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The Framework Desktop is a beast

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Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#271

Post by masterj »

lucb1e wrote: post #242

> 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 day…

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

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#272

Post by cmrdporcupine »

lucianbr wrote: post #235
makeitdouble wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 ja…

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.

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#273

Post by throw-qqqqq »

kbolino wrote: post #256
topspin wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

> The only essential part of sockets vs solder is the metal-metal contacts

And at GHz speeds that matters more than you may think.

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#274

Post by alt227 »

wmf wrote: post #244
lucb1e wrote: post #242

> 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 day…

That's purely due to Apple's ridiculous SSD pricing. You can save a lot of money by using an external SSD.

Except they keep making it harder and harder to install your own drives into apple machines.

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#275

Post by wtallis »

aesh2Xa1 wrote: post #266
vaylian wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 Redfis…

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.

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#276

Post by zargon »

jychang wrote: post #141
cdavid wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (si…

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).

It’s both. If you’re using any real amount of context, you need compute too.

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#277

Post by stackskipton »

alt227 wrote: post #274
wmf wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's purely due to Apple's ridiculous SSD pricing. You can save a lot of money by using an external SSD.

Except they keep making it harder and harder to install your own drives into apple machines.

You don’t install it but run over Thunderbolt which is plenty fast.

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#278

Post by kingstnap »

lucb1e wrote: post #242

> 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 day…

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.

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#279

Post by amaranth »

G3rn0ti wrote: post #146
Jtsummers wrote: post #2

> 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…

> 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 ye…

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.

Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast

#280

Post by tgma »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #210
tgma wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 en…

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.

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