[HN Gopher] The Framework Desktop is a beast
___________________________________________________________________
The Framework Desktop is a beast
Author : lemonberry
Score : 387 points
Date : 2025-08-08 20:19 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (world.hey.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (world.hey.com)
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > In some ways, the Framework Desktop is a curious machine.
| Desktop PCs are already very user-repairable! So why is Framework
| even bringing their talents to this domain? In the laptop realm,
| they're basically alone with that concept, but in the desktop
| space, it's rather crowded already. Yet it somehow still makes
| sense.
|
| And even more curious, Framework Desktop is deliberately less
| repairable than their laptops. They soldered on the RAM. Which
| makes it a very strange entry for a brand marketing itself as the
| DIY dream manufacturer. They threw away their user-repairable
| mantra when they made the Desktop, it's _less_ user repairable
| than most other desktops you could go out and buy today.
| sethops1 wrote:
| The RAM is soldered on all Halo Strix platforms because physics
| is getting in the way. With pluggable DIMMs the memory
| bandwidth would be halved, at best.
| wishinghand wrote:
| Why is that? Why would soldering the connections vs plugging
| them in affect how much data per second they transfer?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Sockets have resistance and crosstalk, which affects signal
| integrity.
| aeonik wrote:
| Wait, your telling me, I should have been desoldering the
| sockets off my motherboard, and directly soldering my RAM
| to the leads this entire time?
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM) tries to be a
| middle-term solution for that, by reducing how crappy
| your average RAM socket is to latency and signal
| integrity issues. But, at this point, I can see CAMM
| delivered memory being reduced to a sort of slower,
| "CXL.mem" device.
| aeonik wrote:
| Seriously though,
|
| Would desoldering the sockets help?
|
| Why are the sockets bad?
| komali2 wrote:
| As stated previously, the sockets reduce signal
| integrity, which doesn't necessarily make them "bad," but
| is why Framework wasn't able to used socketed ram to
| maximize the potential of this CPU.
|
| This sort-of-interview of Nirav Patel (ceo of framework)
| explains in a bit more detail:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lErGZZgUbY
|
| Basically, they need to use LPDDR5X memory, which isn't
| available in socketed form, because of signal integrity
| reasons.
|
| Which means you won't see an improvement if you solder
| your ram directly, I think mostly because your home
| soldering job will suffer signal integrity issues, but
| also because your RAM isn't LPCAMM and isn't spread
| across a 256 bit bus.
| aeonik wrote:
| They "why" hasn't been answered. I understand the
| previous statements very clearly. It makes intuitive
| sense to me, but I want to know more.
|
| Like physics PhD-level more.
| 418tpot wrote:
| I believe the reason is, at the frequencies these CPUs
| are talking to RAM, the reflection coefficient[1] starts
| playing a big role. This means any change in impedance in
| the wire cause reflections of the signal.
|
| This is also the reasoning why you can't just have a dumb
| female to female HDMI coupling and expect video to work.
| All of such devices are active and read the stream on the
| input and relay them on the output.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_coefficient
| wmf wrote:
| Yes. (That isn't actually possible because the pinouts
| are different but soldered RAM is faster.)
| undersuit wrote:
| You might be able to dial in a higher memory overclock.
| yencabulator wrote:
| Only if you were pushing data through so fast that the
| bits got corrupted before. That's literally why AMD told
| Framework they won't support any other configuration than
| soldered RAM, in this case.
| tejtm wrote:
| mind the gap
| onli wrote:
| He is still right. It is a desktop PC that is less repairable
| than all other desktop PCs, from a brand that is known to
| champion repairability. They had a reason for it, but
| could've chosen to not create more throwaway things.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| The 128GB version wouldn't be throwaway, since that's the
| maximum the platform as a whole supports anyway- more
| memory than that would require a new mainboard and CPU at
| the same time.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Not for upgrade reasons but what if you have a fault in
| one of the dimms or etc? Now you can't just drop in a
| replacement without changing everything.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| it's basically the same as asking what happens when your
| M4 Apple has a fault. It's soldered based on the desire
| to use the ram as part of the GPU.
|
| Without that, it's really not a interesting solution.
|
| demanding replaceable ram means also not wanting the
| benefits of the integrated memory
| rs186 wrote:
| I wonder why so few people ask Apple products of such
| questions -- "what if my SSD goes bad, does it mean my
| computer is now completely useless?"
| nemomarx wrote:
| I would also ask this! But part of the framework brand
| was selling a laptop where the answer to that question
| was being able to replace it on your own. So it's just
| kind of a contrast for their desktop to be less
| repairable than their laptop.
|
| Personally I think it's bad that apple products are so
| poorly repairable and so expensive to upgrade.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Worse, Apple also still claims to care about the
| environment. While not allowing the iMac to be used as
| external screen, cutting its useful lifetime by at least
| a decade.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| How often have you had a memory chip fail? I ask because
| I only have had it happen once in my lifetime that I can
| recall and it was for a very dumb reason.
| beeflet wrote:
| the platform should support more memory
| richardw wrote:
| That applies to all computers when you buy the fully
| specced versions on day 1. A maxxed out iPad isn't
| throwaway, but framework represents a higher standard of
| upgradability.
| epistasis wrote:
| I have been continuously baffled by the people that think
| that soldered on RAM is somehow "throwaway". My last
| desktop build is eight years old and I have never upgraded
| the ram. Never will. My next build will have an entirely
| new motherboard, ram, and GPU, and the last set will end up
| at the ewaste recycler, because who could I find that wants
| that old hardware?
|
| Soldered RAM, CPU, and GPU, that give space benefits and
| performance benefits is exactly what I want, and results in
| no more ewaste at all. In fact less ewaste, because if I
| had a smaller form factor I could justify keeping the older
| computer around for longer. The size of the thing is a
| bigger cause of waste for me than the ability to upgrade
| RAM.
|
| Not everybody upgrades RAM, and those people deserve
| computers too. Framework's brand appears to be offering
| something that other suppliers are not, rather than expand
| ability. That's a much better brand and niche overall.
| onli wrote:
| > _Not everybody upgrades RAM, and those people deserve
| computers too._
|
| No. It's end of the line with consumerism and we either
| start repairing and recycling or we die. Framework
| catered to people who agree with that, and this product
| is not in line.
|
| I have no idea why you would not upgrade your memory, I
| have done so in all PCs I ever owned and all laptops, and
| it's a very common (and cheap) upgrade. It reduces waste
| because people can then use their system longer, which
| means less garbage over the lifetime of a person. And as
| was already commented, it is not only about upgrades, but
| also about repairs. Ram breaks rather often.
| epistasis wrote:
| I have had the system for eight years and at no point
| would upgrading RAM have increased performance.
|
| Upgrading the RAM would have created _more_ waste than
| properly sizing the RAM to COU proportion from the
| beginning.
|
| It is very odd to encounter someone who has such a narrow
| view of computing that they cannot imagine someone not
| upgrading their RAM.
|
| I have not once, literally not once have RAM break
| either. I have been part of the management of clusters of
| hundreds of compute nodes, that would occasionally each
| have their failures, but not once was RAM the cause of
| failure. I'm fairly shocked to hear that anybody's RAM
| has failed, honestly, unless it's been overlocked or
| something else.
| onli wrote:
| > _It is very odd to encounter someone who has such a
| narrow view of computing that they cannot imagine someone
| not upgrading their RAM._
|
| Uncalled for and means the end of the discussion after
| this reaction. Ofc I can imagine that, it's just usually
| a dumb decision.
|
| That you did not have to upgrade the ram means one of two
| things: You either had completely linear workloads, so
| unlike me did not switch to a compiled programming
| language or experimented with local LLMs etc. Or you
| bought a lot of ram in the beginning, so 8 years ago with
| a hefty premium.
|
| Changes nothing about the fundamental disagreement with
| the existence of such machines. Especially from a company
| that knows better. I do not expect ethical behaviour from
| a bottom of the barrel company like Apple, but it was
| completely reasonable to expect better from framework.
| oblio wrote:
| I'm with you on this one. I've had.. 6? PCs. Basically
| every time I thought that they were falling behind
| performance wise, I realized that they generally had
| stopped selling RAM for them and even if I only wanted to
| upgrade the RAM, it wasn't enough anymore. The CPU was
| also falling behind and a new one needed a new socket and
| motherboard.
| v5v3 wrote:
| >I have been continuously baffled by the people that
| think that soldered on RAM is somehow "throwaway"
|
| One of the primary objections to soldered RAM was/is the
| cost to purchase. As the likes of Apple priced Ram
| upgrade at a hefty premium to retail prices.
| epistasis wrote:
| I can see that objection too, and it seems far more
| reasonable than assuming that soldered RAM automatically
| means a reduced lifespan machine.
|
| But are Framework's RAM prices unreasonable? $400 for
| 64GB more of LPDDR5x seems OK. I haven't seen anybody
| object to Framework's RAM on those grounds.
| beeflet wrote:
| With modular RAM, someone can buy old boards and RAM and
| use it for high-RAM applications down the line.
| wtallis wrote:
| The workloads that people care most about _today_ that
| need high RAM capacity are workloads that also need very
| high memory bandwidth. Old server hardware from eBay
| doesn 't do a good job of satisfying the bandwidth side
| of things.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| Also, that they often simply don't sell what you want
| with enough memory, or pair memory upgrades with other
| upgrades you don't need (e.g. more powerful CPU or GPU
| beyond your needs), or occasionally that you actively
| don't want (e.g. iGPU - dGPU may be that). With socketed
| RAM you can buy the model you want that just lacks RAM,
| and upgrade that.
|
| My current laptop (ASUS GA503QM) had 8GB soldered and 8GB
| socketed. I didn't want to go for the 16+16 model because
| it was _way_ more expensive due to shifting from a decent
| GPU to a top-of-the-line GPU, and a more-expensive-but-
| barely-faster CPU. (I would have preferred it with _no_
| dedicated GPU--it would have been a couple of hundred USD
| cheaper, a little lighter, probably more reliable, less
| fiddly, and have supported two external displays under
| Linux (which I've never managed, even with nvidia
| drivers); but at the time no one was selling a high-DPI
| laptop with a Ryzen 5800H or similar without dedicated
| graphics.) So after some time I got a 32GB stick and now
| I have 40GB of RAM. And I gave my sister the 8GB stick to
| replace a 4GB stick in her laptop, and that improved it
| significantly for her.
| pabs3 wrote:
| I will take your old builds, because my current PC is
| from a dumpster and was made in 2013. I can't afford to
| buy hardware.
| distances wrote:
| > the last set will end up at the ewaste recycler,
| because who could I find that wants that old hardware?
|
| You might be surprised. Living in a large city,
| everything I have put for sale has found a new owner. Old
| and seemingly useless computer hardware, HDMI cables that
| don't support 4K, worn-out cutlery, hairdryer that's
| missing parts, non-functional amplifier, the list goes
| on. If the price is right (=very low), someone has always
| showed up in person to carry these away. And I'm always
| very upfront about any deficiencies so that they know
| what they're getting.
|
| I'd say a common profile for the new owner is young
| people who have just moved and are on a shoestring
| budget.
| linotype wrote:
| The only part I've ever had not fail on a PC or Laptop is
| RAM.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| RAM failure is actually pretty common on non-JEDEC
| profiles, I've seen it happen a lot on gaming PCs. Very
| uncommon on "regular" computers that aren't pushing the
| clock and timings, though.
| linotype wrote:
| Oh yeah I never push the limits of my systems like that.
| At least for PC gamers replacing RAM is easy and they'll
| probably upgrade it eventually anyway.
| beeflet wrote:
| Why not make a platform with a greater number of channels
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| That's a question for AMD and TCMC. They only have so much
| space on the silica. More memory channels means less of
| something else. This is not a "framework platform" issue,
| it's the specification of that CPU.
| beeflet wrote:
| Well they chose to use this hardware platform. It all
| sounds like market segmentation to me, now that AMD is on
| top.
| wmf wrote:
| To be clear, AMD is giving you 2x the bandwidth of
| competing chips and you're complaining that it isn't 4x.
| beeflet wrote:
| My complaints are the maximum RAM of the system and the
| modularity of the RAM.
|
| With an increased number of channels, you could have a
| greater amount of RAM at a lower frequency but at the
| same bandwidth. So you would at least be able to run some
| of these much larger AI models.
| wmf wrote:
| I don't think that would fit in a laptop which was the
| original market for this chip.
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| This isn't ram. this is unified memory. It's shared
| between GPU and CPU. Soldered VRAM for GPUs have been the
| norm for probably 20 years because of the latency and
| reliability required, so why is this any different?
|
| The only way to achieve what you're after is to do any
| of;
|
| - Give up on unified memory and switch to a traditional
| platform (which there are thousands of alternatives for)
|
| - Cripple the GPU for games and some productivity
| software by raising latency beyond the norm.
|
| - Change to a server-class chip for 5x the price.
|
| This is an amazing chip giving server-class specs in a
| cheap mobile platform, that fill a special nieche in the
| market for for both productivity and local AI at a very
| competitive price. What you're arguing for makes no
| sense.
| v5v3 wrote:
| Risk cannabalising sales from their other products?
|
| For example Nvidia seek to ban consumer GPU use in
| datacenters as they to sell datacentre GPUs.
|
| If they made consumer platforms that can take 1tb of ram
| etc, then people may choose to not buy EYPC.
|
| Afterall many cloud providers already offer Ryzen VPS's.
| beeflet wrote:
| my thoughts exactly
| sliken wrote:
| Sure, you could. The design would do something like:
|
| We need a bigger memory controller.
|
| To get more traces to the memory controller We need more
| pins on the CPU.
|
| Now need a bigger CPU package to accommodate the pins.
|
| Now we need a motherboard with more traces, which requires
| more layers, which requires a more expensive motherboard.
|
| We need a bigger motherboard to accommodate the 6 or 8 dimm
| sockets.
|
| The additional traces, longer traces, more layers on the
| motherboard, and related makes the signalling harder,
| likely needs ECC or even registered ECC.
|
| We need a more expensive CPU, more expensive motherboard,
| more power, more cooling, and a larger system.
| Congratulations you've reinvented threadripper (4 channel),
| siena (6 channel), Threadripper pro (8 channel), or epyc
| (12 channel). All larger, more expensive more than 2x the
| power, and is likely to be in a $5-$15k workstation/server
| not a $2k framework desktop the size of a liter of milk or
| so.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > We need a more expensive CPU, more expensive
| motherboard, more power, more cooling, and a larger
| system. Congratulations you've reinvented threadripper (4
| channel), siena (6 channel), Threadripper pro (8
| channel), or epyc (12 channel).
|
| This is the real story not the conspiracy-tinged market
| segmentation one. Which is silly because at levels where
| high-end consumer/enthusiast Ryzen (say, 9950 X3D) and
| lowest-end Threadripper/EPYC (most likely a previous-gen
| chip) just happen to truly overlap in performance, the
| former will generally cost you more!
| sliken wrote:
| Well sort of. Apple makes a competitive mac mini and
| macbook air with a 128 bit memory interface, decent
| design, solid build, nice materials, etc starting at $1k.
| PC laptops can match nearly any aspect, but rarely match
| the quality of the build, keyboard, trackpad, display,
| aluminum chassis, etc.
|
| However Apple will let you upgrade to the pro (double the
| bandwidth), max (4x the bandwidth), and ultra (8x the
| bandwidth). The m4 max is still efficient, gives decent
| battery life in a thin light laptop. Even the ultra is
| pretty quiet/cool even in a tiny mac studio MUCH smaller
| than any thread ripper pro build I've seen.
|
| Does mystify me that x86 has a hard time matching even a
| mac mini pro on bandwidth, let alone the models with 2x
| or 4x the memory bandwidth.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Yes, but that platform has in-package memory? Which is a
| higher degree of integration than even "soldered". That's
| the kind of platform Strix Halo is most comparable to.
|
| (I suppose that you could devise a platform with support
| for mixing _both_ "fast" in-package and "slow" DIMM-
| socketed memory, which could become interesting for all
| sorts of high-end RAM-hungry workloads, not just AI. No
| idea how that would impact the overall tradeoffs though,
| might just be infeasible.
|
| ...Also if persistent memory (phase-change or MRAM) can
| solve the well-known endurance issues with flash, maybe
| that ultimately becomes the preferred substrate for
| "slow" bulk RAM? Not sure about that either.)
| wtallis wrote:
| > Does mystify me that x86 has a hard time matching even
| a mac mini pro on bandwidth, let alone the models with 2x
| or 4x the memory bandwidth.
|
| The market dynamics are pretty clear. Having that much
| memory bandwidth only makes sense if you're going to
| provide an integrated GPU that can _use_ that bandwidth;
| CPU-based laptop /desktop workloads that bandwidth-hungry
| are too rare. The PC market has long been relying on
| discrete GPUs for any high-performance GPU configuration,
| and the GPU market leader is the one that doesn't make
| x86 CPUs.
|
| Intel's consumer CPU product line is a confusing mess,
| but at the silicon level it comes down to one or two
| designs for laptops (a low-power and a mid-power design)
| that are both adequately served by a 128-bit memory bus,
| and one or two desktop designs with only a token iGPU.
| The rest of the complexity comes from binning on clock
| speeds and core counts, and sometimes putting the desktop
| CPU in a BGA package for high-power laptops.
|
| For Intel to make a part following the Strix Halo and
| Apple strategy, Intel would need to add a third major
| category of consumer CPU silicon, using far more than
| twice the total die size of any of their existing
| consumer CPUs, to go after a niche that's pretty small
| and _very_ hard for Intel to break into given the poor
| quality of their current GPU IP. Intel doesn 't have the
| cash to burn pursuing something like this.
|
| It's a bit surprising AMD actually went for it, but they
| were in a better position than Intel to make a part like
| Strix Halo from both a CPU and GPU IP perspective. But
| they still ended up not including their latest GPU
| architecture, and only went for a 256-bit bus rather than
| 512-bit.
| undersuit wrote:
| I wonder if there were similar complaints when cache moved
| from motherboards to soldered on the cpu package.
| beeflet wrote:
| The difference in performance between DRAM and flash memory
| is far greater than SRAM and DRAM. The total RAM of a
| system is a hard limit on the type of programs you can
| practically run because swapping is slow.
| undersuit wrote:
| The old motherboard cache was socketed SRAM and it was
| replaced with soldered SRAM just as the socketed DRAM was
| replaced with soldered DRAM.
|
| L2 CPU cache used to be on the motherboard and user
| expandable.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That's fine, but not what I was commenting on so your comment
| is mostly irrelevant.
|
| I was commenting on a brand based on repairability selling a
| product that's deliberately _not_ repairable. It 's a curious
| choice to throw away the branding that brought them to where
| they are, and hopefully not the start of a trend for their
| other devices.
| rs186 wrote:
| The only non repairable part is RAM due to technical
| constraints. The rest is as repairable as any other
| desktop, if not more so (e.g. power supply). Why are you
| accusing them of "throwing away the branding" and holding
| such a purist view, when they are doing their best and just
| making compromises in order to release a decent product.
| antonvs wrote:
| > And even more curious
|
| It's easy to find out the reason for this. And the article's
| benchmarks confirm the validity of this reason. Why comment
| from a place of ignorance, unless you're asking a question?
| aniviacat wrote:
| Your comment is unnecessarily hostile.
|
| There are plenty of components to choose from which do not
| need soldered-on RAM. Giving up modularity to gain access to
| higher memory bandwidth is certainly a trafeoff many are
| willing to make, but to take that tradeoff as a company known
| for modularity is, as the parent comment put it, curious.
| antonvs wrote:
| Every single description of the Framework desktop that I've
| seen has addressed this issue. To comment as though it's
| some sort of mystery is disingenuous at best. My comment
| was precisely as friendly as the commenter deserved.
|
| And as I said, if you read the article, you'll see that the
| tradeoff in question has paid off very well.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| You completely missed the point of my original comment,
| I'll take a second stab at it:
|
| 1. Framework branded themselves as _the_ company for DIY
| computer repairability and maintainability in the laptop
| space.
|
| 2. They've now released a desktop that is _less_
| repairable than their laptops, and much less repairable
| than most desktops you can buy today.
|
| That's what I consider a curious move.
|
| The hardware choice may provide a good reason to solder
| on the RAM, but I wasn't commenting on that and have no
| idea how anyone could read my comment and have that be
| their takeaway.
|
| I was commenting on a brand throwing away the thing it's
| marketed itself for. In exchange for repairability, you
| now get shiny baubles like custom tiles for the case.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > brand throwing away the thing it's marketed itself for
|
| I don't see what you see. It's a single product, not a
| realignment of their business model. They saw an
| opportunity and brought to market a product that will
| likely sell out, which tells us that customers are happy
| to make the trade-off of modularity and repairability for
| what the Strix Halo brings to the table. I think your
| interpretation of their mission is a bit uncharitable,
| maybe naive, and leaves the company little room to be a
| company.
| alt227 wrote:
| I disagree, the framework name has been intertwined with
| repairability since the inception. That is their USP and
| has been their marketing angle from day 1, not only that
| but the fact they are supposedly championing
| repairability due to their 'ethos' as a company.
|
| Fair enough that a company might bring out products which
| differ from their core market, but in this instance I
| have to agree that releasing a desktop PC with soldered
| on RAM very much goes against the place they have
| positioned themselves in the market.
|
| Perhaps a better solution would be to start releasing a
| newly branded product line of not so repairable machines,
| but keeping the name 'Framwork' for their main offerings.
| suspended_state wrote:
| > They soldered on the RAM. Which makes it a very strange entry
| for a brand marketing itself as the DIY dream
|
| This was also my first thought when discovering this new model,
| but I think it was a pragmatic design decision.
|
| The questions you should ask yourself are:
|
| - which upgradable memory module format could be used with the
| same speed and bandwidth as the soldered in solution,
|
| - if this solution exists, how much would it cost
|
| - what's the maximum supported amount of ram for this CPU
| beeflet wrote:
| >which upgradable memory module format could be used with the
| same speed and bandwidth as the soldered in solution
|
| CAMM perhaps? The modular memory is important, because they
| are selling them to two different markets: gamers that want a
| small powerful desktop, and people running LLMs at home. The
| modularity of the RAM allows you to convert the former into
| the latter at a later date, so it seems pretty critical to
| me.
|
| For this reason alone, I am going to buy a used epyc server
| instead of one of these desktop things. I will be able to
| equip it with a greater amount of RAM as I see fit and run a
| greater range of models (albeit at lower speed). The ability
| to run larger models slowly at a later date is more important
| than the ability for me to run smaller models faster now. So
| I am an example of a consumer who does not like framework's
| tradeoff.
|
| You would think that they would at least offer some type of
| service where they take it into the factory and refit it with
| new ram chips. Perhaps they could just buy used low-ram
| boards at a later date and use them to make refurbished high-
| ram boards.
|
| Another solution is to make it so that it supports both
| soldered and unsoldered ram (but at a lower frequency).
| Gaming is frequency-limited but does not require much ram,
| but a lot of workloads like AI are bandwidth limited. Hell,
| if you're going to have some high-frequency RAM irreplacibly
| soldered to the motherboard, it might as well be a chiplet!
| suspended_state wrote:
| You should do what better fit your usecase.
|
| I don't know how large is framework's market, nor how deep
| their pockets are, which condition their ability to produce
| 2 different models.
|
| It's clear that a modular design is preferable, hopefully
| once a standard emerges they will use it in their next
| devices. Perhaps framework will help in that process, but I
| don't know if they can afford to put up with the initial
| costs, particularly in a market they don't have a strong
| foothold yet.
| yencabulator wrote:
| The price jump from 64 GB to 128 GB is $400. $400 does not
| get you "some type of service where they take it into the
| factory and refit it with new ram chips".
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| The CEO mentioned in an LTT video that they worked with AMD to
| try to make CAMM memory work and hit some technical problems.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Gotta chase that AI bubble at any cost
| jeroenhd wrote:
| According to the Framework CEO on the Linus Tech Tips video
| about this thing [1], they tried and AMD assigned an engineer
| on getting modular memory to work and decided it's not
| possible.
|
| Unless there's another company out there shipping this CPU with
| replaceable memory, I'll believe them. Even with LPCAMM,
| physics just doesn't work out.
|
| Of course, there are plenty of slower desktops you can buy
| where all the memory can be swapped out. If you want a
| repairable desktop like that, you're not stuck with Framework
| in the same way you would be with laptops. You'll probably
| struggle to get the same memory bandwidth to make full use of
| AMD's chips, though.
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY?feature=shared&t=446
| cyanydeez wrote:
| there isn't. This thing was designed the same way apple
| designed their unified memory. This thing is meant to work
| hand in hand with it's iGPU.
| tgma wrote:
| Even on regular AMD 7000 and 9000 series the DDR5 memory
| controller is very sensitive and hard to get a stable system
| with fast RAM on many motherboards when all 4 modules are
| present. At today's RAM speeds, I definitely think a stable
| soldered system is increasingly a better trade-off.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| Indeed. I have an AMD 9950X and an Asus X870E* motherboard. I
| can barely get the system to boot with one 32G DIMM let alone
| 2 or 4, and 48G DIMMS are even worse for some reason. I have
| tried 3 different "matched" sets. Sometimes I have to reset
| the system 3 times or more before it will boot; it hangs or
| crashes on DDR timing BIOS codes. I have given up and just
| use a single 32G despite how useless 32G is in a high end
| desktop today. Real joke. Huge waste of money. I will buy
| prebiilt systems in the future. In the meantime if I need a
| lot of RAM I use an Intel 14900K desktop or my new HP G1a
| Zbook.
|
| * ASUS X870E ROG CROSSHAIR HERO AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard
| tgma wrote:
| Yes, AM5 DDR5 support has been similarly painful to me on
| four systems (7950X and 9950X). Try forcing the memory
| speed down to 3600MHz (ouch) when you want to install lots
| of memory and stay on modules specified on the
| motherboard's QVL.
|
| I'd probably go Framework Desktop next if I won't need
| peripherals.
| sliken wrote:
| Dunno, nice, quiet, small machine, using standard parts (power
| supply, motherboard, etc).
|
| If you want the high memory bandwidth get the strix halo, if
| not get any normal PC. Sure apple has the bandwidth as well,
| and also soldered memory as well.
|
| If you want dimms and you want the memory bandwidth get a
| threadripper (4 channel), siena (6 channel), thread ripper pro
| (8 channel), or Epyc (12 channel). But be prepared to double
| your power (at least), quadruple your space, double your cost,
| and still not have a decent GPU.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Nice is subjective. Fractal cases he compares to looks nicer
| to me.
|
| Quiet? A real PC with bigger fans = more airflow = quieter
|
| Smaller - yes, this is the tradeoff
|
| GPU is always best separate, that is true since the ages.
|
| "double the power" oh no from 100W to 200W wowwww
|
| "quadruple your space" - not a problem
| G3rn0ti wrote:
| > They threw away their user-repairable mantra when they made
| the Desktop
|
| You forget the value proposition of Framework products is not
| only they allow you to bring your own hardware but they also
| promise to provide you with replacement parts and upgrades
| directly from the vendor.
|
| In this case they could not make the RAM replaceable (it's a
| limitation of the platform) but you can expect an upgrade board
| in about 2 years that's actually going to be easy to install
| for much less cost than buying a new desktop computer.
| amaranth wrote:
| That's less of a thing here since this is "just" an ITX
| motherboard, a case, and a power supply. With the laptops
| replacing the board saves a bunch of other parts but here the
| board is basically the only part that matters.
| pzmarzly wrote:
| HN admins: can the domain extractor be changed to say
| "world.hey.com/dhh" here instead of just the domain name? From
| what I see, Hey World is a blogging platform, similar to Medium
| but markdown and email based. And the username (blog name) is in
| the second part of the URL.
| mtmail wrote:
| Best to email the moderators (link in footer). I've made
| similar suggestions about other blogging platforms and got a
| positive reply.
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| It fun to see that, in an era where most CEOs are all-in with AI
| both on a personal level and at their companies, dhh chose to
| rather take a deep dive into the world of linux and config files
| and indie computer brands.
|
| Curious what will the long term impact of this be on the longtime
| viability of Basecamp and its sister/daughter brands.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| very impressive...
|
| Max+ 395 specced with: 128GB of non-upgradeable LPDDR5x WD_BLACK
| SN850X NVMe - M.2 2280 - 8TB Noctua fan 3x + 3x extra USB-A &
| USB-C ports No OS option.
|
| only $2,776.00!!!
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| everything's cheap when you're rich
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| A mac studio configured similarly With 128 GB of memory and
| an 8 TB SSD is $5799
| mft_ wrote:
| One detail is that the memory bandwidth on the M4 Max and
| M3 Ultra (especially) is considerably higher than the 395+.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The Mac Studio (at least the M3 Ultra model) blows the
| Framework out of the water when it comes to AI performance,
| though, at least according to this (Dutch language)
| benchmark: https://tweakers.net/reviews/13614/framework-
| desktop-de-fram...
|
| Paying twice the price for twice to seven times the
| performance may not be such a bad thing. Then again, with
| Apple you're kind of stuck with macOS and the like, so
| Framework may still be the better option depending on your
| use case.
| Rohansi wrote:
| The M3 Ultra also consumes a lot more power because Strix
| Halo is actually a chip for laptops. The Framework here
| is a desktop but that doesn't change what AMD prioritized
| when building this chip.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| The M3 Ultra is more efficient both on the CPU and GPU
| side.
| Rohansi wrote:
| I'd hope so since M3 Ultra is using a newer/more
| efficient manufacturing process than Strix Halo!
| everfrustrated wrote:
| Bear in mind the gpu has access to all of that 128GB as well,
| so for AI thats very very cheap.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| yeah, slap the Apple brand on this and it's basically the
| same thing.
|
| People seem to really not understand the limits of wanting
| unified memory architecture.
| mkl wrote:
| Apple CPUs have up to more than 2.5 times the memory
| bandwidth as this (and you pay for it).
| ashleyn wrote:
| How is AMD GPU compatibility with leading generative AI
| workflows? I'm under the impression everything is CUDA.
| wolfgangK wrote:
| Indeed, recent Flash Attention is a pain point for non CUDA.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| Certain chips can work with useful local models, but
| compatibility is far behind CUDA.
| pja wrote:
| llama.cpp combined with Mesa's Vulkan support for AMD GPUs has
| worked pretty well with everything I've thrown it at.
| throwdbaaway wrote:
| https://llm-tracker.info/_TOORG/Strix-Halo has very
| comprehensive test results for running llama.cpp with Strix
| Halo. This one is particularly interesting:
|
| > But when we switch to longer context, we see something
| interesting happen. WMMA + FA basically loses no performance
| at this longer context length!
|
| > Vulkan + FA still has better pp but tg is significantly
| lower. More data points would be better, but seems like
| Vulkan performance may continue to decrease as context
| extends while the HIP+rocWMMA backend should perform better.
|
| lhl has also been sharing these test results in
| https://forum.level1techs.com/t/strix-halo-ryzen-ai-
| max-395-..., and his latest comment provides a great summary
| of the current state:
|
| > (What is bad is that basically every single model has a
| different optimal backend, and most of them have different
| optimal backends for pp (handling context) vs tg (new text)).
|
| Anyway, for me, the greatest thing about the Strix Halo +
| llama.cpp combo is that we can throw one or more egpu into
| the mix, as echoed by level1tech video
| (https://youtu.be/ziZDzrDI7AM?t=485), which should help a lot
| with PP performance.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| CUDA isn't really used for new code. Its used for legacy
| codebases.
|
| In the LLM world, you really only see CUDA being used with
| Triton and/or PyTorch consumers that haven't moved onto better
| pastures (mainly because they only know Python and aren't
| actually programmers).
|
| That said, AMD can run most CUDA code through ROCm, and AMD
| officially supports Triton and PyTorch, so even the academics
| have a way out of Nvidia hell.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| ROCm doesn't work on this device
| geerlingguy wrote:
| You mean the AI Max chips? ROCm works fine there, as long
| as you're running 6.4.1 or later, no hacks required. I
| tested on Fedora Rawhide and it was just dnf install rocm.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Yes it does. ROCm support for new chips, due to being
| available for paid support contracts, comes like 1-2 months
| after the chip comes out (ie, when they're 100% sure it
| works with the current, also new, driver).
|
| I'd rather it works and ships late than doesn't work and
| ships early and then get gaslit about the bugs (lol Nvidia,
| why are you like this?)
| sexeriy237 wrote:
| If you're not doing machine code by hand, you're not a
| programmer
| phanimahesh wrote:
| If you are not winding copper around magnets by hand, you
| are not a real programmer
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| I get the joke you two are making, but I've seen what
| academics have written in Python. Somehow, its worse than
| what academics used to write when Java was taught has the
| only language for CompSci degrees.
|
| At least Java has types and can be performant. The world
| was ever so slightly better back then.
| sevensor wrote:
| There is some truly execrable Python code out there, but
| it's there because the barrier to entry is so low.
| Especially back in the day, Java had so many guardrails
| that the really bad Java code came from intermediate
| programmers pushing up against the limitations of the
| language rather than from novices pasting garbage into a
| notebook. As a result there was less of it, but I'm not
| convinced that's a good thing.
|
| Edit: my point being that out of a large pool of novices,
| some of them will get better. Java was always more gate
| kept.
|
| Second edit: Java's intermediate programmer malaise was
| of course fueled by the Gang of Four's promise to lead
| them out of confusion and into the blessed realm of
| reusable software.
| dgan wrote:
| sooo what's the successor of cuda?
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| CUDA largely was Nvidias attempt at swaying Khronos and
| Microsoft's DirectX team. In the end, Khronos went with
| something based on a blend of AMD's and Nvidia's ideas, and
| that became Vulkan, and Microsoft just duplicated the
| effort in a Direct3D-flavored way.
|
| So, just use Vulkan and stop fucking around with the Nvidia
| moat.
| kcb wrote:
| A great thing about CUDA is that it doesn't have to deal
| with any of the graphics and rendering stuff or shader
| languages. Vulkan compute is way less dev friendly than
| CUDA. Not to mention the real benefit of CUDA which is
| that it's also a massive ecosystem of libraries and
| tools.
| komali2 wrote:
| What are non legacy codebases using, then?
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Largely Vulkan. Microsoft internally is a huge consumer of
| DirectML for specifically the LLM team doing Phi and the
| Copilot deployment that lives at Azure.
| smokel wrote:
| _> CUDA isn 't really used for new code._
|
| I don't think this is particularly correct, or at least
| worded a bit too strongly.
|
| For Nvidia hardware, CUDA just gives the best performance,
| and there are many optimized libraries that you'd have to
| replace as well.
|
| Granted, new ML frameworks tend to be more backend agnostic,
| but saying that CUDA is no longer being used, seems a bit
| odd.
| nh43215rgb wrote:
| In practical generative AI workflows (LLMs), I think AMD
| Max+395 chips with unified memory is as good as Mac Studio or
| MacBook Pro configurations in handling big models locally and
| support fast inference speeds (However Top-end Apple silicon
| (M4 Max, Studio Ultra) can reach 546GB/s memory bandwidth,
| while the AMD unified memory system is around 256GB/s). I think
| for inference use either will work fine. For everything else I
| think CUDA ecosystem is a better bet (correct me if I'm wrong).
| sbinnee wrote:
| My impression is the same. To train anything you just need to
| have CUDA gpus. For inference I think AMD and Apple M chips are
| getting better and better.
| jychang wrote:
| For inference, Nvidia/AMD/Intel/Apple are all generally on
| the same tier now.
|
| There's a post on github of a madman who got llama.cpp
| generating tokens for an AI model that's running on an Intel
| Arc, Nvidia 3090, and AMD gpu at the same time.
| https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/pull/5321
| Aeolun wrote:
| All of Ollama and Stable Diffusion based stuff now works on my
| AMD cards. Maybe it's different if you want to actually train
| things, but I have no issues running anything that fits in
| memory any more.
| ftvkyo wrote:
| There is a project called SCALE that allows building CUDA code
| natively for AMD GPUs. It is designed as a drop-in replacement
| for Nvidia CUDA, and it is free for personal and educational
| use.
|
| You can find out more here: https://docs.scale-lang.com/stable/
|
| There are still many things that need implementing, most
| important ones being cuDNN and CUDA Graph API, but in my
| opinion, the list of things that are supported now is already
| quite impressive (and keeps improving):
| https://github.com/spectral-compute/scale-validation/tree/ma...
|
| Disclaimer: I am one of the developers of SCALE.
| dismalaf wrote:
| > I'm under the impression everything is CUDA
|
| A very quick Google search would show that pretty much
| everything also runs on ROCm.
|
| Torch runs on CUDA and ROCm. Llama.cpp runs on CUDA, ROCm,
| SYCL, Vulkan and others...
| kristianp wrote:
| > There's at least a little flexibility with the graphics card if
| you move the board into a different case--there's a single PCIe
| x4 slot on the board that you could put an external GPU into,
| though many PCIe x16 graphics cards will be bandwidth starved.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/review-framework-des...
| conradev wrote:
| You can also use an adapter to repurpose an M.2 slot as PCIe
| x16, but the bandwidth is the same x4
| tgma wrote:
| That's just called a PCIe x4 [1]. Each PCIe lane is an
| independent channel. The wider slot will simply have
| disconnected pins. You can actually do this with regular
| motherboard PCIe x4 slots by cutting the plastic at the end
| of the slot so you can insert a wider card and most cards
| work just fine.
|
| [1]: It sounds like a nitpick but a PCIe x16 with x4
| effective bandwidth can exist and is a different thing: if
| the actual PCIe interface is x16, but there is an upstream
| bottleneck (e.g. aggregate bandwidth from chipset to CPU is
| not enough to handle all peripherals at once at full rate.)
| wolfgangK wrote:
| For LLM inference, I don't think the PCIe bandwidth matters
| much and a GPU could improve greatly the prompt processing
| speed.
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| Only if your entire model fits the GPU VRAM.
|
| To me this reads like "if you can afford those 256GB VRAM
| GPUs, you don't need PCIe bandwidth!"
| tgma wrote:
| If you can't, your performance will likely be abysmal
| though, so there's almost no middle ground for the LLM
| workload.
| jychang wrote:
| No, that's not true. Prompt processing just needs attention
| tensors in VRAM, the MLP weights aren't needed for the
| heavy calculations that a GPU speeds up. (After attention,
| you only need to pass the activations from GPU to system
| RAM, which is about ~40KB so you're not very limited here).
|
| That's pretty small.
|
| Even Deepseek R1 0528 685b only has like ~16GB of attention
| weights. Kimi K2 with 1T parameters has 6168951472
| attention params, which means ~12GB.
|
| It's pretty easy to do prompt processing for massive models
| like Deepseek R1, Kimi K2, or Qwen 3 235b with only a
| single Nvidia 3090 gpu. Just do --n-cpu-moe 99 in llama.cpp
| or something similar.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| Yeah, I think so. Once the whole model is on the GPU
| (potentially slower start-up), there really isn't much
| traffic between the GPU and the motherboard. That's how I
| think about it. But mostly saying this as I'm interested in
| being corrected if I'm wrong.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The Strix Halo iGPU is quite special, like the Apple iGPU it
| has such good memory bandwidth to system RAM that it manages
| to improve both prompt processing and token generation
| compared to pure CPU inference. You really can't say that
| about the _average_ iGPU or low-end dGPU: usually their
| memory bandwidth is way too anemic, hence the CPU wins when
| it comes to emitting tokens.
| monster_truck wrote:
| There are no situations where this matters yet. You have to
| drop down to an 8x slot on PCIe 3.0 to even begin to see any
| meaningful impact on benchmarks (synthetic or otherwise)
| dustingetz wrote:
| for $2k that is a lot of computer
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| Oh, to be young again and care about benchmarks, bogomips and
| stuff like that.
| beeflet wrote:
| Do you even bench, mark?
| Terr_ wrote:
| Or to generally be back in the era where such a thing would be
| useful for LAN-parties...
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Note that the main benchmark in the post is practical. How long
| a test suite for the product he makes runs.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| _Das Balkenspiel ist schlechter Stil._ (The bar game is bad
| style /lame)
| ggm wrote:
| Pong!
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Errm, No :-) I meant bars as in benchmarks, often rather
| meaningless, because within the range of statistic noise.
|
| For instance, something having 100.200 points in one
| config, in another 100.2 _20_ , with the bars/scales
| distorted to make that difference seem much larger.
|
| Gaming the bar-game, so to speak.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| OpenAI recently played a bit too hard with their GPT-5
| announcement. Two bars with the same height but wildly
| different values, things like that. Such a lack of
| subtlety that their claim it was accidental is actually
| almost believable.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Reads like an advertisement to me.
| coolgoose wrote:
| I doubt that Dhh if all people would do advertisement (as paid)
| for this. He genuinely seems to enjoy his macos break
| echelon wrote:
| Apple's walled garden and mob tactics pissed DHH off [1-3].
| Of course he's going to advocate for alternatives.
|
| Tim Sweeney is in the same camp.
|
| [1] https://www.hey.com/apple/
|
| [2] https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-rejects-the-hey-calendar-
| fro...
|
| [3] https://world.hey.com/dhh/hey-is-finally-for-sale-on-the-
| iph...
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Then again that's just what he does. There is little room for
| soft opinions in DHHs communication to the public, and nuance
| often goes next.
| jamesgill wrote:
| I like Framework and own one of their laptops. But the desktop
| seems more a triumph of gimmicky marketing than a desktop that's
| meaningfully different. And, it seems significantly overpriced.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It's taking a newly released mobile- and mini-PC-focused
| platform that's usually paired with proprietary technology, and
| building something that's as close as possible to a standard
| desktop with it. Seems very much in the Framework spirit once
| you account for that side of it.
| mschild wrote:
| Right, but why go with mobile at all? I get the laptops.
|
| For desktop you already have thousands of choices though and
| reparability, assuming its not some proprietary Dell/HP
| desktop, is already as good as it gets without breaking out
| your soldering iron.
|
| That said, they'll know more about the market demand than I
| do and another option won't hurt :)
| wiseowise wrote:
| Supporting OSS and repairable hardware?
| mschild wrote:
| OSS is fair.
|
| From the product page I don't see how that mainboard is
| more repairable than a typical ITX one though. As far as
| I can tell, you also cannot change the CPU on it so even
| less than a typical desktop mainboard.
| wiseowise wrote:
| By buying their devices you directly support company and
| mission that they're on. I'm not a diehard OSS supporter
| (Mac user here), but I consider buying The Framework
| Desktop just to support the company over, say, Dell or
| HP.
| baby_souffle wrote:
| > but I consider buying The Framework Desktop just to
| support the company over, say, Dell or HP.
|
| Exactly. Between those three companies, only one of them
| is likely to even try to make something like core boot
| possible on this machine. That's something I can afford
| to encourage.
| mtzet wrote:
| A normal desktop with non-soldered components is more
| repairable, cheaper and can also run on stock Linux?
|
| The only selling point is the form factor and a massive
| amount of GPU memory, but a dGPU offers more raw compute.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > with non-soldered components is more repairable
|
| This is literally the limitation of the platform. Why
| even bring that up? Framework took a part made by AMD and
| put in their devices.
| bsimpson wrote:
| AMD APUs can run stock Linux.
|
| All those SteamOS handhelds are on AMD.
| timc3 wrote:
| Because its using a Strix Halo APU which to some is kinda
| interesting, and to others all they need for sometime.
| signal11 wrote:
| Quiet desktop PCs with good thermals have been getting
| increased interest -- not everyone needs a tower, for some
| a Mac Mini-like device would work great, but not everyone
| wants to get into the Apple ecosystem for various reasons.
|
| Of course this PC is interesting in that it's more
| "workstation class" and I'm not sure how much thermals
| matter there, but maybe this is an iteration towards a Mac
| Studio like device.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Right, but why go with mobile at all? I get the laptops.
|
| Pair a power-efficient mobile chip with a mini-desktop form
| factor and a good (i.e. probably overengineered, to some
| extent) cooling solution, and it will give you a kind of
| sustained performance and reliability over time that you
| just aren't going to get from the average
| consumer/enthusiast desktop chip. Great for workstation-
| like use cases that still don't quite need the raw
| performance and official support you'd get from a real,
| honest-to-goodness HEDT.
| MindSpunk wrote:
| The specific chip powering the Framework Desktop is
| something very unique in the PC landscape in general, even
| in desktop. The Strix Halo chip pairs a 16 core CPU with a
| huge iGPU that performs like a desktop discrete GPU, and
| 128GB of RAM (accessible on the GPU).
|
| Strix Halo is almost like having a PS5 or Xbox chip but
| available for the PC ecosystem. It's a super interesting
| and unique part for GPU compute, AI, or small form factor
| gaming.
| komali2 wrote:
| I'm realizing that I may have misunderstood Framework's market.
| I thought it was tinkerers and environmentally conscious FOSS
| nerds like me, but I think there maybe be a huge enterprise
| segment whose employees in charging of purchasing are like me
| but answer to much more strict business needs than "Isn't it
| cool that it comes with a screwdriver in the box?" So for
| example the underpowered cpu in the fw12 makes no sense to me
| until I found out that it's also designed for mass purchases by
| schools and designed to be flung around by angsty teens. The
| desktop seems to be meant to be strapped to the underside of 40
| identical cubicals in an office as much as it's meant to be
| apparently hauled around by people that want to have CSGO lan
| parties.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > So for example the underpowered cpu in the fw12 makes no
| sense to me until I found out that it's also designed for
| mass purchases by schools and designed to be flung around by
| angsty teens.
|
| I think that might be overstating it a bit. Real "rugged"
| laptops do exist, and would be quite at home in that kind of
| use (well, usually you'd worry a lot more about how kids in
| primary school will treat your hardware than teenagers) but
| the Framework 12 is not one.
| FLHerne wrote:
| Real "rugged" laptops are far too expensive for schools to
| buy by the dozen. Also, while robust against the
| environment they're not so much against deliberate
| vandalism or theft. The target market for those seems to be
| construction/industrial and similar, and of course the
| military.
|
| All school laptop fleets I've seen are simply the cheapest
| thing they can buy in bulk, when it breaks provision a new
| one.
| rs186 wrote:
| If you can't find an sufficiently similar alternative that is
| priced at a much better price, it is not overpriced.
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| I guess the original Raspberry Pi team missed the memo on
| that.
| esafak wrote:
| For the purposes of running LLM models, a Mac Mini. The PC is
| cheaper, but it doesn't have MacOS, Apple's service or resale
| value.
| jchw wrote:
| Actually the pricing is pretty similar.
|
| Framework Desktop price with default selections, 32GB of
| RAM, 500 GB storage: $1,242.00 USD
|
| Mac Mini with 32GB of RAM, 512 GB storage: $1,199.00
|
| Post changed a bit since I started replying, so:
|
| > For the purposes of running LLM models, a Mac Mini
|
| The M4 Max is the one that actually gives you a shit load
| of memory bandwidth. If you just get a normal M4 it's not
| going to be especially good at that.
|
| > it doesn't have MacOS
|
| The Mac can't run Windows, which is used by ~75% of all
| desktop computer users and the main operating system that
| video games target. I'd say that would be the bigger
| problem for many.
|
| > Apple's service
|
| What advantage does that get you over Framework's service?
|
| > resale value
|
| Framework resale value has proven to be excellent by the
| way. Go to eBay, search "Framework Laptop", go to "Sold
| Items". Many SKUs seem to be retaining most of their value.
|
| (Nevermind the ease of repair for the Framework, or the
| superior expandability. If you want to expand the disk
| space on an M4 you need to get sketchy parts, possibly
| solder things, and rescue your Mac with another Mac. For
| framework devices you plug in another M.2 card.)
| wtallis wrote:
| > Mac Mini with 32GB of RAM, 512 GB storage: $1,199.00
|
| You're looking at the wrong Mac Mini. The model with the
| M4 Pro is the right comparison, on account of also having
| a 256-bit memory bus giving substantially higher
| bandwidth than a typical desktop computer. The M4 Pro
| model doesn't have a 32GB option.
|
| The M4 Max (not available in a Mac Mini) has an even
| larger memory bus, giving it far more bandwidth than
| either the M4 Pro or the AMD Strix Halo part used by
| Framework.
| jchw wrote:
| I was just going for a head-to-head comparison, that's
| the closest you can get in price/performance. The closest
| M4 Pro Mac Mini is already a lot more expensive than the
| baseline Framework Desktop.
|
| The Framework Desktop Max+ 395 with 128 GB of RAM, and a
| 500 GB SSD costs around $2,147.00 USD before tax. The M4
| Pro with the 20-core GPU, 64 GB of RAM, and a 512 GB SSD
| costs around $2,199.00 USD. That's still short 64 GB of
| RAM, of course.*
|
| The lowest-end M4 Max Mac Studio that can support 128 GB
| of RAM seems to cost $3,499.00 with 128 GB of RAM and a
| 512 GB SSD. For that you get 546GB/s of maximum memory
| bandwidth according to Apple, which is definitely a step
| up from the 256GB/s maximum for the Ryzen AI Max+ 395,
| but obviously also at a price that is quite higher too.
|
| Apparently though, 128 GB of RAM is currently the ceiling
| for the M4 Max right now. So it seems like if you were
| going for a maximum performance local AI cluster at _any_
| price, the M3 Ultra Mac Studios are definitely in the
| running, though at that point it probably is starting to
| get to the price where AMD and NVIDIA 's data center GPUs
| start to enter the picture, and AMD Instinct cards
| measure memory bandwidth in terabytes per second.
|
| * Regarding GPUs: The Framework Desktop Max+ 395 Radeon
| 8060S seems to be vastly faster than all of the non-Max
| M4 SKUs, for anyone that cares a lot about GPU
| performance. The M4 Max seems to outperform the 8060S by
| a bit though, and obviously it has some stand-out
| features like a shit load of video encoding/decoding
| hardware. This complicates the value comparison a lot.
| The Radeon core definitely gets a much better value for
| the performance in any case. I'm really impressed by what
| they managed to do there.
| pimeys wrote:
| I count not needing to use macOS a big plus. Full Linux
| support out of the box.
| croes wrote:
| > but it doesn't have MacOS, Apple's service or resale
| value.
|
| If the purpose is running LLMs non of that matters.
|
| But Linux support is an advantage. Does the M4 have that?
| esafak wrote:
| Why doesn't it matter? Does your computer magically stop
| needing to be serviced or eventually sold because you're
| running LLMs?
|
| I run Linux containers all the time.
| croes wrote:
| None of my computers ever needed service.
|
| The LLM point is that Linux is better suited for most AI
| tools and their toolchains
| dismalaf wrote:
| The M4 has half the memory bandwidth of the 395+ and the
| specs on those models are absolute trash. To get an M4 Pro
| APU and decent specs you're spending at least as much as
| the Framework, at least here in Canada.
| baby_souffle wrote:
| I am very on board with the framework mission. I can afford
| the premium just to keep their lights on and doors open. The
| other Chinese OEMs almost certainly won't offer quite the
| support for that ~10% discount...
| damonll wrote:
| You need to use Orbstack as the engine on Mac, otherwise it's not
| a fair fight. It's at least 2x as fast as Docker
| fmajid wrote:
| I cancelled my Framework Desktop order and ordered a HP Z2 Mini
| G1a instead, the goal being to replace my Mac Studio as I've had
| it with Apple's arrogance and lousy software quality. The HP is
| much smaller, has ECC RAM and 10G Ethernet. Significantly more
| expensive, however.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Was scoffing at HP, but then you got my attention with ECC RAM.
| Looks nice as well.
| sliken wrote:
| Keep scoffing, it's not real end to end ECC, just "link" ecc,
| which is just part of the chip -> CPU pipeline.
|
| So it's not full ECC like servers have with dimms with a
| multiple of 9 chips with ECC protecting everything from the
| dimms to the CPU.
|
| Keep in mind the ram is inside the strix halo package, not
| something HP has control over.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Wait is there any actual difference in the RAM between the
| HP and the Framework Desktop?
| justincormack wrote:
| No I dont think so, all ddr5 has some "ECC" but not full
| ECC, ie you cant see corrections. And all the AI maxes
| have the same LPDDR5
| wtallis wrote:
| > Keep in mind the ram is inside the strix halo package,
| not something HP has control over.
|
| It's not in the package, it's on the motherboard spread
| around the SoC package:
| https://www.hp.com/content/dam/sites/worldwide/personal-
| comp...
|
| The 8 DRAM packages pretty clearly indicate you're not
| getting the extra capacity for end-to-end ECC as you would
| on a typical workstation or server memory module.
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| Apple have certainly taken a couple steps back re: overall
| reliability, but if you think that the grass is greener on the
| other side...pray tell how that goes
|
| Plus, you can now deploy [MLX projects on
| CUDA](https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx/pull/1983)
| paxys wrote:
| Even if the grass is the same on the other side a 50%
| discount for the same performance doesn't seem too bad.
| worthless-trash wrote:
| Do you linux on this ? if so.. does everything work ?
| fmajid wrote:
| Haven't received it yet, but of course I will install Linux
| on it.
| rtpg wrote:
| huhm the ars review makes it seem like this thing does worse on
| benchmarks than stuff like the mac but the test suite in DHH's
| example goes way faster. Bursty perf perhaps?
| ilaksh wrote:
| How does that Framework Desktop compare with the "GMKtec AI Mini
| Ryzen Al Max+ 395 128GB" mini PC?
|
| I suspect this one is very similar hardware and a slightly better
| deal if you give up the cool factor of Framework. Although I
| don't really know.
|
| Anyone compared them head-to-head?
| angst wrote:
| same CPU, likely a different TDP setting.
|
| This comparison uses hp G1a but I imagine it wouldnt be too far
| off from GMKtec: https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-
| desktop-linux/9
|
| Framework can be fed with more power to support better
| sustained performance is my understanding.
| jychang wrote:
| They're the same price. Both 395 machines (with 128GB of RAM)
| are $1999.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Hehe, that is just a Chinese company, isn't it? Say bye bye to
| warranty and support, repairability. I am not saying you
| shouldn't consider it but describing Framework merely as cool
| factor is the other extreme.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| For nuance:
|
| - framework only sells to specific countries. Warranty won't
| even be an issue if you can't buy one in the first place.
|
| - Chinese manufacturers offer support and warranty. In
| particular GMKTek does[0].
|
| - Repairability will be at best on par with framework, but
| better than a random western brand. Think HP and their
| repairability track record.
|
| "just a Chinese company" feels pretty weird as a
| qualificative in this day and age when Chinese companies are
| on average ahead of the curve.
|
| [0] https://de.gmktec.com/en/pages/ruckgabe-umtausch
| lucianbr wrote:
| Feels like in terms of warranty, support, repairability,
| it's not so much that Chinese brands have advanced, but
| that the west has seriously regressed. Every company now is
| looking to lock me out of my own hardware, extract as much
| information about me, extract as much value possible by
| degrading support and compatibility and whatever else they
| can...
|
| Maybe when we run out of reasons to buy american or
| european or japanese they will wake up, but I don't see it.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Doubling down on mediocrity and then protecting it with
| tariffs is the American way now it seems.
|
| For me as a Canadian, Framework being an American company
| was _always_ a problem because their shipping and
| availability to here were actually inferior to overseas
| suppliers despite being on the same continent (this is
| frankly often the case because of American business
| arrogance and blindness to the Canadian market -- things
| ship faster from Europe than from American suppliers for
| me, on the whole).
|
| But now with the idiotic trade war talk, it's even worse
| since I'm likely to be hit by a retalliatory tariff
| situation.
|
| Some day hopefully all this dollar store economic
| nationalism will blow over, but in the meantime it's too
| bad Framework has a good product and _isn 't_ European or
| Asian, because I won't buy it now.
| Fnoord wrote:
| My post _is_ the nuance, and as a buyer /user of GPD,
| Minisforum, and Xiaomi products I respectfully disagree.
|
| Chinese companies are not on par with Western ones. The QA,
| safety measures, hazard compliance, warranty, or even
| proper English (they use an online translator service)
| isn't there. Cha bu duo is an accurate description of
| Chinese products.
|
| From the link you send they offer 7 days return policy. In
| EU you got 2 weeks, legally enforced. Companies like Amazon
| offer even a month. Then they have a restock fee of 15%.
| This is AFAIK allowed (if proportional to the damage to the
| product) but it does not seem proportional. Companies like
| Amazon don't do this. And Amazon isn't great; they have a
| lot of cheap Chinese dropshipping brand. Then they often
| lie in China as well. They claim leather, when you buy it
| it is fake leather.
|
| Cha bu duo can be good enough if you are on a tight budget,
| or if the product isn't available otherwise (how I ended up
| with GPD Pocket 2 back around 2018). But I have personally
| witnessed how Xiaomi smartphones fucked up a mid sized non-
| profit who dealt with very sensitive personal details. They
| went for budget, ended up with a support nightmare, and
| something which shouldn't be GDPR compliant. Cause yeah,
| spyware and bloatware is another issue.
|
| Furthermore, Framework sell to Western countries.
| throw090329 wrote:
| Lenovo is a Chinese company.
| danieldk wrote:
| I would rather say it's a Chinese conglomerate. E.g.
| Think.* are said to be designed in the US, Taiwan, and
| Japan. They are often assembled locally (e.g. my
| ThinkStation was assembled in Hungary). They have offices
| in many local markets and can be held accountable for
| warranty, issues, etc.
|
| I agree with your general point though, 'Chinese' does
| not mean bad quality, warranty, etc. It's more a property
| of a bunch of Chinese computer companies selling through
| AliExpress, Amazon, etc. Their quality and service might
| improve as they grow.
|
| As an aside, Lenovo are pretty awesome. For
| ThinkStations, ThinkPads, etc. they have in-depth guides
| for supported memory configurations, disassembly, repair
| etc., often with part numbers. Their hardware also works
| well with fwupdmgr and they provide their own Linux
| support (like WWAN FCC unlock scripts).
| zargon wrote:
| > As an aside, Lenovo are pretty awesome.
|
| These things would be important if they made products
| that actually work. My T14s Gen 3 AMD simply doesn't
| work. Half the time I go to wake it from sleep, the
| firmware has crashed and I have to hard-reset it. I spent
| months trying to get Lenovo to fix this. They did replace
| the motherboard twice (once on-site, once shipped to
| them) and eventually replaced the entire laptop with a
| new one. None of this is useful when they can't make a
| laptop that doesn't crash while it sleeps.
| danieldk wrote:
| Sorry to hear that! I have a T14 (non-s) Gen 5 AMD and
| everything works great, also suspend-resume. A few years
| ago I had a Gen 1 AMD and it was certainly much worse. It
| would resume, but the trackpad or trackpoint would often
| not come up. But I'm very happy with the Gen 5.
| jdswain wrote:
| My company provided Dell has the same issue (Intel CPU).
| Comes and goes a bit with firmware updates.
| throw554552 wrote:
| > Cha bu duo is an accurate description of Chinese
| products.
|
| Didn't realize companies like DJI, BYD, CATL, Insta360,
| and Anker have a fail fast, fail early mentality.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I've been turned off GMKTek since I was helping a buddy fresh
| install Windows and found their drivers are on a Google Drive
| folder they don't pay for which hits its download quota
| regularly and so you have to go back day after day and play
| roulette and hope you get in at the right time. And the
| drivers are literally nowhere else that I could find, even
| with driver search tools.
| sfjailbird wrote:
| Oh wow, it does indeed have "AI" in its name _twice_. Cant 't
| wait for this shit to blow over.
| marcusb wrote:
| AI Mini _and_ AI Max. It has everything.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| someone min-max'd their marketing strategy!
| oblio wrote:
| These days they're using spreadsheets for marketing copy
| :-))
| Kirth wrote:
| I was baffled by the comparison to the M4 Max. Does this mean
| that recent AMD chips will be performing at the same level, and
| what does that mean for on-device LLMs? .. or am I
| misunderstanding this whole ordeal?
| izacus wrote:
| Yes, the Strix series of AMD uses a similar architecture as M
| series with massive memory bandwidth and big caches.
|
| That results in significantly better performance.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Isn't this the desktop architecture that Torvalds suggested
| years ago?
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| It basically looks like a games console. Its not a
| conceptually difficult architecture, "what if the GPU and
| the CPU had the same memory?". Good things indeed.
| izacus wrote:
| I don't know, but it's primarily very expensive to
| manufacture and hard to make expandable. You can see people
| in rage due to soldered RAM in this thread.
|
| There's always tradeoffs and people propose many things.
| Selling those things as a product is another game entirely.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Will we be able to get similar bandwidth with socketed ram
| with CAMM / LPCAMM modules in the near future?
| topspin wrote:
| Maybe, but due to the physics of signal integrity, socketed
| RAM will always be slower than RAM integrated onto the same
| PCB as whatever processing element is using it, so by the
| time CAMM / LPCAMM catches up, some newer integrated RAM
| solution will be faster yet.
|
| This is a matter of physics. It can't be "fixed." Signal
| integrity is why classic GPU cards have GiBs of integrated
| RAM chips: GPUs with non-upgradeable RAM that people have
| been happily buying for years now.
|
| Today, the RAM requirements of GPU and their applications
| has become so large that the extra, low cost, slow,
| socketed RAM is now a false economy. Naturally, therefore,
| it's being eliminated as PCs evolve into big GPUs, with one
| flavor or other of traditional ISA processing elements
| attached.
| cge wrote:
| It's possible that Apple really did a disservice to
| soldered RAM by making it a key profit-increasing option
| for them, exploiting the inability of buyers to buy RAM
| elsewhere or upgrade later, but in turn making soldered
| RAM seem like a scam, when it does have fundamental
| advantages, as you point out.
|
| Going from 64 GB to 128 GB of soldered RAM on the
| Framework Desktop costs EUR470, which doesn't seem that
| much more expensive than fast socketed RAM. Going from 64
| GB to 128 GB on a Mac Studio costs EUR1000.
| kbolino wrote:
| Is the problem truly down to physics or is it down to the
| stovepiped and conservative attitudes of PC part
| manufacturers and their trade groups like JEDEC? (Not
| that consumers don't play a role here too).
|
| The only essential part of sockets vs solder is the
| metal-metal contacts. The size of the modules and the
| distance from the CPU/GPU are all adjustable parameters
| if the will exists to change them.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| > The only essential part of sockets vs solder is the
| metal-metal contacts
|
| And at GHz speeds that matters more than you may think.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| How much higher bandwidth, percentage wise, can one
| expect from integrated DRAM vs socketed DRAM? 10%?
| wtallis wrote:
| Intel's _Arrow Lake_ platform launched in fall 2024 is
| the first to support CUDIMMs (clock redriver on each
| memory module) and as a result is the first desktop CPU
| to officially support 6400MT /s without overclocking
| (albeit only reaching that speed for single-rank modules
| with only one module per channel). Apple's M1 Pro and M1
| Max processors launched in fall 2021 used 6400MT/s
| LPDDR5.
|
| Intel's _Lunar Lake_ low-power laptop processors launched
| in fall 2024 use on-package LPDDR5x running at 8533MT /s,
| as do Apple's M4 Pro and M4 Max.
|
| So at the moment, soldered DRAM offers 33% more bandwidth
| for the same bus width, and is the only way to get more
| than a 128-bit bus width in anything smaller than a
| desktop workstation.
|
| Smartphones are already moving beyond 9600MT/s for their
| RAM, in part because they typically only use a 64-bit bus
| with. GPUs are at 30000MT/s with GDDR7 memory.
| cptskippy wrote:
| Perhaps it's time to introduce L4 Cache and a new Slot
| CPU design where RAM/L4 is incorporated into the CPU
| package? The original Slot CPUs that Intel and AMD
| released in the late 90s were to address similar issues
| with L2 cache.
| biehl wrote:
| I think DHH compares them because they are both the latest,
| top-line chips. I think DHHs benchmarks show that they have
| different performance characteristics. But DHHs favorite
| benchmark favors whatever runs native linux and docker.
|
| For local LLM the higher memory bandwith of M4 Max makes it
| much more performant.
|
| Arstechnica has more benchmarks for non-llm things
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/review-framework-des...
| rr808 wrote:
| After the appstore fight, DHH's favorite is whatever is not
| Apple lol. TBF it just opened his eyes to alternatives now is
| happy off that platform.
| rramon wrote:
| How long until he clashes with the GPL and discovers the
| BSDs?
| dismalaf wrote:
| Why would that happen? The GPL doesn't conflict at all
| with anything 37Signals does nor the Rails ecosystem...
| oblio wrote:
| What app store fight?
| dismalaf wrote:
| https://37signals.com/podcast/this-again-apple/
| cdavid wrote:
| I was surprised at previous comparison on omarchy website,
| because apple m* work really well for data science work that
| don't require GPU.
|
| It may be explained by integer vs float performance, though I
| am too lazy to investigate. A weak data point, using a matrix
| product of N=6000 matrix by itself on numpy: -
| SER 8 8745, linux: 280 ms -> 1.53 Tflops (single prec) -
| my m2 macbook air: it is ~180ms ms -> ~2.4 Tflops (single prec)
|
| This is 2 mins of benchmarking on the computers I have. It is
| not apple to orange comparison (e.g. I use the numpy default
| blas on each platform), but not completely irrelevant to what
| people will do w/o much effort. And floating point is what
| matters for LLM, not integer computation (which is what the
| ruby test suite is most likely bottlenecked by)
| jychang wrote:
| You're most likely bottlenecked by memory bandwidth for a
| LLM.
|
| The AMD AI MAX 395+ gives you 256GB/sec. The M4 gives you
| 120GB/s, and the M4 Pro gives you 273GB/s. The M4 Max:
| 410GB/s (14-core CPU/32-core GPU) or 546GB/s (16-core
| CPU/40-core GPU).
| cdavid wrote:
| Yeah, memory bandwidth is often the limitation for floating
| point operations.
| zargon wrote:
| It's both. If you're using any real amount of context, you
| need compute too.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| It's all about the memory bandwidth.
|
| Apple M chips are slower on the computation that AMD chips,
| but they have soldered on-package fast ram with a wide memory
| interface, which is very useful on workloads that handle lots
| of data.
|
| Strix halo has a 256-bit LPDDR5X interface, twice as wide as
| the typical desktop chip, roughly equal to the M4 Pro and
| half of that of the M4 Max.
| discordance wrote:
| Not in perf/watt but perf, yes.
| jchw wrote:
| Depends on the benchmark I think. In this case it's probably
| close. Apple is cagey when it comes to power draw or clock
| metrics but I believe the M4 max has been seen drawing around
| 50W in loaded scenarios. Meanwhile, Phoronix clocked the 395+
| as drawing an average of 91 watts during their benchmarks. If
| the performance is ~twice as fast that should be a similar
| performance per watt. Needless to say it's at least not a
| dramatic difference the way it was when the M1 came out.
|
| edit: Though the M4 Max may be more power hungry than I'm
| giving it credit, but it's hard to say because I can't figure
| out if some of these power draw metrics from random Internet
| posts actually isolate the M4 itself. It looks like when the
| GPU is loaded it goes much, much higher.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/1hkhtpp/m4_max_.
| ..
| pengaru wrote:
| It's not baffling once you realize TSMC is the main defining
| factor for all these chips, Apple Silicon is simply not that
| special in the grand scheme of things.
|
| Why do you think TSMC's production being in Taiwan is basically
| a national security issue for the U.S. at this point?
| toasterlovin wrote:
| > Apple Silicon is simply not that special in the grand
| scheme of things
|
| Apple Silicon might not be that special from an architecture
| perspective (although treating integrated GPUs as appropriate
| for workloads other than low end laptops was a break with
| industry trends), but it's very special from an economic
| perspective. The Apple Silicon unit volumes from iPhones have
| financed TSMC's rise to semiconductor process dominance and,
| it would appear, permanently dethroned Intel.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| Apple was just the highest bidder for getting the latest
| TSMC process. They wouldn't have had a problem getting
| other customers to buy up that capacity. And Intel's
| missteps counted for a substantial part of the process
| dominance you refer to. So I'd argue that Apple isn't that
| special here either.
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| I don't think there is a laptop that comes close to battery
| life or performance while on battery of m1 macbook pro
|
| I hate apple but there is obviously something special about
| it
| alternatex wrote:
| I'm pretty sure many of the Windows laptops with the
| Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite chip have the same or better
| battery life and comparable performance in a similar form
| factor. There are many videos online of comparisons.
| Aurornis wrote:
| An M4 Max has double the memory bandwidth and should run away
| with similarly optimized benchmarks.
|
| An M4 Pro is the more appropriate comparison. I don't know why
| he's doing price comparisons to a Mac Studio when you can get a
| 64GB M4 Pro Mac Mini (the closest price/performance comparison
| point) for much less.
| dismalaf wrote:
| > don't know why he's doing price comparisons to a Mac Studio
| when you can get a 64GB M4 Pro Mac Mini (the closest
| price/performance comparison point) for much less.
|
| Where?
|
| An M4 Pro Mac Mini is priced higher than the Framework here
| in Canada...
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Not really.
|
| A laptop CPU defeats the purpose. Get a 9800X3D for gaming will
| be waaaay faster or Threadripper for productivity or the 9950X3D
| chips with 16 cores/32 threads.
|
| Why this laptop crap when you can get a nice PC case.
|
| Then again he thinks the Fractal North was "bulky"? What?
| rs186 wrote:
| You completely missed the point.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44853961
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Nice is subjective. Fractal cases he compares to looks nicer
| to me.
|
| Quiet? A real PC with bigger fans = more airflow = quieter
|
| Smaller - yes, this is the tradeoff
| mkl wrote:
| The 9950X appears in one of the benchmarks in the article, and
| this machine beats it. It has 16 cores and 32 threads itself.
| You might want to read more details instead of dismissing it
| out of ignorance.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| okay the new real PC CPUs are better. there.
| politelemon wrote:
| I could do with someone explaining to me (sorry not very advanced
| knowledge in this area), how did Framework manage this
| performance at a lower price point? And why can't average Joe at
| PCPartPicker do something like this?
| vaylian wrote:
| The key piece is AMD's high-end AI CPU. The whole desktop is
| literally built around it, to take full advantage of it.
|
| AMD reached out to Framework and said "Hey, we have this new
| CPU, do you want to do something with it?". And the engineers
| at Framework jumped at the opportunity.
| jychang wrote:
| AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ as the APU (CPU + GPU), and its
| corresponding soldered LPDDR5X RAM, which has a super fast
| memory bandwidth of 256GB/sec.
|
| So the CPU and RAM are soldered on the motherboard.
|
| You can buy just the motherboard from Framework:
| https://frame.work/products/framework-desktop-mainboard-amd-...
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| Real question, it's not. It's close to the m4 mini performance.
| Which puts the price point within spitting difference ($50).
| Basically identical price wise to equivalent Apple products.
| Archit3ch wrote:
| RDNA 3.5, which means you don't get Matrix Cores. Those are
| reserved for RDNA 4, which comes to laptop chips later this year.
| Desktop RDNA 4 only shipped in 2025.
|
| For comparison, Nvidia brought Tensor Cores to consumer cards in
| 2022 with the 4000 series and Apple had simdgroup_matrix since
| 2020!
|
| We are moving towards a world where this hardware is ubiquitous.
| It's uncertain what that means for non-ML workloads.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| What do you need Matrix Cores for when you already have a NPU
| which can access the same memory, and even seems to include
| more flexible FPGA fabric? It's six of one, half a dozen of
| another.
| Archit3ch wrote:
| Can you do GPU -> NPU -> GPU for streaming workloads? The GPU
| can be more flexible than Tensor HW for preprocessing, light
| branching, etc.
|
| Also, Strix Halo NPU is 50 TOPS. The desktop RDNA 4 chips are
| into the 100s.
|
| As for consumer uses, I mentioned it's an open question.
| Blender? FFmpeg? Database queries? Audio?
| bigyabai wrote:
| The NPU is generally pretty weak and not pipelined into the
| GPU's logic (which is already quite large on-die). It feels
| like the past 10 years have taught us that if you're going to
| create tensor-specific hardware then it makes the most sense
| to put it in your GPU and not a dark-silicon coprocessor.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| I have the HP Zbook G1a running the same CPU and RAM under HP
| Ubuntu. I have not seen any OOTB way to use the TPU. I can
| get ROCm software to run but it does not use it. No system
| tools show its activity that I can see. It seems to be a
| marketing gimmick. Shame.
| transpute wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43671940#43674311
|
| _> The PFB is found in many different application domains
| such as radio astronomy, wireless communication, radar,
| ultrasound imaging and quantum computing.. the authors
| worked on the evaluation of a PFB on the AIE.. [developing]
| a performant dataflow implementation.. which made us
| curious about the AMD Ryzen NPU.
|
| > The [NPU] PFB figure shows.. speedup of circa 9.5x
| compared to the Ryzen CPU.. TINA allows running a non-NN
| algorithm on the NPU with just two extra operations or
| approximately 20 lines of added code.. on [Nvidia] GPUs
| CUDA memory is a limiting factor.. This limitation is
| alleviated on the AMD Ryzen NPU since it shares the same
| memory with the CPU providing up to 64GB of memory._
| lvl155 wrote:
| Amazing thing is this is a laptop-grade chip. Think AMD should
| make a full-on desktop-grade chip and possibly have two of them
| on one board.
|
| That'd really drive compute.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > possibly have two of them on one board.
|
| That would involve NUMA, and your memory bandwidth for cross-
| chip compute would probably suck. Would that even beat a simple
| cluster in performance?
| Marsymars wrote:
| A desktop-grade chip would nerf the APU and memory bandwidth,
| and would need a discrete GPU for comparable compute, which is
| a completely different class of machine. (One which would be,
| IMO, much less interesting.)
| paolomainardi wrote:
| Is there a real alternative, where is not not needed Windows in
| any way, to the Remote Device Management baked into firmware as
| Apple does with its hardware ? This is biggest missing to bring
| Linux to enterprises.
| vaylian wrote:
| > the Remote Device Management baked into firmware as Apple
| does with its hardware?
|
| What do you mean? Linux had SSH (and before that rlogin) for a
| very long time already.
| 7jjjjjjj wrote:
| "Device Management" means "hardware-level backdoor."
| oblio wrote:
| Only if it's your hardware. If it's corporate hardware,
| it's their hardware and you're a guest.
| aesh2Xa1 wrote:
| Apple devices support MDM. When you purchase the device, the
| device's firmware is configured to check in with an account
| owner. The firmware has an integrity feature such that this
| configuration cannot be removed by a user: https://it-
| training.apple.com/tutorials/deployment/dm005/
|
| If OP just meant remote management through a BMC then that's
| not common except for server hardware, and it would have
| features like Redfish to configure the hardware itself. Apple
| devices don't have this.
|
| You can also buy hardware to act as a remote
| keyboard/mouse/monitor and power button, and it supports
| systems whose motherboards have the right headers:
| https://pikvm.org/
| wtallis wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to describe MDM as a firmware-level
| feature. I think it's entirely implemented and enforced
| within the environment of a booted macOS; the firmware
| isn't going to be bringing up a whole network stack to
| phone home.
|
| If you had Linux on a MDM-enrolled Mac there wouldn't be
| anything MDM-related running during or after the boot
| process. But presumably any sane MDM config would prevent
| the end user from accessing the settings necessary to relax
| boot security to get Linux installed in the first place.
| aesh2Xa1 wrote:
| Yeah, your point about implementation is correct -- much
| of the MDM functionality runs within macOS.
|
| But, eh, I still think it's fair to describe it as a
| feature of the firmware. The enrollment and prevention of
| removal have firmware-level components through Apple's
| Secure Boot and System Integrity Protection. A user can't
| simply disable MDM because these firmware-level
| protections prevent tampering with the enrollment.
|
| Case in point, getting Linux installed in the first place
| would be blocked by firmware-level boot policies, right?
| I'm not too knowledge about this, and maybe you are more
| so.
| wtallis wrote:
| I think it's important to make a distinction between
| secure boot features that are local-only, and remote
| management features. The "Remote Device Management baked
| into firmware" claim above carries with it some pretty
| important implications that are, as far as I can tell,
| not actually true.
|
| It's not too different from scaremongering about Intel
| ME/AMT which is often maligned even in the context of
| computers that don't have the necessary Intel NICs for
| the remote management features.
| aesh2Xa1 wrote:
| I agree with your point about OP's statement regarding
| "where is not not needed Windows in any way, to the
| Remote Device Management baked into firmware as Apple
| does with its hardware" I also read that to mean that the
| firmware solution is self-contained and complete, even
| though that's pretty misaligned when you consider the
| meaning of a "remotely" managed device (remotely managed
| by what?).
|
| But it's still entirely factual in my own description.
| When a device checks in during initial setup, the
| firmware-level boot process can receive policies that
| block alternative OS installation, and that absolutely is
| a feature of the firmware.
|
| Anyway, I tried to interpret OP's meaning, and provided
| more detail on how Apple's firmware is special.
| surajrmal wrote:
| Do you think ssh is an equivalent to remote device
| management? Half the reason Chromebook does well is because
| it's really good at remote device management.
| cuu508 wrote:
| What are more budget friendly options for similar workloads
| (running web app test suite in parallel)?
|
| My test suite currently runs in ~6 seconds on 9700K. Would be
| nice to speed it up, but maybe not for $2000 :-) Last I checked
| 13700K or 13900K looked like the price/performance sweet spot,
| but perhaps there are better options?
| SomeoneOnTheWeb wrote:
| Minisforum 790S7/795S7, mini-ITX desktop.
|
| 16 cores, 32 threads, only a bit less powerful than a desktop
| Ryzen 7950X or a 14900K, but with a comparatively low power
| usage.
|
| About 500EUR barebones, then you add your own SSD and SO-DIMM
| RAM.
| nextos wrote:
| How is the cooling system on that Minisforum?
|
| Is it noisy? Does it keep up with the 7950X?
| yencabulator wrote:
| I bought https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-
| um890pro to compile Rust faster than my laptop, with 96 GB RAM
| and 2x4 TB NVMe as a ZFS mirror. Back before Framework Desktop
| existed.
|
| It has the 8945HS CPU, the article benchmarks against 8745H
| which is a little bit slower. It's a very worthy price point to
| consider, tiny and very quiet.
|
| qwen3:30b-a3b runs locally at 23.25 tokens/sec. I know 395+
| chip would about approximately double that, but I'm not quite
| willing to put $2000 into that upgrade.
| ohdeargodno wrote:
| >My test suite currently runs in ~6 seconds on 9700K
|
| Absolutely nothing. 6 seconds is about the time it will take
| you to tab to your terminal, press up arrow, find your test
| task and run it. There's no amount of money that makes it go
| from 6 to 3, and no world in which there's any value to it.
|
| In addition, upgrading to a 13900K means you're playing the
| Intel Dance: sockets have (again) changed, in an (again)
| incompatible manner. So you're looking at, at the very least, a
| new CPU, a new motherboard, potentially a new cooler, and if
| you're going too forward with CPUs, new RAM since Intel's Z890
| is not DDR4 compatible (and the Z390 was not DDR5 compatible).
| Or buying an entire new PC.
|
| Since you're behind a socket wall, the reasonable option for an
| upgrade would rather be a sizeable one, and most likely
| abandoning Intel to its stupid decisions for a while and
| instead going for Zen 5 CPUs, which are going to be socket
| compatible for a good 7 years at least.
| christophilus wrote:
| It's really nice to save and have your tests automatically
| run and go green (or red) nearly instantly. There is value to
| that. Performance matters.
| ohdeargodno wrote:
| That's called not rerunning all the tests in your project
| and having test harnesses that know of module boundaries.
|
| In addition, considering "saving" is something that happens
| on pretty much any non-code interaction, it means your
| tests are broken half the time when you're working. That's
| useless noise.
| cuu508 wrote:
| 6 seconds is the time it takes for the tests to run, after
| I've switched to the terminal and ran the command. If I
| switch from 8 cores to, say, 16 faster cores, IMHO it is not
| unthinkable the tests could speed up to 3 seconds. How much
| money to invest for this speedup is a subjective question.
|
| I'm thinking about a new system, not upgrading the existing
| one.
| zyx321 wrote:
| There's been some theories floating around that the 128gb version
| could be the best value for on-premise LLM inference. The RAM is
| split between CPU and GPU at a user-configurable ratio.
|
| So this might be the holy grail of "good enough GPU" and "over
| 100GB of VRAM" if the rest of the system can keep up.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > The RAM is split between CPU and GPU at a user-configurable
| ratio.
|
| I believe the fixed split thing is a historical remnant. These
| days, the OS can allocate memory for the GPU to use on the fly.
| zyx321 wrote:
| It's not a fixed split. I don't know if it's possible live,
| or if it requires a reboot, but it's not hardwired.
|
| I want to know if it's possible. 4GB for Linux, a bit of room
| for the calculations, and then you can load a 122GB model
| entirely into VRAM.
|
| How would that perform in real life? Someone please benchmark
| it!
| yencabulator wrote:
| You're still thinking of the old school thing, where you
| set the split in the firmware and it's fixed for that boot.
| There's dynamic allocation on top of it these days.
|
| I have that split set at the minimum 2 GB _and_ I 'm giving
| the GPU a 20 GB model to process.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| You know it would be a great use for this chip besides AI
| generative slop? A desktop server with AI-enhanced firewall and a
| silent home server. This could be effective for zero-days and
| other weird traffic patterns and maybe even add enterprise-ish
| email server with spam detection.
|
| There has been several projects started that are experimenting
| with this including Suricata and pfSense. I wonder how well this
| chip could handle packet inspection.
| alt227 wrote:
| If you call what AI generates 'slop' then what do you think the
| quality of firewall rules it generates will be?
|
| I dont think any enterprise is going to hand over the keys to
| its firewall any time soon.
| reactordev wrote:
| >The AMD 395+ uses unified memory, like Apple, so nearly all of
| it is addressable to be used by the GPU.
|
| This is why they went with the "laptop" cpu. While it's slightly
| slower than dedicated memory, it allows you to run the big
| models, at decent token speeds.
| nottorp wrote:
| unified and soldered :(
|
| I understand it's faster but still...
|
| Did they at least do an internal PSU if they went the Apple way
| or does it come with a power brick twice the size of the case?
|
| Edit: wait. They do have an internal PSU! Goodness!
| trostaft wrote:
| For anyone else curious, they actually have a deep dive on
| the subject. You can also replace it with another since it's
| just flexATX, albeit with some requirements.
|
| https://community.frame.work/t/framework-desktop-deep-
| dive-p...
| ivape wrote:
| LPDDR5, it looks like this is the only ram type that is going
| to work with Ryzen AI chips.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > it allows you to run the big models, at decent token speeds
|
| Without CUDA, being an AMD GPU. Big warning depending on the
| tools you want to use.
| reactordev wrote:
| There's solutions for that though.
|
| https://docs.scale-lang.com/stable/
|
| https://github.com/vosen/ZLUDA
|
| It's not perfect but it's a start towards unification. In the
| end though, we're at the same crossroads that graphics
| drivers were in 2013 with the sunsetting of OpenGL by Apple
| and the announcement of Vulkan by Khronos Group. CUDA has
| been around for a while and only recently has it gotten
| attention from the other chip makers. Thank goodness for open
| source and the collective minds that participate.
| dajonker wrote:
| I guess that depends on your definition of "decent". For the
| smaller models that can run on a 16/24/32 GB nvidia card, the
| chip is anywhere between 3x and 10x slower compared to say a
| 4080 super or a 3090 which are relatively cheap used.
|
| Biggest limitations are the memory bandwidth which limits token
| generation and the fact it's not a CUDA chip, meaning longer
| time until first token for theoretically similar hardware
| specifications.
|
| Any model bigger than what fits in 32 GB VRAM is - in my
| opinion - currently unusable on "consumer" hardware. Perhaps a
| tinybox with 144 GB of VRAM and close to 6 TB/s memory
| bandwidth will get you a nice experience for consumer grade
| hardware but it's quite the investment (and power draw)
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| I think it depends on the use case, slow isn't that bad if
| you're asking questions infrequently. I downloaded a model a
| few weeks ago that was roughly 80GBs in size and ran it on my
| 3090 just to see how it was... and it was okay. Fast? Nope.
| But it did it. If the answers were materially better I'd be
| happy to wait a minute for the output, but they weren't. I'd
| like to try one of the really large ones, just to see how
| slow it is, but need to clear some space to even download it.
| aomix wrote:
| I've been agonizing over getting the Framework Desktop for weeks
| as a dev machine/local LLM box/home server. It checks a lot of
| boxes but the only reason to look at the Framework Desktop over
| something like a Minisforum MS-A2 is for the LLM and that seems
| super janky right now. So I guess I'll wait a beat and see where
| we are later in the year.
| danieldk wrote:
| My main worry about all the Minisforum, Beelink, etc. PCs is:
| potential lack of UEFI firmware updates (does anyone have
| experience with how good they are with updates?) and potential
| backdoors in the UEFI firmware (either intentionally or
| unintentionally). A China-aligned/sponsored group has made an
| UEFI rootkit targetting ASUS/Gigabyte mainboards:
| https://www.spiceworks.com/it-security/vulnerability-managem...
| Why not require/compel certain companies to implement them
| directly?
| starkparker wrote:
| As a Framework 13 owner, their firmware update history isn't
| that great either.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Any more details you can share?
| NegativeK wrote:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/looking-at-
| framework... has a brief writeup.
|
| The summary is that Framework was understaffed and has
| brought in an established third party to help with
| firmware and driver updates.
| Shadowmist wrote:
| I bought 3 Minisforum machines for a Kubernetes cluster and
| they didn't make it 11 months. They weren't even powered on
| most of that time. They just completely freeze with a black
| screen, and randomly enough to where every time I think maybe
| I figured out a fix it just crashes again a day later.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| My Minisforum M780 XTX has been rock solid for 20 months
| now. Bought it as a remote development box since I needed
| more RAM than my MacBook Air and didn't feel like shelling
| out $3K for a 64GB MacBook Pro. Generally prefer the remote
| development experience since it means the laptop stays
| cool, just a pain not being able to work at a cafe now and
| then.
| oblio wrote:
| How quiet is the Minisforum?
| porphyra wrote:
| I'm not sure, but you could always just buy the Minisforum
| BD790i X3D [1]. Then, you'd be able to choose your own fan
| and case, and you can make it arbitrarily quiet by selecting
| a good fan. Early BD790i boards had a bug where losing power
| causes it to reset all BIOS settings, but they fixed that in
| later batches. I wonder when they will come out with a 9955HX
| version. Another good thing about this board is that it has
| two PCIe 5 NVME SSD slots with active cooling, which is a lot
| better than most other mini ITX boards out there, including
| the Framework.
|
| [1] https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-
| bd790i-x3d
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| probably doesn't make sense as a home server unless you need
| the massive compute. i have a couple lenovo mini pcs (m75q,
| various generations, AMD) that I paid a total of $500 for on
| ebay. they're so easy to find and handle most tasks swimmingly.
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| What kind of tasks do you use it for, if I may ask? Does it
| include local LLM/AI?
| einpoklum wrote:
| I don't really understand Why one should bother with the
| pluggable ports in something that's not a laptop. Even in 4.5L,
| shouldn't we just have "all the ports"?
|
| Also, this reminds me of "SkyReach Tiny":
|
| https://store.nfc-systems.com/products/skyreach-4-tiny
|
| an even smaller case, very versatile. No pluggable gimmicks
| though.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Only two on the front. So you get to decide what to put there.
| Also protects the port. Kind of a gimmick, but could be worse.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > The Framework Desktop with 64GB RAM + 2TB NVMe is $1,876. To
| get a Mac Studio with similar specs [...] you'll literally spend
| nearly twice as much [...] The Framework Desktop is simply a
| great deal.
|
| Wow, someone managed to beat Apple on price??
|
| I don't know that it logically follows that anything is a great
| deal when it undercuts Apple. Half sounds about right -- I
| thought Apple was a bit more competitive these days than x2
| actually, but apparently not, also considering that Framework
| comes with a (totally fair) niche-vendor premium
| wmf wrote:
| That's purely due to Apple's ridiculous SSD pricing. You can
| save a lot of money by using an external SSD.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Don't forget how Apple rips you off on RAM. Always.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| RAM isn't cheap but it's not awful, or as bad as it once
| was, especially in their laptops. One of the primary things
| that has kept me from buying a new Apple desktop or laptop
| is honestly SSD pricing.
|
| It's absolutely ridiculous given how cheap 1TB or 2TB
| drives are. And generally, in my experience, the ones Apple
| uses have had subpar performance compared to what's
| available for the PC market for less than half the price.
| Not to mention their base configuration machines usually
| have subtly crappier SSDs than a tier up.
|
| I haven't bought a new Mac since Apple released the
| M-series. I've wanted to multiple times, but the value just
| isn't there for me personally.
| alt227 wrote:
| Except they keep making it harder and harder to install your
| own drives into apple machines.
| stackskipton wrote:
| You don't install it but run over Thunderbolt which is
| plenty fast.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| It's not difficult at all.
|
| > How to Replace the SSD in your Mac mini (2024)
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Replace+the+SSD+in+your
| +...
| LoganDark wrote:
| Thunderbolt 5 is plenty fast for an external SSD. In fact
| you'd be hard-pressed to find an external SSD that even
| goes that fast
| masterj wrote:
| Apple charges an increased premium as you get further away from
| the base models. It's really hard to find a better deal that
| the M4 base models
| kingstnap wrote:
| Apple base models tend to be fairly competitive but they have
| some of the most extreme margins on RAM and SSDs in the
| industry.
|
| They charge $600 CAD to go from 16GB -> 32 GB.
|
| They charge $900 CAD for 512 GB -> 2 TB SSD.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > They charge $900 CAD for 512 GB -> 2 TB SSD.
|
| The SSD is user replaceable, so you can replace it with a
| cheaper third party option.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Unless I'm misunderstanding their store page, Framework
| charges $687 CAD ($500 USD) to go from 16GB - 32 GB RAM.
|
| They do only charge $214 CAD ($156 USD) to 512 GB - 2 TB SSD,
| thanks to it just being an NVMe stick.
| masterj wrote:
| > Unless I'm misunderstanding their store page, Framework
| charges $687 CAD ($500 USD) to go from 16GB - 32 GB RAM.
|
| That doesn't seem accurate for any of their computers?
| There is a pretty big leap from 32GB -> 64GB for the
| Desktop, but that is also a different processor.
| scosman wrote:
| He's comparing to a studio when he should compare to the mini
| for this performance. They are almost the same price at a 64gb
| RAM + 500gb storage config (CAD).
|
| - Framework, Max+ 64GB: $2,861.16
|
| - Apple Mini M4 Pro, 64GB: $2,899.00
|
| Apple does charge way too much for integrated storage, but
| Apple is only a 25% premium at 2TB not double (if you compare
| to the mini instead of the studio). Plug in a NVMe SSD if
| you're building an Apple desktop.
| dijit wrote:
| Not to defend Apple here, but it's also a bit apples to
| oranges (heh) because the power consumption is not easily
| comparable.
|
| I would hazard a guess and say: at that spec, if you're
| looking at 1Y TCO, the Apple could easily be cost competitive
| performance per dollar.
|
| Since they're in spitting distance of each other, just get
| the one you're most comfortable with. Personally I prefer
| Linux and I'm really happy that non-Apple machines are
| starting to get closer to the same efficiency and
| performance!
| ramesh31 wrote:
| You have to account for resale when it comes to TCO. Resale
| value for a non-Apple PC is essentially zero - i.e. no one
| will buy it, or you'll get pennies on the dollar if they
| do. Whereas there's a strong market for used Apple
| hardware, and you can easily recover 50% or more.
| lucb1e wrote:
| So you recover what you spent extra, per the article?
| Aurornis wrote:
| This is an exaggeration, or you're not comparing apples
| to apples.
|
| The used market for high performance PC gear is quite
| efficient. You're not going to get a high-end CPU or GPU
| from the past several years for pennies on the dollar.
|
| Likewise, the resale market for Apple products doesn't
| guarantee 50% or more unless you're only looking at
| resale value of very new hardware. For example, you can
| pick up an M1 Max MacBook Pro (not that old) for closer
| to 1/3 of the original price.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Do people actually buy used computers and sell them?
| Like, apart from graphics cards...
|
| Seems odd to me. Most computers I've ever had last for
| ~10 years, at which point resale value is definitely
| zero...
| lucb1e wrote:
| Similar with phones and tablets: yes, people do that, but
| it's not the common case. I've only ever sold computing
| devices within the first month of ownership, after
| realising I made a mistake in purchasing it (not a broken
| device, but just not meeting my needs), but on second-
| hand sites you can also see various people offering them
| up after 1 or 2 years because they want something shinier
| and the old system still has value. I've bought my
| current phone from someone like that, and many years ago
| also a laptop
| dijit wrote:
| yeah, I buy preowned laptops fairly often to be fair.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I would hazard a guess and say: at that spec, if you're
| looking at 1Y TCO, the Apple could easily be cost
| competitive performance per dollar.
|
| The two systems aren't that different in power consumption.
| The Strix Halo part has a 55W default TDP but I would
| assume Framework customized it to be higher. A comparable
| M4 Pro Mac Mini can easily pull 80W during an AI workload.
|
| Apple has a slight edge in power efficiency, but it's not
| going to make a massive difference.
| ajross wrote:
| > if you're looking at 1Y TCO, the Apple could easily be
| cost competitive performance per dollar.
|
| Only if you're buying artesinal single source electricity
| sustainably sourced from trained dolphins.
|
| Average US electrical power is $.18/kWh per google. Figure
| the desktop draws 300W continuous (which it almost
| certainly can't), and that's 0.3 kW * 24 hr/day * 365.2425
| days/yr == $473/year. So even if the mac was completely
| free you'd be looking at crossover in 5 years, or longer
| than the expected life of the device.
| lucb1e wrote:
| A device with no moving parts, only 5 years of expected
| life?!
|
| I understand if you say that high-performance users will
| want a newer system after 5 years, but I'd be very
| surprised if this 64GB RAM machine doesn't suffice for
| 98% of people, including those who want to play then-
| common games at default settings
|
| Good to have some concrete figures nonetheless of course,
| it's always useful as a starting point
| ajross wrote:
| First: it's not five years. It's five years if you posit
| that macs are magic and use no energy[1]. In practice
| they're 40-70% the consumption of a competing desktop
| (depends on usage and specific model, yada yada yada). So
| figure a few decades or thereabouts.
|
| But even so: I'm not sure I know a _single new-device
| Apple customer_ who has a _single unit_ older than five
| years. The comment about power implied that you 'd make
| up the big Mac price tag on power savings, and no, you
| won't, not nearly, before you hawk it on eBay to buy
| another.
|
| [1] And also that you posit that the device is in a
| compute farm or something and pumped at full load 24/7.
| Average consumption for real development hardware (that
| spends 60% of its life in suspend and 90% of the
| remainder in idle) is much, much, much closer to zero
| than it is to 300W!
| prmoustache wrote:
| Also judging from the state of 5 and 10y old mac
| computers on the second hand market, you quickly realize
| they aren't very reliable machines.
| arp242 wrote:
| Framework also charges quite a surplus on the SSD. For
| example "WD_BLACK SN7100 NVMe 2TB" is EUR229, but a more
| typical price is around ~EUR140, so that's about EUR90 extra.
| Don't know how that compares to Apple.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Framework absolutely does fleece you on the SSD, so don't
| buy SSDs from them if you're price-sensitive. But compared
| to Apple it's nowhere close: per Apple's website, upgrading
| a current Mac Mini or Mac Studio from 512 GB to 2 TB costs
| $600. You can buy a WD_BLACK SN850X 8TB for that much money
| (or a WD_BLACK SN8100 4TB and still have a quarter of it
| left over, if you really want PCIe 5.0, but there's no
| point at the moment).
| arp242 wrote:
| I checked and it's EUR750 extra to get a 2TB here in
| Ireland (just to compare apples with apples wrt.
| Framework Desktop). Wahahaha, this is the most ridiculous
| thing I've seen.
| bestham wrote:
| The point is that before the AMD Ryzen Al Max+ 395 chip there
| was only Apple that offered something comparable for the
| desktop / laptop that could do these AI relate tasks. Were else
| could you find a GPU with 64-128 memory?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Wow, someone managed to beat Apple on price??
|
| He didn't pick the equivalent Mac to compare to. The closest
| Mac would be a an M4 Pro Mac Mini, not a Mac Studio.
|
| Right now I see a 64GB M4 Pro Mac Mini with 2TB SSD is $2600.
| Still more expensive, but not double the price. The Apple
| refurbished store has the same model for $2200.
|
| The M4 Pro Mac Mini probably has the edge in performance,
| though I can't say how much. The Ryzen platform driver and
| software support is still early.
|
| I think these Strix Halo boxes are great, but I also think
| they're a little high in the hype cycle right now. Once supply
| and demand evens out I think they should be cheaper, though.
| motorest wrote:
| > The Apple refurbished store has the same model (...)
|
| You have to admit this reads as grade A cope.
|
| Is it that hard to acknowledge that Apple price gouges all
| their product line?
| zargon wrote:
| So DHH fell for Sam's scam. He tried OSS 20b and wasn't
| impressed, and apparently dismisses all local models based on
| that experience with a known awful model.
| arp242 wrote:
| I looked at the Framework Desktop a few week ago; mainly to get
| something that has nicer gaming performance than my laptop's
| iGPU. I'm not a big gamer really, but as of late I've been
| wanting to play some things, like The Witcher 3 (saw thread on
| Reddit celebrating its 10 year anniversary: "that's the new one I
| still need to play", so that's about how up to date I am with
| games - some of these "new" games are already classified as "good
| old game" on gog.com).
|
| My take-away was/is that the Framework Desktop is a very nice
| machine, but it is expensive IMHO. You can get better performance
| at a lower price by building your own machine; in this article
| the 9950X scores lower than the Max 395, and I'm not entirely
| sure that's accurate - that wasn't my take-away at all (don't
| have links at the ready). This is also what you'd expect when
| comparing a 55W laptop chip vs. a 170W desktop chip.
|
| That said, Linux compatibility is a bit of a pain, for example
| some MediaTek WiFi/Bluetooth chips that ASUS boards use don't
| have a Linux driver. In general figuring out what components to
| get is a bit time-consuming. In one of the videos Nirav mentioned
| that "just get the Framework Desktop" is so much easer, and 100%
| agree with that.
|
| In the end, I decided to get a USB4/Thunderbold eGPU, which gives
| me more than enough gaming performance for me and is much
| cheaper. I already have a laptop that's more than performant
| enough for my needs, which I got last year mainly due to some
| idiotic JS build process I had to deal with last year that took
| forever on my old laptop. On the new machine it's merely
| "ludicrously slow". Sometimes I think JS people are in cahoots
| with Intel and/or AMD...
|
| For LLM stuff the considerations might be different. I don't care
| about that so I didn't look into it.
| znpy wrote:
| > Linux is really efficient. Especially when you're using a
| window manager like Hyprland, as we do in Omarchy.
|
| Window managers are usually the last issue on modern Linux.
| Pretty much any native app is okay.
|
| Troubles really start (and start fast) when you open any browser
| and load any modern website. Had we more native applications (so
| not cloud stuff, and not javascript stuff with a bundled
| chromium) we'd all have a much better overall computing
| experience.
| babl-yc wrote:
| I was in the market for a Linux desktop machine and considered
| the Framework Desktop. I respect their mission, but ended up
| purchasing a Geekom mini PC instead.
|
| Given repair isn't practical with soldered DRAM and such, I
| prioritized small form factor, price, and quick delivery.
|
| The Framework Desktop was a much larger form factor, 3x the
| price, and delivery wasn't for months.
|
| That said, I still hope the company is successful so they have
| more competitive offerings in the future.
| focusgroup0 wrote:
| I loved my Framework. and yet, Linux is free if your time is free
| trelane wrote:
| Wonder how this compares to a Thelio's performance.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-08-10 23:01 UTC)