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.
The Framework Desktop is a beast
171–180 of 464 posts
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#172RDNA 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.
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.
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?
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#173Amazing 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.
> 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?
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#174Is 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.
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#175How 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?
Oh wow, it does indeed have "AI" in its name twice. Cant't wait for this shit to blow over.
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 sen…
> 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 teen…
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.
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#177What 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?
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#178How 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?
Oh wow, it does indeed have "AI" in its name twice . Cant't wait for this shit to blow over.
AI Mini and AI Max. It has everything.
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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…
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.
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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?"
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.