The pitch for the Framework laptop is that it is repairable/upgradable/modular. Something that is uncommon for laptops nowadays.
This is the opposite. Desktops are modular by default, so much is that my computer is like the Ship of Theseus, I never changed it, but upgrade to upgrade, it is a completely different machine than it once was (it started off as a 486!). This one is not.
The Framework desktop doesn't look bad, but now, I am confused about the meaning of the brand. It is as if Tesla made a diesel car.
I agree. I was an early adopter and have a Framework 13 11th gen intel (batch 4) and have been generally happy with it. Except the keyboard stopped working and I had to replace it, ~100 tiny screws later (and one stripped screw). And the battery drains fast (~24 hours) when suspended. And except that it won't turn on anymore without plugging into a particular USB-C port with a "dumb" USB cable (the basic 5V 900mA type) even with a full battery charge. And there hasn't been a BIOS update for this mainboard since Sep 2022.
I understand that a new company with a new product is going to have issues. But I would have strongly preferred they spent the time and effort (and money) fixing or replacing these 1st gen mainboards rather than branching out into a very non-Framework area like desktop gaming PCs.
In case it helps someone: my Framework had rapid battery drain in suspend. Around 10% per hour.
Turns out the Samsung EVO NVMe I installed had really high power draw (I guess it's meant for performance desktops?). I replaced it with a WD Blue and now I lose negligible power while suspended.
Curious if you're running Linux, I recall seeing a discussion about there being a bug with that on Framework that causes it to not suspend properly and burn energy.
I had that issue on my batch 5 11th gen. There's an issue with the rechargeable CMOS battery they included (that isn't present on the later 12th and 13th gen) that when it stops taking a charge your laptop stops turning on unless you do some arcane process to reset it.
They provide a "repair" kit that's basically a dummy CMOS battery that hooks in to the normal power system that prevents the issue from occurring again.
Also just FYI, there was a BIOS update in June of last year (3.20).
>There's an issue with the rechargeable CMOS battery
I am aware of the issue as described in [1] and the fix in [2]. However, my support request has gone unanswered for a year, as was my second support request. In addition, I have doubts as to whether this fix (which requires soldering!) will work.
I was not aware of an updated BIOS [3], foolishly believing the output of 'fwupdmgr' after following the instructions in [4]. It looks like I'll need to find a USB stick and update via EFI shell. Thanks for the tip!
But still, I think they should do more for early customers before expanding out well beyond their core market!
Thanks. I submitted another support request, and this time got a form email back. I will quote it here in full. Let me say that I am deeply unimpressed. They require that I disassemble the laptop to take a photograph of the mainboard, and send it to them (somehow, they do not say) and then perform major surgery on the mainboard that THEY designed poorly. What's more, they say that YOU have all liability for the repair and its consequences. How is this acceptable? What happened to a manufacturer sending an RMA and a box and repairing the mistake that they made? Is THIS what we sign up for when we support "repairable" computers, that we should expect to have to solder our own motherboards when they are poorly designed? And that they require a photograph of the mainboard (which requires disassembly) is icing on the cake.
I truly regret my purchase of a Framework laptop. Truth be told, I've never, ever had to repair a laptop more than this one, and I'd prefer a product that I didn't have to repair at all (and if there is a defect in manufacture or design, that the manufacturer take all necessary steps to remedy that error). If I was attracted to their products, including their desktop offering, I would think twice before spending money with them. I really really wish I'd put the money toward a new M-series macbook.
Heck their reminder to keep the BIOS updated makes no mention of the fact that their instructions for Linux are bogus, as their UEFI blobs are not available to fwupdmgr. What's more, to get to 3.20 you have to first upgrade to 3.17, all through EFI boot. It's a really rotten experience.
==============
PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE FULLY!
This is an automated message sent to all customers that have either been identified as having a power-related issue with an 11th Gen Intel Core Mainboard or have specifically requested either a replacement RTC Battery or the solderable RTC Battery Substitute.
If you’ve needed to perform the Mainboard Reset procedure more than once on your 11th Gen system or the laptop will not power on even after performing the reset, your RTC/CMOS battery may no longer be holding a charge. There are a couple options available that the Framework Support team can provide to resolve the issue:
1. Framework Support can provide a replacement RTC/CMOS battery to you, free of charge, regardless of the status of your warranty. Simply request this option and provide your Framework Order Number along with a clear image/photo of the serial number of your Mainboard. If you do not have access to the Order Number, please provide the email used to complete the purchase on the Framework website. To access the Mainboard serial number, please follow the steps in the guide HERE and find the serial label between the memory slots. Also, please verify your shipping information/address (only in supported countries/regions) to avoid unnecessary back and forth communications. For information on acceptable shipping addresses, please see the following article HERE . If you receive a replacement RTC/CMOS battery it is important to make sure to let it fully recharge by keeping your laptop plugged into power for at least 24 hours. We also recommend keeping your laptop plugged into power during long periods of non-use to avoid letting the RTC/CMOS battery fully discharge. Note that even a normal 5V/900mA USB-C power adapter will sufficiently trickle charge the system and RTC/CMOS battery.
2. Framework Support now has an alternative option for those with the technical skills to solder electrical components. This alternative RTC/CMOS Battery Substitution is a single solder point component which replaces the coin cell battery with a circuit that keeps the RTC subsystem powered from the main battery. You can find the step by step instructions for installing this module in this guide. PLEASE NOTE: You should NOT request this option if you or the person designated for this rework do not have sufficient electronics soldering experience. While it is only a single solder point, failing to solder this correctly can result in damage to the system that is not covered under Framework’s Limited Warranty. If you accept the associated liability, please request this option and provide a clear image/photo of the serial number of your mainboard and your Framework Order Number. If you do not have access to the Order Number, please provide the email used to complete the purchase on the Framework website. To access the Mainboard serial number, please follow the steps in the guide HERE and find the serial label between the memory slots. Also, please verify your shipping information/address (only in supported countries/regions) to avoid unnecessary back and forth communications. For information on acceptable shipping addresses, please see the following article HERE .
Finally, we also recommend keeping your system up to date with the latest firmware releases. Please see the following knowledge base article which has links to the latest BIOS/Firmware and Framework Driver Bundles for each generation of Framework Laptop.
If you have provided the required imagery and your order number, one of our staff will be with you to provide an update on your request. Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any frustration this issue may have caused.
Regards,
Framework Support
I got the same email, and I agree they should've taken responsibility for their obvious design flaw and fixed it themselves free of charge.
Also I will again agree that my Batch 4 (or was it 5? I can't remember) FW13 is the most I've had to repair a laptop as well. I'm just gonna chalk that up to them technically being pre-full-production units and hope they have improved their QA in the later gens.
However I will also add that I like having the option to fix it myself (which is something I have some amount of skill/enjoyment in doing) which is certainly NOT an option you'd have with that M-series MacBook (or really any other brand of laptop)
I was also an early adopter (batch 2) I ended up buying a m2 macbook air to replace it because the thing overheated and down clocked to 200Mhz (yes megahertz, not gigahertz) constantly and it was unusable. It sits around unused, I can't even give it away to family because I don't want to hear complaints about it being unusable. I just don't trust framework to not have issues.
I know very few people that do anything other than upgrade their GPU or SSD during the entire lifespan of their computer. Maybe when I was younger I'd upgrade the RAM after saving up, but am fortunate enough now to be able to buy what I want up front.
This product is for me.
A few years ago I tried to repurpose a desktop with a bad motherboard, but it was impossible to find a replacement for the 7-year-old CPU. eBay prices were more than the original MSRP, and at that point it was cheaper to buy new parts for the oldest still-selling generation.
I'm already replacing everything except the SSD and GPU with every upgrade anyway, now it will just be the SSD but I can keep the case.
Something I've noticed over the years is that a lot of PC enthusiast discussion seems to be self-selecting for those most likely to chase the latest hardware, which affects how they think and talk about future proofing or upgrade ability. The challenge with x86 PC is that because the platform is so flexible it casts the widest net over huge amounts of use cases and circumstances. The example that comes to mind is criticism over intel vs AMD chipsets/sockets with longer compatibility, but it comes down to what your demands are plus where you buy in the cycle of other components (DDR4 vs DDR5) and needed support. There are trade-offs everywhere.
Definitely. My last self built desktop ($8k total in 2012-ish) lasted a decade under heavy use like M/ECAD and compiling stuff, with only a midlife upgrade from SSD to NVME. When you buy top of the line cutting edge parts that are binned for overclocking, they remain competitive for a very long time, especially now that we’ve hit diminishing returns. Now all you need to make sure is that it’s got enough PCIe lanes if going to a performance build. I only retired the desktop because of how much power it burns and our electricity rates going up here in SoCal.
That 64gb OCed 3200 (maybe 3500) mHz DDR3 RAM for example, kept up with DDR4 speeds for most of that decade when I benchmarked every few years. Intel extreme processor, workstation motherboard, and GTX Titans also kept chugging along. I’ve been looking at some of the higher end DDR5 coming down the pipeline and those are also likely to be on the higher end of performance for a decade while the consumer parts catch up. The only problem is that the workstation motherboard market seems to have disappeared.
SFFs and laptops share many parts, and of course the new mini desktop has 2 of the framework compatible bays for your choice of usb/network/audio that should work today and be able to be upgraded later.
I don't do much computing on the move, that my phone can't handle. But a desktop (that generally lasts twice as long as a laptop and costs half as much) is pretty interesting to me.
Also keep in mind that framework sold a small chassis compatible with their laptop boards, so if you upgrade your laptop main board you could rehost the old one in a small desktop chassis.
Seems like a natural expansion for framework and might well get them more customers and more sales per customer.
I agree. There's a lot of options for very small PC cases that will fit a dedicated GPU and regular itx components (I'm running a midori 5L system, it's great, don't ignore the instruction to use loctite on the bolts you will have pain) - I don't think the desktop market needs this the same way the laptop market needed the earlier framework devices.
> I never changed it, but upgrade to upgrade, it is a completely different machine than it once was (it started off as a 486!)
Nit: You can believe that story, but there's zero chance that at some point you didn't upgrade the case, motherboard, CPU and RAM possibly at the same time. If you replace 90% of what makes a computer, does it make sense to say you "never changed" it? At what point do you consider it "changed"?
This Framework desktop also lets you swap motherboard, CPU and RAM in one go, why does it not fit your definition?
The difference is that The Ship of Theseus had all its parts replaced one by one, in a long period of time. If you replace 90% of the ship at the same time (RAM, CPU and Motherboard), then the analogy breaks down.
I didn't say it's not understandable, just that it breaks down - i.e. doesn't apply anymore.
The point of an analogy is to point out how our intuition tells us it's the same boat, despite having no parts in common with the initial boat.
As other comment mentioned, if you keep the sails and rebuild a new boat around it, no person in their right mind would feel that it's the same boat. It's very clearly a new boat, and the analogy breaks down.
The soldered RAM is surprising for Framework, and doubly surprising for being so in a form-factor that usually doesn't have soldered RAM.
Similar to what other commenters have expressed, it just seems like they shouldn't have built this product if they couldn't figure out the soldered RAM bit.
The statement above is that one would expect Framework to have chosen a platform which does not require soldered RAM, not that Framework kept such an option by choosing this AMD part.
All that aside, I absolutely can't wait for desktops to decide to go the same route of having 4 memory channels instead of 2. Right now the only way to have >2 channels is to buy workstation/server class stuff or an APU.
Sadly there's no alternative if you want 256 bits wide at the moment. Well a previous generation threadripper with a huge increase in power consumption and requiring a discrete GPU.
BTW, careful with "channels". Todays normal desktops and laptops (besides the strix halo and apple pro/max/ultra) are 128 bits wide. But in the DDR4 -> DDR5 transition they doubled the number of channels to 4. However the strix halo biggest advantage is the extra memory bandwidth going from 128 bits wide to 256 bits wide.
Finally the technology of the ps5 and XboxX comes to laptops, tablets, and small desktops.
From their LTT video, it looked like they chose to do Desktop because of the AMD platform (and not the either way around, where they planned a desktop product and then chose AMD strix halo). Apparently setting up the manufacturing pipeline for laptops built on strix halo is expensive as of now and there are only two laptops in the whole market using it. So Frame.work choose to go the desktop route to save on cost while still making the platform available for everyone.
The architecture was their choice. It's completely possible to build a PC with that form factor which does not have soldered RAM, so it's strange that they went with it. Their brand with laptops is supposed to be 'more repairable' but they've chosen to make a desktop PC that's less repairable than their laptops are? It doesn't make any sense with the rest of their lineup. The person who would want this product is the opposite of the person who would want their other products.
That market, "repairable modular desktops", is extremely saturated. This only exists because nobody was putting the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 in anything, so they got gifted the entire market of "GPUs with more than 32gb of RAM that aren't Apple." And then a desktop because fitting this in a laptop is hard (hence why nobody else is doing it, either)
> This only exists because nobody was putting the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 in anything... And then a desktop because fitting this in a laptop is hard (hence why nobody else is doing it, either)
The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 was paper launched a month ago. What Framework announced here is just another pre-order (even batch 1 won't ship until Q3). There are dozens of other systems, including mini-PCs, announced months ago which are set to launch before this. Small laptops were actually the first 395+ products to launch, hence this month's benchmark reviews all used them. E.g. https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/laptops/gaming-laptops/a...
I would not be surprised if one will be able to get a full 128 GB 395+ mini PC for less than the cost of the Framework Desktop baseboard before the Framework Desktop actually starts arriving in hands. What you're buying here is a premium to be able to replace the shell and front USB ports.
Where can I find those mini-PCs? The HP Z2 Mini G1a is "Coming Soon". If this is to be believed:
"2025年5月以降販売開始予定", which translate to "Sales scheduled to start after May 2025"
That is Q2 2025 - at the earliest.
I haven't found any other with a committed release/ship date.
Even the Asus Z13 laptops with the 395+ have no shipping date yet.
Looking at the two GMKtec systems with their rattling fans I have here, I would rather take the Framework system where I can easily swap the fan. Cooling those 100-120W will take space and air flow.
They were announced months ago, not shipping months ago. Framework announce Q1 and is shipping Q3. Again, keep in mind the CPU itself only launched last month. This is the real reason the 395 had not been put in anything yet.
Plenty of folks on Reddit have already received shipment (not order) confirmation of the Z13. It looks like even more as of this morning. I doubt if any have actually fully received said shipments yet as it has only been a couple days since launch. It'll likely remain pretty out of stock unless you managed to get an order immediately at launch, again due to the paper launch of the 395 last month and low 395 availability until Q2.
I didn't know HP was making one too! That'll be exciting as it's easier to order that at my work than e.g. an ASUS one or what have you.
I don't know anything about RAMs or their bus size. Is this something that will be "fixed" in the future, idk, with DDR6? Meaning we can have replacable RAM with such bus.
Problem is there is no socket available for thin/light/low power CPUs to have a 256 bit wide bus.
So to ensure 256 bits @ 8000 MHz works well AMD did it in the same package. In theory they could A) ship a halo without ram B) design a new socket, C) allow motherboard makers to pick 2 x CUDIMMs or 4x DDR5 dimms. Not sure that would buy them much market though.
As apple and others have proved, not many care about replaceable dimms, especially if it gives them 2-3x the performance and/or better perf/watt.
Apparently not. In Linus Tech Tips latest video, the Framework CEO says they talked to AMD about it and that one of their engineers ran some simulations and found the stability would degrade too far for it to be possible.
Honestly... I wonder why they didn't consider CAMM2? The bandwidth and signal integrity rivals that of soldiered memory. They could have had the best of both worlds, really.
A single LPCAMM2 module is supposed to be all the RAM for a laptop, so it’s 128 bit wide. You’d need two LPCAMM for this, not four. And they are currently available in 32G and 64G varieties ($180/$330). So they aren’t absurdly priced, if they were in stock.
“Dual channel” is not a thing with CAMM. CAMM is 128 bits wide. To feed a 256bit wide memory controller, you need 2 CAMM modules. LPCAMM2 uses 4 memory packages. The observed number of packages next to the APU on this is 8. So you need 2 modules.
It's not exactly an out of the park win though as it's only $100-$200 cheaper and it trends poorly the farther from comparing base models you go (particularly after 64 GB, for which you need to leave the Mini family for the Studio). By the time you get to 128 GB, which you'd want for the 70B class AI models, you end up back at the original statement.
Huh. Ate my words then. I briefly checked Apple's page and didn't see them.
However those are the base M4 chip and not the M4 Pro. You need the M4 Pro to get competitive in GPU compute numbers for a more like to like comparison. The M4 Pro mini comes out at $1800 with the 48GB option, or $2000 for 64GB. For the same price the Framework machine gets you 128GB.
I think you're probably right comparing to the M4 Pro would make more sense but keep in mind you don't really need much compute, it's just that the M4 Pro has memory bandwidth more similar to the AI Max 395+ while the "normal" M4 doesn't.
Every large AI model is heavy memory bandwidth constrained to the point my 9800X3D (with the extra L3 cache) and 128 GB/s memory attached is only 60% utilized running a 32 GB model in CPU only mode (no NPU, iGPU, or GPU offload enabled). Really small AI models can start to be compute bound but, at that point, you don't really need the 32 GB of memory anymore and probably just want a normal GPU.
I saw that, and I'm curious if that's a death-knell for LPCAMM ram. My understanding was that the entire point of that new standard was to allow for the higher ram speeds and lower latencies etc that you would normally get with soldered ram, but in a modular, swappable package.
If LPCAMM already can't keep up with requirements when it is barely even out, then my guess is it won't fare well going forward.
So 1 of 2 things is probably true:
AMD is not being completely truthful with their statements that LPCAMM wasn't able to work (maybe it was just more difficult/complicated than they were willing to do, but it could work or
latency/speed requirements have already outpaced what LPCAMM can provide and soldered ram is the future.
I really hope it's the former, but it wouldn't be the first time something like the second has occurred. Apparently cache also used to be a separate, swappable component before it became integrated into the die. RAM might end up going the same way.
The non-MAX Ryzen laptops also announced today actually use socketed RAM.
I guess they'd claim it is only the MAX AMD procs which force soldered RAM, but since they could as well have used a non-MAX chip (and correspondingly reduce the price) this just shows how much of this is an arbitrary, and therefore questionable, decision from Framework rather than any restriction AMD sets.
Yes, those are the ones with a 128 bit memory bus that can reuse designs from previous generations. Nearly every laptop and desktop has has 128 bit memory for the last few decades, the strix halo is the first with 256 bit wide x86 targeted at tablets, laptops, and SFFs. Much like the m1/m2/m4 pro. The M3 pro for some reason decided on 192 bits wide.
I don’t think I’ve upgraded a desktop machine for about 10 years. I usually buy a 1-3 year old corporate desktop and use it for 2-4 years, buy another one and throw the old one on eBay.
They seem to be partnering with AMD and AMD has this new nice chip, they couldn't get it into a laptop, so they made a quick desktop.
It seems more like a way to launch a mini-desktop. They can later offer alternative mainboards that fit in that desktop (or anyother).
Yes, its a strange first product, but I think its mostly because they wanted to be early with releasing this AMD chip. Seems to me AMD was looking for partners to push this chip out for 'AI'.
I think it's an offering for companies that would like to get onboard with Framework but would prefer to only have one contract / contact for their laptops and desktops.
The pitch for the Framework laptop is that it is repairable/upgradable/modular. Something that is uncommon for laptops nowadays.
This is the opposite. Desktops are modular by default, so much is that my computer is like the Ship of Theseus, I never changed it, but upgrade to upgrade, it is a completely different machine than it once was (it started off as a 486!). This one is not.
The Framework desktop doesn't look bad, but now, I am confused about the meaning of the brand. It is as if Tesla made a diesel car.