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Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

arstechnica.com

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Re: Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

#81

Post by coldpie »

ortusdux wrote: post #69
coldpie wrote: post #22

Two other Framework announcements: New 12-inch laptop form factor with 360 degree hinge (ie "tablet mode") and a touchscreen. No price announced, but it is aimed at students: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/frameworks-laptop-12... New mainboard upgrade options for Framework 13 models: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/framework-gives-its-...

I wonder if the 12-inch form factor could be modified to support a 360 deg hinge? I enjoyed the Lenovo Yoga's tablet configuration.

Sorry, my mistake, as others have noted. I corrected my post.

Re: Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

#82

Post by rglullis »

josephg wrote: post #60
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #16

Up to 128 GB RAM available for running AI models. Theoretically awesome, but this might have some interesting market consequences for everyone else.

You’ve gotta deal with amd’s AI software stack though. How is that these days? I assume cuda is still king?

I've been running ollama on an XTX7900 (AMD GPU with 24GB of RAM) with any model that fits in it, and absolutely no issues there.

Re: Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

#83

Post by jsheard »

mywittyname wrote: post #76

Why this over a traditional ATX work station? The article even points out the motherboard will fit in an ATX case, so size doesn't seem to be the major selling point. For gaming specifically, so many micro ATX motherboards offer Gen 5 PCIe, which can handle a proper video card, double the RAM, and the smaller cases are only slightly larger than this Framework.

The main selling point is the unified memory, the GPU isn't as fast as a discrete GPU but it can address quadruple the RAM of the biggest consumer dGPU. It'll be good for inference if the software stack works.

Re: Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

#84

Post by toast0 »

samtheprogram wrote: post #68

Wait, so I’d have to use ROCm for compute? That sucks. I’ve had better luck with Intel’s drivers for their first series of dGPU’s. If this works with tinygrad’s AMD driver, that would then interest me.

The i740 did have some nice drivers....

Re: Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

#86

Post by ge96 »

pcdoodle wrote: post #71
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet another 1080p garbage screen. Please! I had tablets with higher DPI 10 years ago!

1920x1200 / 16:10. It's perfect for a 12" IMO.

yeah that's tough to get right even on a 14" 1440P is almost too much (problem is scaling, particularly with external monitor and your laptop, depends on OS)

I also have a 13.5" 3000x2000 laptop and it uses 200% scaling, fractional is blurry. Initially I was trying to use Ubuntu but the extend monitor scaling was so bad (Chromium, VS Code), just decided to stick with Windows for this device.

Re: Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

#87

Post by pitaj »

i80and wrote: post #29
sunshowers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no other way to get 256 GB/s of memory bandwidth for this cheap, and that's quite valuable in many workloads. I'm curious to get one for compiling code too. You can get similar bandwidth with server boards that cost 5-10x as much, or with a Mac Studio that costs 2.5x as much.

Note that this is what CAMM[1] memory is intended to solve, although it remains to be seen to what extent it catches on. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAMM_(memory_module)

According to Framework, CAMM / LPCAMM is simply not compatible with this line of AMD chips, do to signal integrity reasons.

Re: Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

#89

Post by delfinom »

coldpie wrote: post #34
shaw00000 wrote: post #31

I was really hoping for an ARM laptop. Hopefully they'll develop one soon.

You can get, uhhhh, RISC-V. We have ARM at home? https://frame.work/products/deep-computing-risc-v-mainboard

RISCV is garbage for real use currently.

Arm laptops are plenty competitive with the x86 space with the snapdragons now.

Re: Framework's first desktop is a strange–but unique–mini ITX gaming PC

#90

Post by colingauvin »

kingsleyopara wrote: post #67
sunshowers wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but less RAM.

One thing to note on the more RAM: for the 128GB option, my understanding is that the GPU is limited to using only 96GB [1]. In contrast, on Macs, you can safely increase this to, for example, 116GB using `sysctl`. [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amds-beastly...

That's a Windows limitation. On Linux it's 110GB.
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