Wonder how this compares to a Thelio's performance.
The Framework Desktop is a beast
361–370 of 464 posts
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#362Earlier 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…
My post is the nuance, and as a buyer/user of GPD, Minisforum, and Xiaomi products I respectfully disagree. Chinese companies are not on par with Western ones. The QA, safety measures, hazard compliance, warranty, or even proper English (they use an online translator service) isn't there. Cha bu duo is an accurate description of Chinese products. From the link you send they offer 7 days return policy. In EU you got 2…
> proper English (they use an online translator service)
Pet peeve: why should I care ?
People take grammatical errors as some ultimate gotcha and indicator of character flaw. I don't pay for the marketing nor value that they asked 3 translators to double-check each other to have flawless text for the damn first boot guide of a computer.
I see it the same as Framework's shaky YouTube presentations: they couldn't bother hiring a cameraman for their product presentations. What does that say about their computers ? To me absolutely nothing. I'll still buy one if it sounds nice enough.
> 7 days return policy.
It's from delivery.
For comparison, framework offers 30 days, but from shipping. Which means if your laptop takes more than a month to get delivered for whatever reason you virtually have no return window.
https://knowledgebase.frame.work/what-is-the-framework-retur...
> Cha bu duo
I hear you, but this is all relative to a market. There's no maker I can blindly trust whatever the country they operate in, and if we're going for cultural generalizations I'd set Tesla as the poster child of US manufacturers at this moment.
All in all, I get why we should be wary about Chinese makers. It's just the same reason we should be wary of every other makers, including those who'll screw their customer base on any other aspect that won't get picked up by a review (repairability has been one of these. Compatibility, durability, vendor lockin, standard parts etc. are other aspects.
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait is there any actual difference in the RAM between the HP and the Framework Desktop?
No I dont think so, all ddr5 has some "ECC" but not full ECC, ie you cant see corrections. And all the AI maxes have the same LPDDR5
Many mobile devices have on-chip ECC because they have to for signal integrity reasons... technically the Raspberry Pi 5 has ECC too, by that definition!
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#364There's been some theories floating around that the 128gb version could be the best value for on-premise LLM inference. The RAM is split between CPU and GPU at a user-configurable ratio. So this might be the holy grail of "good enough GPU" and "over 100GB of VRAM" if the rest of the system can keep up.
> The RAM is split between CPU and GPU at a user-configurable ratio. I believe the fixed split thing is a historical remnant. These days, the OS can allocate memory for the GPU to use on the fly.
Indeed it can be reallocated, needs a reboot though. I've gotten up to around 110 GB before running into OOM issues. I set it at 108 GB to provide a little headroom: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/increasing-vram-alloc...
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#365I was baffled by the comparison to the M4 Max. Does this mean that recent AMD chips will be performing at the same level, and what does that mean for on-device LLMs? .. or am I misunderstanding this whole ordeal?
macs have faster memory access so No, Macs are faster for llms
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
They "why" hasn't been answered. I understand the previous statements very clearly. It makes intuitive sense to me, but I want to know more. Like physics PhD-level more.
I believe the reason is, at the frequencies these CPUs are talking to RAM, the reflection coefficient[1] starts playing a big role. This means any change in impedance in the wire cause reflections of the signal. This is also the reasoning why you can't just have a dumb female to female HDMI coupling and expect video to work. All of such devices are active and read the stream on the input and relay them on the output.…
See also RF insertion loss and how that's dealt with, PCIe retimers, etc.
Above certain frequencies, you start running into major issues with signal integrity, and fixing them is very difficult without any extra circuitry.
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
A device with no moving parts, only 5 years of expected life?! I understand if you say that high-performance users will want a newer system after 5 years, but I'd be very surprised if this 64GB RAM machine doesn't suffice for 98% of people, including those who want to play then-common games at default settings Good to have some concrete figures nonetheless of course, it's always useful as a starting point
First: it's not five years. It's five years if you posit that macs are magic and use no energy[1]. In practice they're 40-70% the consumption of a competing desktop (depends on usage and specific model, yada yada yada). So figure a few decades or thereabouts. But even so: I'm not sure I know a single new-device Apple customer who has a single unit older than five years. The comment about power implied that you'd make…
> First: it's not five years. It's five years if you posit that macs are magic and use no energy[1].
Huh? I'm not "positing" anything, I'm responding to the longevity you stated:
> you'd be looking at crossover in 5 years, or longer than the expected life of the device.
As for Apple users not having devices older than five years... ehm, yeah: the brand targets an audience that really likes shiny new toys (either because they're lured into thinking they need it, or because it's a status symbol for them). Not sure how that's relevant here though
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to defend Apple here, but it's also a bit apples to oranges (heh) because the power consumption is not easily comparable. I would hazard a guess and say: at that spec, if you're looking at 1Y TCO, the Apple could easily be cost competitive performance per dollar. Since they're in spitting distance of each other, just get the one you're most comfortable with. Personally I prefer Linux and I'm really happy that non…
> if you're looking at 1Y TCO, the Apple could easily be cost competitive performance per dollar. Only if you're buying artesinal single source electricity sustainably sourced from trained dolphins. Average US electrical power is $.18/kWh per google. Figure the desktop draws 300W continuous (which it almost certainly can't), and that's 0.3 kW * 24 hr/day * 365.2425 days/yr == $473/year. So even if the mac was complet…
Some VHCOL areas are more than 2x or even near 3x that electric rate
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#369Amazing 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.
Sadly not. It appears to be too high wattage for laptops, almost no availability there.
The full on high power one is the MI300A which is indeed superb.
Re: The Framework Desktop is a beast
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to account for resale when it comes to TCO. Resale value for a non-Apple PC is essentially zero - i.e. no one will buy it, or you'll get pennies on the dollar if they do. Whereas there's a strong market for used Apple hardware, and you can easily recover 50% or more.
Do people actually buy used computers and sell them? Like, apart from graphics cards... Seems odd to me. Most computers I've ever had last for ~10 years, at which point resale value is definitely zero...
I don't sell them but I buy exclusively used computers. All of them coming from the refurbishing market of business computers.
From a purely financial perspective buying a computer or vehicle brand new is a very bad idea.