Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 554 posts

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

#531

Post by jcgl »

torginus wrote: post #420

Cool but this shows off the absolute pointlessness of the Framework concept - when you have RAM, CPU and GPU integrated, you essentially have something as modular as a modern Mac, which goes against any idea of modularity. This has been the future for more than a decade, evidenced by stuff like smartphones and games consoles, and as far as I know, Nvidia is also working on their SoC, and so does Intel (which I think…

How can you say that when a laptop (let’s agree to focus on the FW laptops for now) has so many other components beyond the SoC/mainboard?

Even ignoring the fact that the FW 13 and FW 16 have socketed/upgradable RAM, you’ve got the chassis, the screen, the wireless card, storage, the keyboard, and more.

If you had bought the FW 13 upon release (in 2021, I think), you have already had several opportunities to upgrade the guts of the computer while keeping everything else the same. If my CPU is no longer suitable for my needs, then why should I have to also replace my display? If it were a desktop computer, that’d obviously be preposterous. And FW has made products that make it preposterous for laptops too.

On the whole, I think you may be confusing the goals of repairability and upgradability with the notion of modularity. They’re not wholly unrelated of course, but they are different, and I think it’s clear that FW accomplishes those goals.

Signed, Someone who wishes they had a FW

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

#532

Post by jzb »

sounds wrote: post #166
jzb wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's far more interesting to me than the desktop thing. I have a 13" Framework now, but a 12" would be super-nice as a travel laptop -- and the tablet conversion might let me use it as a on-the-go ebook reader.

The desktop is fascinating if AMD can pull off Rocm this round. 128GB of unified memory for only $1,999, but you get an AMD GPU.

Well, different people are fascinated by different things. :) I hope both products are successful, they've been (so far) a force for good in the industry as far as I can tell.

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

#533

Post by rangestransform »

chipsa wrote: post #530
rangestransform wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK you would need 4 CAMM modules for that kind of bandwidth, good luck stuffing that onto a board at all, let alone for a reasonable price

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.

For dual channel 256-bit wide LPDDR5X, you would definitely need 4 CAMM modules

It’s also not that absurd pricing of the modules themselves but of the R&D effort to cram 4 CAMMs onto a board with sufficient signal integrity

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

#534

Post by TiredOfLife »

farawayea wrote: post #502
TiredOfLife wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which regular pc desktop under 2000 gets you 128gb of vram?

There's no such desktop PC which offers 128 GB of VRAM. The Framework Desktop doesn't do that for the time being. It's not yet available. There will be more options by the time this becomes available.

Is there even an announcement that something standard desktop with 128gb of vram with swappable ram sticks is even planned?

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

#535

Post by tomnipotent »

fragmede wrote: post #520
tomnipotent wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "having no RAM" have to do with it" The question is how much different is a motherboard with soldered CPU vs. CPU and memory soldered. You seem to be of the opinion that it's a completely different product category, I'm of the opinion they're more the same than different. I don't remember the last time I didn't upgrade all three components at once.

> Is one a lot? > Depends on the context. > Dollars, no. Murders, yes. The point is it's a pretty critical component, so "just one" is doing a lot to downplay how critical a component it is. If we get rid of that one component, you're nowhere. So calling it "just one component" belies how critical a component it is. > I don't remember the last time I didn't upgrade all three components at once. Thank you for explaini…

I would posit that they're a single component for most consumers and buyers, and that a small majority will upgrade any single one of these three components in the lifespan of their computer. A quick check of r/buildapc reinforces this to be the case, as most posts are either full-system builds or peripheral upgrades (GPU, SSD).

My guess is that Framework had a unique opportunity with the AMD Ryzen AI and decided to capitalize on it to serve a fast-and-growing home market for this class of hardware, and the soldered LPDDR was a compromise considering the requirements of the CPU. If I had to choose between them offering this product with that restriction, or "sticking to their core values" and waiting for an alternative solution then I'm going to learn to live with the restriction. If the traffic queue wasn't just marketing BS, I assume many other people are also willing to live with it.

I want Framework to be a long-term successful company and that means making good use of their cash, and this gives them a safer opportunity to test a new product category. Maybe the result of this decision is an expansion of the category to include more modular options, at which point everyone wins.

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

#536

Post by fragmede »

tomnipotent wrote: post #535
fragmede wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is one a lot? > Depends on the context. > Dollars, no. Murders, yes. The point is it's a pretty critical component, so "just one" is doing a lot to downplay how critical a component it is. If we get rid of that one component, you're nowhere. So calling it "just one component" belies how critical a component it is. > I don't remember the last time I didn't upgrade all three components at once. Thank you for explaini…

I would posit that they're a single component for most consumers and buyers, and that a small majority will upgrade any single one of these three components in the lifespan of their computer. A quick check of r/buildapc reinforces this to be the case, as most posts are either full-system builds or peripheral upgrades (GPU, SSD). My guess is that Framework had a unique opportunity with the AMD Ryzen AI and decided to…

For most consumers, existing manufacturers cover their use case. There's already a number of existing standards for modular desktop computers chassis. Framework is especially interesting to that small section of the market that isn't most consumers. Framework could pivot and sell vacuum thermos cups for all it really matters as a corporation that exists to make money for its investors. If they sell out, and modular laptops and reducing ewaste is no longer their goal, and it was all just a cash grab, that's fine too. I don't work there, it doesn't really make any difference to me, they can do whatever they want, but at the same time I feel let down.

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

#537

Post by rwky »

snapplebobapple wrote: post #494
rwky wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the concept of being able to upgrade the mainboard, the problem I have is that the support needs to come with it. I've had a framework 13" intel 13th gen since September 2023 and it's "mostly" ok. There's a weird battery charging issue where it discharged while plugged in which I raised shortly after getting it and it's still there I've been told to wait for a response. That one I can live with. But for the pa…

That stuff is mostly fixed on the AMD stuff (I've owned every model of framework 13 and the framework 16 now), which makes me cautiously optimistic for the future. I think you still have to approach them as an ideals company working hard to become an actual company, which is why I don't buy their stuff for work anymore but buy it all day long for personal use. For work I can get a lenovo with similar specs and often…

Well now I've given up, they've told me I need to buy a new mainboard because it's "out of warranty" which is crap since I've been complaining about it since I bought it.

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

#538

Post by chipsa »

rangestransform wrote: post #533
chipsa wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For dual channel 256-bit wide LPDDR5X, you would definitely need 4 CAMM modules It’s also not that absurd pricing of the modules themselves but of the R&D effort to cram 4 CAMMs onto a board with sufficient signal integrity

“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.

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

#540

Post by clayhacks »

sounds wrote: post #166
jzb wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's far more interesting to me than the desktop thing. I have a 13" Framework now, but a 12" would be super-nice as a travel laptop -- and the tablet conversion might let me use it as a on-the-go ebook reader.

The desktop is fascinating if AMD can pull off Rocm this round. 128GB of unified memory for only $1,999, but you get an AMD GPU.

I have the framework 16, and ROCm has been driving me nuts. The GPU in the 16 isn’t as meant for AI, but just shockingly bad
Post reply on HN