth I could probably get
| by fine with this first gen Framework desktop, but it would
| make more sense to wait for a second or third gen where the
| APU's graphical power comes into the range of upper-tier RTX
| 3000 cards so I don't need to use framegen as a crutch for
| decent framerates.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| I agree with the point about noise. I've been looking for a
| powerful, compact and silent gaming pc for a while ( with
| silent then compact being more important than powerful ). I
| don't need a laptop - a Mac mini-like or slightly bigger box
| is good enough .
|
| When I look around, gaming pcs are mostly about big and
| visible, sometimes reasonably silent, almost never compact,
| inconspicuous and silent.
|
| To me there is a market for this kind of product, and it
| hasn't been addressed properly yet.
|
| Since I have so far failed in my quest, I now use GeForce Now
| from my Mac mini which is a good approximation of what I
| want.
| skyyler wrote:
| >To me there is a market for this kind of product, and it
| hasn't been addressed properly yet.
|
| Because the market you describe has very heavy
| expectations, and very exacting taste.
|
| (And critically, the capability of building one
| themselves.)
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| > (And critically, the capability of building one
| themselves.)
|
| Kind of but not really. Any SFF build that's anywhere
| close to similar in size and capabilities to the
| Framework is probably going to be making considerably
| more noise, even with an AIO liquid cooler.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| Just a note that the GPU in this, while quite good, is still
| basically a midrange laptop GPU. It seems to be a tad bit
| better than an RTX 2060 but worse than any Nvidia card sold
| at a higher tier than that. You're right that's probably fine
| for most folks though. For folks building a gaming PC though,
| a RTX 4060 will probably be pretty great.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| Nvidia must be extremely nervous about this - the most direct
| threat to the RTX4090.
|
| But hey, they've refused to provide GPUs with lots of RAM at a
| cheap price so competition, y'all.
| jsheard wrote:
| This isn't really in the same category as the 4090/5090, it has
| a lot more memory but with a fraction of the bandwidth. 128GB
| at 256GB/sec vs 32GB at nearly 2TB/sec.
|
| Nvidia's actual counterpart would be their DIGITS mini-PC,
| which has a similar big-and-slow memory architecture.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| AMD claims this APU delivers more than twice the tokens per
| second than an RTX4090.
|
| So its better than 4090.
|
| The reason its better with a less powerful GPU is context
| switching.
|
| "AMD also claims its Strix Halo APUs can deliver 2.2x more
| tokens per second than the RTX 4090 when running the Llama
| 70B LLM (Large Language Model) at 1/6th the TDP (75W)."
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amd-
| slides-c...
| farawayea wrote:
| This is a cool product for people who want a lot of RAM for LLMs.
| Those like me who build their own systems would get better value
| out of a machine they've built.
|
| The only parts which can be customized for this product are the
| presence or absence of a handle, the cooler's fan, the case's
| side and some front tiles. That's it. The m.2 SSD and the wifi
| are the only components which can be replaced.
|
| This isn't the kind of product I wanted Framework to make. I was
| hoping they'd make hardware which can be repaired and which has
| components available for it. The motherboard has all the chips
| and everything else soldered on it. The most expensive part of
| the computer needs to be replaced if a voltage regulator or some
| other part found on the motherboard fails. There's no cheap $
| 100-200 motherboard to replace in this product. It's the same
| problem as with Apple's Macs.
|
| Can someone at Framework answer this question: what do the
| customers do with your Framework Desktop hardware once it breaks
| and you no longer support it? It's e-waste. What happens when the
| motherboard in my computer dies? I buy only a replacement
| motherboard while keeping the RAM, the CPU and GPU, unlike for
| Framework Desktop. What happens when the GPU I have is no longer
| useful or supported? I buy only a new GPU.
|
| This board doesn't even have PCI-E for a GPU. This product is
| only good as long as the iGPU provides the required performance
| for whatever application is of interest. This is a weakness the
| Framework 13 motherboard shares. There's no way to remove the
| board from its case to use it with a PCI-E x16 GPU with the right
| PSU.
|
| AMD is known to abandon their customers once they release newer
| dGPUs and SoCs with iGPUs. This can be easily observed if you
| review the countless reports for crashes with amdgpu on Linux.
| The amdgpu driver has various bugs which lead to crashes of the
| GPU or of the entire machine. They're also not good at shipping
| CPU microcode for consumer CPUs to address hardware bugs and
| CVEs.
|
| As a side note, even the Framework AI HX laptops are extremely
| expensive for what they offer in terms of hardware. A laptop
| which goes above $ 2000 without RAM, an SSD, a charger and
| without any adapters for those bays seems to be a good deal?
| That's absurd. There are laptops with 32 GB of RAM, the same CPU,
| better displays, a 1 TB SSD, a charger and all the required ports
| present on the laptop for less than $ 2000 (including taxes).
|
| I hope someone from Framework reads this. I want repairable
| products which can be upgraded without replacing a monolithic
| part which is the entire computer.
|
| Other noteworthy things
|
| - their site went down hard with a queue to see the site...
| downright absurd
|
| - they haven't posted the specs of the Framework 12
|
| - there are still no actual repair centers which repair their
| products, no physical stores or sellers which sell Framework
| products outside of their site
|
| - there have been reports of people who didn't have their
| hardware problems with Framework laptops addressed, even LTT
| addressed such issues
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Annoyingly they don't disclose that the Zen 5 ryzen chips are a
| mix of Zen 5 and Zen 5c low cache density optimized cores.
| sunshowers wrote:
| I think Strix Halo doesn't have any Zen 5c.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The framework 13 laptop chips have Zen 5c cores.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| And that is relevant to the Framework desktop how exactly?
| wmf wrote:
| All laptops are using hybrid P and E cores now. That's just how
| it works.
| starkparker wrote:
| I'm still outright begging Framework to get better at supporting
| the products that it's already shipping (and to also just...
| _actually ship them_ to more places). Get more third parties
| manufacturing compatible components and expansions that are
| compatible across those products in order to fulfill the stated
| goal of solving the industry's extensible and modular hardware
| deserts that exist outside of the lowest-end SBC and higher-end
| desktop PC markets. Get there before Dell starts doing it,
| because they've started sniffing around this market segment, and
| if Framework's not able to scale up if/when Dell enters then it's
| gonna be over fast.
|
| Most of the manufactured Framework-compatible accessories are
| skins, wraps, and expansion card organizers. Cooler Master
| dropped one mainboard case and seemingly bounced from the laptop
| project altogether. There are a bunch of cool DIY projects, a
| handful of which have been productized, all of them niche.
|
| The community marketplace concept never materialized. The
| extensibility promise of the 16's input modules haven't
| materialized. The only third-party 13 mainboard that exists after
| 3.5 years is a cool but ultimately impractical RISC dev
| board/proof-of-concept; the idea that the Framework mainboard
| would become a laptop equivalent to the ITX/ATX standards in
| desktops just did not happen, and Framework's decision to start
| shipping a bunch of different mainboard formats means it never
| will.
|
| It's particularly depressing to me that the only modular
| component that seems to be compatible across the 12, 13, 16, and
| Desktop seems to be the expansion cards, which are a fun concept
| but at the end of the day are just a form factor for USB-C port
| adapters.
|
| I'm honestly excited about the 12 being a supposedly cheaper
| repairable option, although seeing this weird Desktop ready to go
| before the 12 is a boggling decision. I have no interest in
| spending $1k-$2k+ for a novel mini-PC using laptop components, in
| a mostly plastic case, with a bespoke motherboard crammed with
| soldered-on bespoke parts (even for good reasons!) that are
| designed to _not_ be repaired or replaced.
|
| (By the way, why _doesn't_ the desktop use the Framework
| mainboard form factor? I'd be interested in a genuinely larger
| mainboard-compatible desktop case with more airflow, designed for
| a specialty Desktop mainboard but compatible with the laptop
| mainboards too.
|
| A mini-ITX board that's less modular than a commodity mini-ITX
| board, in a mini-ITX case that isn't competitive with commodity
| mini-ITX cases, is such a weird choice in Framework's "keep using
| your mainboards" pitch. If they're going to ship a bespoke board
| with little to no added value when installed outside of their own
| case, why doesn't that board use _their own board format_?)
|
| Hell, Cooler Master's MasterFrame line is a better execution of
| what I'd expect and want out of Framework shipping an *TX-
| compatible desktop case than Framework's case looks to be, and
| Cooler Master apparently worked on Framework's case too!)
|
| And even then, the 12 is just another set of components that
| aren't cross-compatible with the 13. If they were selling a
| convertible 13 case, or even just a stylus/touchscreen display
| for the 13, I'd be buying it right now.
|
| Even the 13's new AMD boards aren't exciting because I expect
| them to ship with the same or worse firmware and driver stability
| or compatibility issues that still haven't been solved on the
| 7040-series 13 mainboards a year after shipping them, not because
| Framework is a terrible company but because their support from
| AMD has apparently been a nightmare. I finally have my 13 stable
| and expect a new generation of AMD mainboard to just chuck it
| back into firmware hell.
|
| That Framework keeps taking VC money just to design and ship new
| laptop lines when their existing lines aren't stable, _and_ ship
| a less-modular, less-repairable novelty in the Desktop that they
| try to pitch as a gaming machine--when their laptop fundamentals
| are still admittedly shaky, and the gaming market still doesn't
| seem to care for or about them very much at all--just keeps
| eroding the confidence that this is going to work out in the end.
| kibwen wrote:
| Is integrated/non-upgradeable RAM the unavoidable future for all
| consumer-grade devices? Is there any sort of standard on the
| horizon that would enable the massive memory bandwidth to compete
| against the M1-style approach?
| skyyler wrote:
| LPCAMM2 memory is the answer, isn't it?
|
| It's just not catching on, because of course it isn't.
| Manufacturers have no incentive to let you upgrade parts on
| your own.
| biomcgary wrote:
| Currently, I'm using generative AI of various kinds on my M1 Air
| (llm, image gen, TTS, STT), but am frustrated by the limitations
| - primarily memory and secondarily availability of an MLX
| adaptation.
|
| Just an AI hobbyist, so I don't have time or inclination to tweak
| everything. Given the non-NVIDIA GPU, how painful will it be to
| play around with new AI models on this system?
| pimeys wrote:
| I run all the AI models without any issues with a desktop
| Radeon. I don't even think about it, just start the ollama
| docker and run the models.
|
| Inference is not an issue with AMD.
| spacemanspiff01 wrote:
| Anyone know the tokens/sec for llm inference?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It is a weird product for the Framework brand.
|
| The pitch for the Framework laptop is that it is
| repairable/upgradable/modular. Something that is uncommon for
| laptops nowadays.
|
| This is the opposite. Desktops are modular by default, so much is
| that my computer is like the Ship of Theseus, I never changed it,
| but upgrade to upgrade, it is a completely different machine than
| it once was (it started off as a 486!). This one is not.
|
| The Framework desktop doesn't look bad, but now, I am confused
| about the meaning of the brand. It is as if Tesla made a diesel
| car.
| te-x wrote:
| It's still a modular computer, just not a laptop. It's more
| like if Tesla made an electric scooter
| abound wrote:
| The soldered RAM is surprising for Framework, and doubly
| surprising for being so in a form-factor that usually _doesn
| 't_ have soldered RAM.
|
| Similar to what other commenters have expressed, it just
| seems like they shouldn't have built this product if they
| couldn't figure out the soldered RAM bit.
| piskov wrote:
| They went for local LLM route and for that high-bandwidth
| memory is a must.
|
| Consider it a low-price alternative to mac mini or nvidia's
| box.
|
| This can also be chained though not as effectively as macs
| for example (those have thunderbolt for interconnect)
| danielEM wrote:
| That is not a framework choice, that is an AMD architecture
| that doesn't use regular RAM modules as it requires wider
| data bus
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I don't know anything about RAMs or their bus size. Is
| this something that will be "fixed" in the future, idk,
| with DDR6? Meaning we can have replacable RAM with such
| bus.
| rokweom wrote:
| Apparently this is due to signal integrity. AMD says
| swappable RAM is not possible. Source: LinusTechTips video.
| braiamp wrote:
| Yeah, in LTT video they are talking with the CEO
| https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY?t=447
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| The non-MAX Ryzen laptops also announced today actually
| use socketed RAM.
|
| I guess they'd claim it is only the MAX AMD procs which
| force soldered RAM, but since they could as well have
| used a non-MAX chip (and correspondingly reduce the
| price) this just shows how much of this is an arbitrary,
| and therefore questionable, decision from Framework
| rather than any restriction AMD sets.
| simpaticoder wrote:
| I agree. I was an early adopter and have a Framework 13 11th
| gen intel (batch 4) and have been generally happy with it.
| Except the keyboard stopped working and I had to replace it,
| ~100 tiny screws later (and one stripped screw). And the
| battery drains fast (~24 hours) when suspended. And except that
| it won't turn on anymore without plugging into a particular
| USB-C port with a "dumb" USB cable (the basic 5V 900mA type)
| even with a full battery charge. And there hasn't been a BIOS
| update for this mainboard since Sep 2022.
|
| I understand that a new company with a new product is going to
| have issues. But I would have strongly preferred they spent the
| time and effort (and money) fixing or replacing these 1st gen
| mainboards rather than branching out into a very non-Framework
| area like desktop gaming PCs.
| rstat1 wrote:
| I had that issue on my batch 5 11th gen. There's an issue
| with the rechargeable CMOS battery they included (that isn't
| present on the later 12th and 13th gen) that when it stops
| taking a charge your laptop stops turning on unless you do
| some arcane process to reset it.
|
| They provide a "repair" kit that's basically a dummy CMOS
| battery that hooks in to the normal power system that
| prevents the issue from occurring again.
|
| Also just FYI, there was a BIOS update in June of last year
| (3.20).
| simpaticoder wrote:
| _> There's an issue with the rechargeable CMOS battery_
|
| I am aware of the issue as described in [1] and the fix in
| [2]. However, my support request has gone unanswered for a
| year, as was my second support request. In addition, I have
| doubts as to whether this fix (which requires soldering!)
| will work.
|
| I was not aware of an updated BIOS [3], foolishly believing
| the output of 'fwupdmgr' after following the instructions
| in [4]. It looks like I'll need to find a USB stick and
| update via EFI shell. Thanks for the tip!
|
| But still, I think they should do more for early customers
| before expanding out well beyond their core market!
|
| 1 - https://framework.kustomer.help/my-laptop-is-not-
| powering-on...
|
| 2 - https://guides.frame.work/Guide/RTC+Battery+Substitutio
| n+on+...
|
| 3 - https://community.frame.work/t/11th-gen-intel-core-
| bios-3-20...
|
| 4 - https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/updating-bios-
| on-linu...
| p1necone wrote:
| I agree. There's a lot of options for very small PC cases that
| will fit a dedicated GPU and regular itx components (I'm
| running a midori 5L system, it's great, don't ignore the
| instruction to use loctite on the bolts you will have pain) - I
| don't think the desktop market needs this the same way the
| laptop market needed the earlier framework devices.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| I feel like the target audience would build (or buy used/build
| used) something cheaper that's more powerful.
|
| The form factor isn't small enough to make this worth it IMO
| tomnipotent wrote:
| I know very few people that do anything other than upgrade
| their GPU or SSD during the entire lifespan of their computer.
| Maybe when I was younger I'd upgrade the RAM after saving up,
| but am fortunate enough now to be able to buy what I want up
| front.
|
| This product is for me.
|
| A few years ago I tried to repurpose a desktop with a bad
| motherboard, but it was impossible to find a replacement for
| the 7-year-old CPU. eBay prices were more than the original
| MSRP, and at that point it was cheaper to buy new parts for the
| oldest still-selling generation.
|
| I'm already replacing everything except the SSD and GPU with
| every upgrade anyway, now it will just be the SSD but I can
| keep the case.
| keyringlight wrote:
| Something I've noticed over the years is that a lot of PC
| enthusiast discussion seems to be self-selecting for those
| most likely to chase the latest hardware, which affects how
| they think and talk about future proofing or upgrade ability.
| The challenge with x86 PC is that because the platform is so
| flexible it casts the widest net over huge amounts of use
| cases and circumstances. The example that comes to mind is
| criticism over intel vs AMD chipsets/sockets with longer
| compatibility, but it comes down to what your demands are
| plus where you buy in the cycle of other components (DDR4 vs
| DDR5) and needed support. There are trade-offs everywhere.
| cgcrob wrote:
| I don't think I've upgraded a desktop machine for about 10
| years. I usually buy a 1-3 year old corporate desktop and use
| it for 2-4 years, buy another one and throw the old one on
| eBay.
|
| I'm on a 10500 based Lenovo thing at the moment.
|
| My needs are not immense though.
| nrp wrote:
| I'm happy to answer questions folks have on the Framework Desktop
| (though probably not until later today).
| xeonmc wrote:
| How is the planning progress on a trackpoint module?
| fsflover wrote:
| Can it run Qubes OS?
| transpute wrote:
| Congrats on beating HP Z2 Mini G1a and Nvidia Project Digits to
| market with 128GB of unified memory for LLMs, with bonus
| Framework port flexibility and a better price than Apple
| equivalents.
|
| Does the desktop have a discrete physical TPM chip (needed for
| DRTM support on Windows/Linux/Qubes)? At present, AMD's PSP
| firmware emulates a "mobile" fTPM that does not support SKINIT.
|
| Would you consider a future model with AMD Ryzen AI Max "Pro"
| SoC, which has additional security features?
| nikodunk wrote:
| Thank you for releasing an update to the Framework 13! I have
| an original 11th-gen Intel w/ Xe, and I'm now ready to upgrade
| (esp. the graphics). Stoked I'm still supported! Gonna grab a
| new screen, a new keyboard, and a new Ryzen!
| znpy wrote:
| Any chance this will get the amd security features for remote
| management (amd dash) ?
|
| If there was a possibility to get amd dash working this would
| be the perfect system to use as a home server.
| jckahn wrote:
| Hi Nirav! I don't have a question but I just wanted to say I'm
| a superfan of Framework. I love my AMD 13!
|
| I'm as cynical as it gets when it comes to tech companies, but
| Framework is the only one that seems to be on track to actually
| make the world a better place. Please keep doing what you're
| doing, stick to the mission, and I'll be a customer for life.
|
| Also please make a smartphone so I can finally be on an all-
| Framework stack! :)
| yellowapple wrote:
| I like the case. Nice and compact, and the swappable tiles are
| cute. If the case works well with non-Framework Mini-ITX
| motherboards I'd be tempted to pick one up.
|
| The innards, however, are disappointing:
|
| - I get the explanation for why soldered RAM was necessary, but
| that's still pretty darn close to a dealbreaker for me; I'm
| inclined to wait for a future motherboard revision without that
| limitation
|
| - Only two Expansion Cards is vastly fewer than what I'd expect
| from a "Framework Desktop"
|
| - The lack of a dGPU is unfortunate for a desktop
|
| If I were to design a Framework Desktop, I'd replace the entire
| rear panel with nothing but Expansion Card slots. Literally as
| many as will fit; fucking fill it to the goddamn brim. And _then_
| throw in some USB4 headers to connect to _even more_ Expansion
| Card slots on the front. I want a terrifyingly large number of
| Expansion Cards. More Type-C ports than any computer has any
| business having, and then _even more_. I don 't just want people
| questioning my sanity; I want it to be known, plain as day, that
| I have gone certifiably batfuck insane.
|
| I'd also expose the same Expansion Bay interface as the Framework
| 16, and offer a desktop-grade GPU in that form factor (presumably
| too thick and power-hungry for a laptop, but if a Framework 16
| owner wants a laptop with a dummy thicc dumptruck of an ass and
| 30 minutes of battery life, then who am I to judge?).
|
| And air-cooling? So 20th Century! Good opportunity as any to make
| liquid cooling a mainstream option.
| r2vcap wrote:
| Framework's current policy in Asia--limiting deliveries solely to
| Taiwan--warrants reconsideration. Due to these restrictions, I
| had no choice but to purchase Apple products instead. To prevent
| further customer dissatisfaction, Framework should re-evaluate
| its shipping policies.
|
| I understand that Framework's logistics cannot match those of
| major retailers like Amazon or AliExpress. However, many
| customers rely on freight forwarders to access products from
| other countries. It is deeply disappointing that Framework does
| not allow shipments to these intermediaries, as they are a common
| and well-established workaround for limited international
| shipping. Given the widespread use of such services, excluding
| them seems unjustified.
| 42772827 wrote:
| This is to comply with the ever changing export restrictions
| enacted by the current US administration. So don't expect it to
| change soon.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| That sounds misleading. The parent comment says all
| deliveries in Asia are limited to Taiwan. As far as I'm
| aware, export restrictions are only placed on certain chips
| going to China.
|
| How do export restrictions prevent Framework from shipping to
| i.e Japan?
| 42772827 wrote:
| Nothing about the current regime projects stability. Taiwan
| is a strategic partner and the source of many parts, so
| it's essentially the only "safe bet" in Asia.
|
| When you're a company who needs time to adapt to any change
| in policy (aka all of them) and a company that can't afford
| fines for noncompliance (small companies like Framework)
| your strategy is to be as conservative as possible.
| Prickle wrote:
| In the case of Japan, it's likely an issue with Japanese
| regulations.
|
| We have a very strict radio law that applies to anything
| that can produce radio or em waves
|
| That includes motherboards, since they can technically emit
| on those frequencies.
|
| From what I have seen, the framework laptop motherboards
| appear to abide by that law. However, I assume it's just
| expensive to figure out in the first place.
| imglorp wrote:
| The Framework website right now: You are now in
| line. Thank you for your patience. Your estimated
| wait time is 7 minutes. We are experiencing a high
| volume of traffic and using a virtual queue to limit the
| amount of users on the website at the same time. This will ensure
| you have the best possible online experience.
|
| What the hell, Cloudflare? CDN with a wait time, really?
| aroman wrote:
| Lol - it's not that Cloudflare can't handle the traffic. It's
| the _framework_ can't handle the traffic and set up Cloudflare
| to ratelimit entry using their Waiting Room[0] product.
|
| Clearly poorly messaged if it made you think it was a
| Cloudflare capacity issue!
|
| [0] https://www.cloudflare.com/application-
| services/products/wai...
| winrid wrote:
| Quite funny as one of these desktops could likely handle the
| traffic :)
| rkagerer wrote:
| WTF indeed, Framework. The whole point of a CDN is to keep
| your website operational when the number of visits scale up.
| A "waiting room" might as well be a 404.
|
| Here's a screenshot of
| https://frame.work/ca/en/blog/category/news:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/7BcLyCX.png
|
| There's nothing up there that couldn't be statically cached.
| hart_russell wrote:
| Why would they have soldered RAM? Isn't that antithetical to
| their mission?
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| > soldered-down CPU and GPU and soldered-down, non-upgradeable
| RAM.
|
| They've brought some of the traditional modularity from desktop
| into the laptop world, and now bring us typical laptop design to
| the desktop world.
|
| Keeping things in perfect balance.
| desireco42 wrote:
| This desktop will be perfect for me, as well as 12" lappie...
| Give me 128Gb of ram with good number of processor cores that is
| not $5K or so. I am already moving towards Linux, this will be
| the moment.
|
| I was looking from GMKTex and Beelink to have at least 64Gb, but
| this is fantastic deal and I can't wait for it.
| Kye wrote:
| >> _" A fully loaded 128GB with a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 configuration
| (16 CPU cores, 40 GPU cores) will run you $1,999."_
|
| That's a no-brainer to replace my laptop-as-desktop in the next
| few years. By then, I expect this will be even better.
| rcarmo wrote:
| I was actually looking at getting a 395 Max with that 8060s iGPU
| and looking for mini-PCs or motherboards. This should make a
| killer console replacement with Bazzite (once they sort out the
| minor niggles that come with the new chipset).
| rpcope1 wrote:
| Why on earth would someone buy this instead of a regular PC
| setup, especially at that price point? There's no way I would pay
| that sort of money and not be able to change out the GPU and RAM,
| and also only have a single PCIE 4x slot.
| transpute wrote:
| Local LLMs that seek 256Gbit/s memory bandwidth to AMD GPU.
| Alternatives are much more expensive.
| Havoc wrote:
| The ability to allocate the ram to gpu is the selling point
| here.
|
| If you want a swappable gpu then a APU isn't for you
| gunalx wrote:
| Sad about the soldered ram. Socketable ram is not that of a perf
| downgrade and much more in line.
| poisonborz wrote:
| I wisth the 12" wouldn't have a garbage screen - although I'm
| hopeful for more options later on. This format would be equally
| if not more useful for gaming/business use case, I wonder why
| they start at the entry level.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| Curiously, what do you feel is wrong about the 12" screen?
|
| Two years ago, I switched from my 15" MacBook Pro to the 12"
| Framework, never looked back. What am I missing?
| dajonker wrote:
| The Ryzen APU could be interesting for running local AI models
| and with 128 GB of RAM you can fit quite a large model. Plus it
| should be relatively energy efficient compared to a full size
| desktop build with separate GPU. Lack of PCIe 5.0 is a bit of a
| bummer as you could otherwise plug in some new Samsung 9100 Pro
| NVMe drives.
|
| Would love to see how it performs. It supposedly has a memory
| bandwidth of 256 GB/sec which is about similar to a Threadripper
| Pro 7965WX with 8 memory channels. A Mac Studio M2 Ultra has 800
| GB/sec of bandwidth though (which is RTX4080/RTX5080 territory)
| but is also about 2-3x more expensive at 128 GB of memory, not to
| mention the cost of upgrading internal storage.
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