16 ms·

The Framework Desktop is a beast

498 points by lemonberry 1y ago

Jtsummers 1y ago
> 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 soldered on the RAM. Which makes it a very strange entry for a brand marketing itself as the DIY dream manufacturer. They threw away their user-repairable mantra when they made the Desktop, it's less user repairable than most other desktops you could go out and buy today.
- sethops1 1y ago
  The RAM is soldered on all Halo Strix platforms because physics is getting in the way. With pluggable DIMMs the memory bandwidth would be halved, at best.
  - wishinghand 1y ago
    Why is that? Why would soldering the connections vs plugging them in affect how much data per second they transfer?
    - tejtm 1y ago
      mind the gap
    - colejohnson66 1y ago
      Sockets have resistance and crosstalk, which affects signal integrity.
      - aeonik 1y ago
        Wait, your telling me, I should have been desoldering the sockets off my motherboard, and directly soldering my RAM to the leads this entire time?
        ElectricalUnion 1y ago
        Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM) tries to be a middle-term solution for that, by reducing how crappy your average RAM socket is to latency and signal integrity issues. But, at this point, I can see CAMM delivered memory being reduced to a sort of slower, "CXL.mem" device.
        aeonik 1y ago
        Seriously though, Would desoldering the sockets help? Why are the sockets bad?
        komali2 1y ago
        As stated previously, the sockets reduce signal integrity, which doesn't necessarily make them "bad," but is why Framework wasn't able to used socketed ram to maximize the potential of this CPU. This sort-of-interview of Nirav Patel (ceo of framework) explains in a bit more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lErGZZgUbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lErGZZgUbY Basically, they need to use LPDDR5X memory, which isn't available in socketed form, because of signal integrity reasons. Which means you won't see an improvement if you solder your ram directly, I think mostly because your home soldering job will suffer signal integrity issues, but also because your RAM isn't LPCAMM and isn't spread across a 256 bit bus.
        aeonik 1y ago
        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.
  - onli 1y ago
    He is still right. It is a desktop PC that is less repairable than all other desktop PCs, from a brand that is known to champion repairability. They had a reason for it, but could've chosen to not create more throwaway things.
    - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
      The 128GB version wouldn't be throwaway, since that's the maximum the platform as a whole supports anyway- more memory than that would require a new mainboard and CPU at the same time.
      - nemomarx 1y ago
        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.
        cyanydeez 1y ago
        it's basically the same as asking what happens when your M4 Apple has a fault. It's soldered based on the desire to use the ram as part of the GPU. Without that, it's really not a interesting solution. demanding replaceable ram means also not wanting the benefits of the integrated memory
        rs186 1y ago
        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?"
        nemomarx 1y ago
        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.
  - beeflet 1y ago
    Why not make a platform with a greater number of channels
    - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
      That's a question for AMD and TCMC. They only have so much space on the silica. More memory channels means less of something else. This is not a "framework platform" issue, it's the specification of that CPU.
      - beeflet 1y ago
        Well they chose to use this hardware platform. It all sounds like market segmentation to me, now that AMD is on top.
        wmf 1y ago
        To be clear, AMD is giving you 2x the bandwidth of competing chips and you're complaining that it isn't 4x.
        beeflet 1y ago
        My complaints are the maximum RAM of the system and the modularity of the RAM. With an increased number of channels, you could have a greater amount of RAM at a lower frequency but at the same bandwidth. So you would at least be able to run some of these much larger AI models.
        wmf 1y ago
        I don't think that would fit in a laptop which was the original market for this chip.
        aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
        This isn't ram. this is unified memory. It's shared between GPU and CPU. Soldered VRAM for GPUs have been the norm for probably 20 years because of the latency and reliability required, so why is this any different? The only way to achieve what you're after is to do any of; - Give up on unified memory and switch to a traditional platform (which there are thousands of alternatives for) - Cripple the GPU for games and some productivity software by raising latency beyond the norm. - Change to a server-class chip for 5x the price. This is an amazing chip giving server-class specs in a cheap mobile platform, that fill a special nieche in the market for for both productivity and local AI at a very competitive price. What you're arguing for makes no sense.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - undersuit 1y ago
    I wonder if there were similar complaints when cache moved from motherboards to soldered on the cpu package.
    - beeflet 1y ago
      The difference in performance between DRAM and flash memory is far greater than SRAM and DRAM. The total RAM of a system is a hard limit on the type of programs you can practically run because swapping is slow.
      - undersuit 1y ago
        The old motherboard cache was socketed SRAM and it was replaced with soldered SRAM just as the socketed DRAM was replaced with soldered DRAM. L2 CPU cache used to be on the motherboard and user expandable.
  - Jtsummers 1y ago
    That's fine, but not what I was commenting on so your comment is mostly irrelevant. I was commenting on a brand based on repairability selling a product that's deliberately not repairable. It's a curious choice to throw away the branding that brought them to where they are, and hopefully not the start of a trend for their other devices.
    - rs186 1y ago
      The only non repairable part is RAM due to technical constraints. The rest is as repairable as any other desktop, if not more so (e.g. power supply). Why are you accusing them of "throwing away the branding" and holding such a purist view, when they are doing their best and just making compromises in order to release a decent product.
- antonvs 1y ago
  > And even more curious It's easy to find out the reason for this. And the article's benchmarks confirm the validity of this reason. Why comment from a place of ignorance, unless you're asking a question?
  - aniviacat 1y ago
    Your comment is unnecessarily hostile. There are plenty of components to choose from which do not need soldered-on RAM. Giving up modularity to gain access to higher memory bandwidth is certainly a trafeoff many are willing to make, but to take that tradeoff as a company known for modularity is, as the parent comment put it, curious.
    - antonvs 1y ago
      Every single description of the Framework desktop that I've seen has addressed this issue. To comment as though it's some sort of mystery is disingenuous at best. My comment was precisely as friendly as the commenter deserved. And as I said, if you read the article, you'll see that the tradeoff in question has paid off very well.
      - Jtsummers 1y ago
        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 good reason to solder on the RAM, but I wasn't commenting on that and have no idea how anyone could read my comment and have that be their takeaway. I was commenting on a brand throwing away the thing it's marketed itself for. In exchange for repairability, you now get shiny baubles like custom tiles for the case.
        tomnipotent 1y ago
        > 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 bit uncharitable, maybe naive, and leaves the company little room to be a company.
- suspended_state 1y ago
  > They soldered on the RAM. Which makes it a very strange entry for a brand marketing itself as the DIY dream This was also my first thought when discovering this new model, but I think it was a pragmatic design decision. The questions you should ask yourself are: - which upgradable memory module format could be used with the same speed and bandwidth as the soldered in solution, - if this solution exists, how much would it cost - what's the maximum supported amount of ram for this CPU
  - beeflet 1y ago
    >which upgradable memory module format could be used with the same speed and bandwidth as the soldered in solution CAMM perhaps? The modular memory is important, because they are selling them to two different markets: gamers that want a small powerful desktop, and people running LLMs at home. The modularity of the RAM allows you to convert the former into the latter at a later date, so it seems pretty critical to me. For this reason alone, I am going to buy a used epyc server instead of one of these desktop things. I will be able to equip it with a greater amount of RAM as I see fit and run a greater range of models (albeit at lower speed). The ability to run larger models slowly at a later date is more important than the ability for me to run smaller models faster now. So I am an example of a consumer who does not like framework's tradeoff. You would think that they would at least offer some type of service where they take it into the factory and refit it with new ram chips. Perhaps they could just buy used low-ram boards at a later date and use them to make refurbished high-ram boards. Another solution is to make it so that it supports both soldered and unsoldered ram (but at a lower frequency). Gaming is frequency-limited but does not require much ram, but a lot of workloads like AI are bandwidth limited. Hell, if you're going to have some high-frequency RAM irreplacibly soldered to the motherboard, it might as well be a chiplet!
    - suspended_state 1y ago
      You should do what better fit your usecase. I don't know how large is framework's market, nor how deep their pockets are, which condition their ability to produce 2 different models. It's clear that a modular design is preferable, hopefully once a standard emerges they will use it in their next devices. Perhaps framework will help in that process, but I don't know if they can afford to put up with the initial costs, particularly in a market they don't have a strong foothold yet.
- trenchpilgrim 1y ago
  The CEO mentioned in an LTT video that they worked with AMD to try to make CAMM memory work and hit some technical problems.
- bluescrn 1y ago
  Gotta chase that AI bubble at any cost
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  According to the Framework CEO on the Linus Tech Tips video about this thing [1], they tried and AMD assigned an engineer on getting modular memory to work and decided it's not possible. Unless there's another company out there shipping this CPU with replaceable memory, I'll believe them. Even with LPCAMM, physics just doesn't work out. Of course, there are plenty of slower desktops you can buy where all the memory can be swapped out. If you want a repairable desktop like that, you're not stuck with Framework in the same way you would be with laptops. You'll probably struggle to get the same memory bandwidth to make full use of AMD's chips, though. [1]: https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY?feature=shared&t=446 https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY?feature=shared&t=446
  - cyanydeez 1y ago
    there isn't. This thing was designed the same way apple designed their unified memory. This thing is meant to work hand in hand with it's iGPU.
- tgma 1y ago
  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.
  - SomeHacker44 1y ago
    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 end desktop today. Real joke. Huge waste of money. I will buy prebiilt systems in the future. In the meantime if I need a lot of RAM I use an Intel 14900K desktop or my new HP G1a Zbook. * ASUS X870E ROG CROSSHAIR HERO AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard
    - tgma 1y ago
      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.
- sliken 1y ago
  Dunno, nice, quiet, small machine, using standard parts (power supply, motherboard, etc). If you want the high memory bandwidth get the strix halo, if not get any normal PC. Sure apple has the bandwidth as well, and also soldered memory as well. If you want dimms and you want the memory bandwidth get a threadripper (4 channel), siena (6 channel), thread ripper pro (8 channel), or Epyc (12 channel). But be prepared to double your power (at least), quadruple your space, double your cost, and still not have a decent GPU.
  - heraldgeezer 1y ago
    Nice is subjective. Fractal cases he compares to looks nicer to me. Quiet? A real PC with bigger fans = more airflow = quieter Smaller - yes, this is the tradeoff GPU is always best separate, that is true since the ages. "double the power" oh no from 100W to 200W wowwww "quadruple your space" - not a problem
- G3rn0ti 1y ago
  > 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 years that’s actually going to be easy to install for much less cost than buying a new desktop computer.
  - amaranth 1y ago
    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.
pzmarzly 1y ago
HN admins: can the domain extractor be changed to say "world.hey.com/dhh" here instead of just the domain name? From what I see, Hey World is a blogging platform, similar to Medium but markdown and email based. And the username (blog name) is in the second part of the URL.
- mtmail 1y ago
  Best to email the moderators (link in footer). I've made similar suggestions about other blogging platforms and got a positive reply.
ahmedfromtunis 1y ago
It fun to see that, in an era where most CEOs are all-in with AI both on a personal level and at their companies, dhh chose to rather take a deep dive into the world of linux and config files and indie computer brands. Curious what will the long term impact of this be on the longtime viability of Basecamp and its sister/daughter brands.
ashleyn 1y ago
How is AMD GPU compatibility with leading generative AI workflows? I'm under the impression everything is CUDA.
- trenchpilgrim 1y ago
  Certain chips can work with useful local models, but compatibility is far behind CUDA.
- pja 1y ago
  llama.cpp combined with Mesa’s Vulkan support for AMD GPUs has worked pretty well with everything I’ve thrown it at.
  - throwdbaaway 1y ago
    https://llm-tracker.info/_TOORG/Strix-Halo https://llm-tracker.info/_TOORG/Strix-Halo has very comprehensive test results for running llama.cpp with Strix Halo. This one is particularly interesting: > But when we switch to longer context, we see something interesting happen. WMMA + FA basically loses no performance at this longer context length! > Vulkan + FA still has better pp but tg is significantly lower. More data points would be better, but seems like Vulkan performance may continue to decrease as context extends while the HIP+rocWMMA backend should perform better. lhl has also been sharing these test results in https://forum.level1techs.com/t/strix-halo-ryzen-ai-max-395-llm-benchmark-results/ https://forum.level1techs.com/t/strix-halo-ryzen-ai-max-395-..., and his latest comment provides a great summary of the current state: > (What is bad is that basically every single model has a different optimal backend, and most of them have different optimal backends for pp (handling context) vs tg (new text)). Anyway, for me, the greatest thing about the Strix Halo + llama.cpp combo is that we can throw one or more egpu into the mix, as echoed by level1tech video (https://youtu.be/ziZDzrDI7AM?t=485 https://youtu.be/ziZDzrDI7AM?t=485), which should help a lot with PP performance.
- wolfgangK 1y ago
  Indeed, recent Flash Attention is a pain point for non CUDA.
- 1y ago
OrvalWintermute 1y ago
very impressive... Max+ 395 specced with: 128GB of non-upgradeable LPDDR5x WD_BLACK SN850X NVMe - M.2 2280 - 8TB Noctua fan 3x + 3x extra USB-A & USB-C ports No OS option. only $2,776.00!!!
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  everything's cheap when you're rich
  - OrvalWintermute 1y ago
    A mac studio configured similarly With 128 GB of memory and an 8 TB SSD is $5799
    - mft_ 1y ago
      One detail is that the memory bandwidth on the M4 Max and M3 Ultra (especially) is considerably higher than the 395+.
    - jeroenhd 1y ago
      The Mac Studio (at least the M3 Ultra model) blows the Framework out of the water when it comes to AI performance, though, at least according to this (Dutch language) benchmark: https://tweakers.net/reviews/13614/framework-desktop-de-framework-die-je-niet-koopt-voor-de-upgrades.html#chapter_6 https://tweakers.net/reviews/13614/framework-desktop-de-fram... Paying twice the price for twice to seven times the performance may not be such a bad thing. Then again, with Apple you're kind of stuck with macOS and the like, so Framework may still be the better option depending on your use case.
      - Rohansi 1y ago
        The M3 Ultra also consumes a lot more power because Strix Halo is actually a chip for laptops. The Framework here is a desktop but that doesn't change what AMD prioritized when building this chip.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
kristianp 1y ago
> There's at least a little flexibility with the graphics card if you move the board into a different case—there's a single PCIe x4 slot on the board that you could put an external GPU into, though many PCIe x16 graphics cards will be bandwidth starved. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/review-framework-desktop-is-a-mash-up-of-a-regular-desktop-pc-and-the-mac-studio/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/review-framework-des...
- monster_truck 1y ago
  There are no situations where this matters yet. You have to drop down to an 8x slot on PCIe 3.0 to even begin to see any meaningful impact on benchmarks (synthetic or otherwise)
- conradev 1y ago
  You can also use an adapter to repurpose an M.2 slot as PCIe x16, but the bandwidth is the same x4
  - tgma 1y ago
    That's just called a PCIe x4 [1]. Each PCIe lane is an independent channel. The wider slot will simply have disconnected pins. You can actually do this with regular motherboard PCIe x4 slots by cutting the plastic at the end of the slot so you can insert a wider card and most cards work just fine. [1]: It sounds like a nitpick but a PCIe x16 with x4 effective bandwidth can exist and is a different thing: if the actual PCIe interface is x16, but there is an upstream bottleneck (e.g. aggregate bandwidth from chipset to CPU is not enough to handle all peripherals at once at full rate.)
- wolfgangK 1y ago
  For LLM inference, I don't think the PCIe bandwidth matters much and a GPU could improve greatly the prompt processing speed.
  - ElectricalUnion 1y ago
    Only if your entire model fits the GPU VRAM. To me this reads like "if you can afford those 256GB VRAM GPUs, you don't need PCIe bandwidth!"
chvid 1y ago
[flagged]
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  he's mad they take a cut of his app store subscriptions, this is a huge saga that's been spanning years for him (not sure why I'm being downvoted, it's true... https://x.com/dhh/status/1747697778455962014 https://x.com/dhh/status/1747697778455962014)
  - linotype 1y ago
    Not sure why you’re being downvoted. He’s also the guy that inflicted Ruby on Rails upon us.
- TheRealDunkirk 1y ago
  Sorry, but what's "bogus" about benchmarking your specific workloads? What benchmark do you think he should have run?
  - Rohansi 1y ago
    One more that favors Apple, obviously. 2/3 of the benchmarks having Apple Silicon on top is not enough!
- OrvalWintermute 1y ago
  I don’t know about pro or anti Apple, but the framework optional 8TB NVME SSD is only +$699 whereas Apple charges $2200 for a similar 8TB NVME SSD
- dlivingston 1y ago
  Context on DHH vs. Apple: https://youtu.be/mzDi8u3WMj0 https://youtu.be/mzDi8u3WMj0 I find myself agreeing with much of what he says. The Apple of today is not the same as the Apple of 15 years ago.
  - 1y ago
dustingetz 1y ago
for $2k that is a lot of computer
Xenoamorphous 1y ago
Oh, to be young again and care about benchmarks, bogomips and stuff like that.
- beeflet 1y ago
  Do you even bench, mark?
- Terr_ 1y ago
  Or to generally be back in the era where such a thing would be useful for LAN-parties...
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  Note that the main benchmark in the post is practical. How long a test suite for the product he makes runs.
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
  Das Balkenspiel ist schlechter Stil. (The bar game is bad style/lame)
  - ggm 1y ago
    Pong!
    - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
      Errm, No :-) I meant bars as in benchmarks, often rather meaningless, because within the range of statistic noise. For instance, something having 100.200 points in one config, in another 100.220, with the bars/scales distorted to make that difference seem much larger. Gaming the bar-game, so to speak.
      - alpaca128 1y ago
        OpenAI recently played a bit too hard with their GPT-5 announcement. Two bars with the same height but wildly different values, things like that. Such a lack of subtlety that their claim it was accidental is actually almost believable.
ThinkBeat 1y ago
Reads like an advertisement to me.
- coolgoose 1y ago
  I doubt that Dhh if all people would do advertisement (as paid) for this. He genuinely seems to enjoy his macos break
  - echelon 1y ago
    Apple's walled garden and mob tactics pissed DHH off [1-3]. Of course he's going to advocate for alternatives. Tim Sweeney is in the same camp. [1] https://www.hey.com/apple/ https://www.hey.com/apple/ [2] https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-rejects-the-hey-calendar-from-their-app-store-4316dc03 https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-rejects-the-hey-calendar-fro... [3] https://world.hey.com/dhh/hey-is-finally-for-sale-on-the-iphone-a08cb218 https://world.hey.com/dhh/hey-is-finally-for-sale-on-the-iph...
  - jstummbillig 1y ago
    Then again that's just what he does. There is little room for soft opinions in DHHs communication to the public, and nuance often goes next.
jamesgill 1y ago
I like Framework and own one of their laptops. But the desktop seems more a triumph of gimmicky marketing than a desktop that's meaningfully different. And, it seems significantly overpriced.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  It's taking a newly released mobile- and mini-PC-focused platform that's usually paired with proprietary technology, and building something that's as close as possible to a standard desktop with it. Seems very much in the Framework spirit once you account for that side of it.
  - mschild 1y ago
    Right, but why go with mobile at all? I get the laptops. For desktop you already have thousands of choices though and reparability, assuming its not some proprietary Dell/HP desktop, is already as good as it gets without breaking out your soldering iron. That said, they'll know more about the market demand than I do and another option won't hurt :)
    - wiseowise 1y ago
      Supporting OSS and repairable hardware?
      - mschild 1y ago
        OSS is fair. From the product page I don't see how that mainboard is more repairable than a typical ITX one though. As far as I can tell, you also cannot change the CPU on it so even less than a typical desktop mainboard.
        wiseowise 1y ago
        By buying their devices you directly support company and mission that they're on. I'm not a diehard OSS supporter (Mac user here), but I consider buying The Framework Desktop just to support the company over, say, Dell or HP.
damonll 1y ago
You need to use Orbstack as the engine on Mac, otherwise it's not a fair fight. It's at least 2x as fast as Docker
fmajid 1y ago
I cancelled my Framework Desktop order and ordered a HP Z2 Mini G1a instead, the goal being to replace my Mac Studio as I've had it with Apple's arrogance and lousy software quality. The HP is much smaller, has ECC RAM and 10G Ethernet. Significantly more expensive, however.
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Was scoffing at HP, but then you got my attention with ECC RAM. Looks nice as well.
  - sliken 1y ago
    Keep scoffing, it's not real end to end ECC, just "link" ecc, which is just part of the chip -> CPU pipeline. So it's not full ECC like servers have with dimms with a multiple of 9 chips with ECC protecting everything from the dimms to the CPU. Keep in mind the ram is inside the strix halo package, not something HP has control over.
    - Marsymars 1y ago
      Wait is there any actual difference in the RAM between the HP and the Framework Desktop?
      - justincormack 1y ago
        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
        geerlingguy 1y ago
        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!
    - wtallis 1y ago
rtpg 1y ago
huhm the ars review makes it seem like this thing does worse on benchmarks than stuff like the mac but the test suite in DHH's example goes way faster. Bursty perf perhaps?
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  Ars and other sites used Windows for benchmarks. DHH used linux
ilaksh 1y ago
How 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?
- angst 1y ago
  same CPU, likely a different TDP setting. This comparison uses hp G1a but I imagine it wouldnt be too far off from GMKtec: https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-desktop-linux/9 https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-desktop-linux/9 Framework can be fed with more power to support better sustained performance is my understanding.
- jychang 1y ago
  They're the same price. Both 395 machines (with 128GB of RAM) are $1999.
- Fnoord 1y ago
  Hehe, that is just a Chinese company, isn't it? Say bye bye to warranty and support, repairability. I am not saying you shouldn't consider it but describing Framework merely as cool factor is the other extreme.
  - makeitdouble 1y ago
    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 this day and age when Chinese companies are on average ahead of the curve. [0] https://de.gmktec.com/en/pages/ruckgabe-umtausch https://de.gmktec.com/en/pages/ruckgabe-umtausch
    - lucianbr 1y ago
Kirth 1y ago
I 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?
- izacus 1y ago
  Yes, the Strix series of AMD uses a similar architecture as M series with massive memory bandwidth and big caches. That results in significantly better performance.
  - sidewndr46 1y ago
    Isn't this the desktop architecture that Torvalds suggested years ago?
    - JonChesterfield 1y ago
      It basically looks like a games console. Its not a conceptually difficult architecture, "what if the GPU and the CPU had the same memory?". Good things indeed.
    - izacus 1y ago
      I don't know, but it's primarily very expensive to manufacture and hard to make expandable. You can see people in rage due to soldered RAM in this thread. There's always tradeoffs and people propose many things. Selling those things as a product is another game entirely.
    - yonisto 1y ago
      This how the Amiga worked 40 years ago...
    - numpad0 1y ago
      Faster and bigger SRAM cache is as complicated of a solution as adding moar boosters to your rocket. It works, but expensive. RP2040 uses ~8x more die space as its dual CPU just for the RAM.
heraldgeezer 1y ago
Not really. A laptop CPU defeats the purpose. Get a 9800X3D for gaming will be waaaay faster or Threadripper for productivity or the 9950X3D chips with 16 cores/32 threads. Why this laptop crap when you can get a nice PC case. Then again he thinks the Fractal North was "bulky"? What?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- rs186 1y ago
  You completely missed the point. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44853961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44853961
  - heraldgeezer 1y ago
    Nice is subjective. Fractal cases he compares to looks nicer to me. Quiet? A real PC with bigger fans = more airflow = quieter Smaller - yes, this is the tradeoff
- mkl 1y ago
  The 9950X appears in one of the benchmarks in the article, and this machine beats it. It has 16 cores and 32 threads itself. You might want to read more details instead of dismissing it out of ignorance.
  - heraldgeezer 1y ago
    okay the new real PC CPUs are better. there.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
politelemon 1y ago
I could do with someone explaining to me (sorry not very advanced knowledge in this area), how did Framework manage this performance at a lower price point? And why can't average Joe at PCPartPicker do something like this?
- vaylian 1y ago
  The key piece is AMD's high-end AI CPU. The whole desktop is literally built around it, to take full advantage of it. AMD reached out to Framework and said "Hey, we have this new CPU, do you want to do something with it?". And the engineers at Framework jumped at the opportunity.
- jychang 1y ago
  AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ as the APU (CPU + GPU), and its corresponding soldered LPDDR5X RAM, which has a super fast memory bandwidth of 256GB/sec. So the CPU and RAM are soldered on the motherboard. You can buy just the motherboard from Framework: https://frame.work/products/framework-desktop-mainboard-amd-ryzen-ai-max-300-series?v=FRAFMK0006 https://frame.work/products/framework-desktop-mainboard-amd-...
- 12345hn6789 1y ago
  Real question, it's not. It's close to the m4 mini performance. Which puts the price point within spitting difference ($50). Basically identical price wise to equivalent Apple products.
Archit3ch 1y ago
RDNA 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.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  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.
  - Archit3ch 1y ago
    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?
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    The NPU is generally pretty weak and not pipelined into the GPU's logic (which is already quite large on-die). It feels like the past 10 years have taught us that if you're going to create tensor-specific hardware then it makes the most sense to put it in your GPU and not a dark-silicon coprocessor.
  - SomeHacker44 1y ago
    I have the HP Zbook G1a running the same CPU and RAM under HP Ubuntu. I have not seen any OOTB way to use the TPU. I can get ROCm software to run but it does not use it. No system tools show its activity that I can see. It seems to be a marketing gimmick. Shame.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
lvl155 1y ago
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.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  > 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?
- Marsymars 1y ago
  A desktop-grade chip would nerf the APU and memory bandwidth, and would need a discrete GPU for comparable compute, which is a completely different class of machine. (One which would be, IMO, much less interesting.)
- JonChesterfield 1y ago
  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.
paolomainardi 1y ago
Is 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.
- vaylian 1y ago
  > 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.
  - 7jjjjjjj 1y ago
    "Device Management" means "hardware-level backdoor."
    - oblio 1y ago
      Only if it's your hardware. If it's corporate hardware, it's their hardware and you're a guest.
  - aesh2Xa1 1y ago
    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/ 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 Redfish to configure the hardware itself. Apple devices don't have this. You can also buy hardware to act as a remote keyboard/mouse/monitor and power button, and it supports systems whose motherboards have the right headers: https://pikvm.org/ https://pikvm.org/
    - wtallis 1y ago
      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.
cuu508 1y ago
What 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?
- SomeoneOnTheWeb 1y ago
  Minisforum 790S7/795S7, mini-ITX desktop. 16 cores, 32 threads, only a bit less powerful than a desktop Ryzen 7950X or a 14900K, but with a comparatively low power usage. About 500€ barebones, then you add your own SSD and SO-DIMM RAM.
  - nextos 1y ago
    How is the cooling system on that Minisforum? Is it noisy? Does it keep up with the 7950X?
- yencabulator 1y ago
  I bought https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um890pro https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um890pro to compile Rust faster than my laptop, with 96 GB RAM and 2x4 TB NVMe as a ZFS mirror. Back before Framework Desktop existed. It has the 8945HS CPU, the article benchmarks against 8745H which is a little bit slower. It's a very worthy price point to consider, tiny and very quiet. qwen3:30b-a3b runs locally at 23.25 tokens/sec. I know 395+ chip would about approximately double that, but I'm not quite willing to put $2000 into that upgrade.
- ohdeargodno 1y ago
  >My test suite currently runs in ~6 seconds on 9700K Absolutely nothing. 6 seconds is about the time it will take you to tab to your terminal, press up arrow, find your test task and run it. There's no amount of money that makes it go from 6 to 3, and no world in which there's any value to it. In addition, upgrading to a 13900K means you're playing the Intel Dance: sockets have (again) changed, in an (again) incompatible manner. So you're looking at, at the very least, a new CPU, a new motherboard, potentially a new cooler, and if you're going too forward with CPUs, new RAM since Intel's Z890 is not DDR4 compatible (and the Z390 was not DDR5 compatible). Or buying an entire new PC. Since you're behind a socket wall, the reasonable option for an upgrade would rather be a sizeable one, and most likely abandoning Intel to its stupid decisions for a while and instead going for Zen 5 CPUs, which are going to be socket compatible for a good 7 years at least.
pragmatic 1y ago
[flagged]
- smithcoin 1y ago
  IMHO for a comment of this level of vitriol you should probably cite some sources rather than rely on anecdotal evidence.
- dismalaf 1y ago
  So what do you use now instead of Rails? And what kind of app?
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Oh no, someone’s an optimist… get him!
- christophilus 1y ago
  This is the way I make my tech decisions. If a programmer says something I don’t like, especially about a domain completely unrelated to tech, I don’t use their stuff. That’s why I don’t use EMacs, rust, zig, Jai (whenever it’s released), go, JavaScript, neovim, or any OS I don’t personally build from assembly, any digital devices— I’m going to burn this iPhone when I’m done typing. That’ll show them. It’s a tough life, but this way I don’t accidentally appear to support someone who is different from me.
zyx321 1y ago
There'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.
- yencabulator 1y ago
  > 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.
  - zyx321 1y ago
    It's not a fixed split. I don't know if it's possible live, or if it requires a reboot, but it's not hardwired. I want to know if it's possible. 4GB for Linux, a bit of room for the calculations, and then you can load a 122GB model entirely into VRAM. How would that perform in real life? Someone please benchmark it!
    - yencabulator 1y ago
      You're still thinking of the old school thing, where you set the split in the firmware and it's fixed for that boot. There's dynamic allocation on top of it these days. I have that split set at the minimum 2 GB and I'm giving the GPU a 20 GB model to process.
  - geerlingguy 1y ago
    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-allocation-on-amd-ai-apus-under-linux https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/increasing-vram-alloc...
    - yencabulator 1y ago
neuroelectron 1y ago
You know it would be a great use for this chip besides AI generative slop? A desktop server with AI-enhanced firewall and a silent home server. This could be effective for zero-days and other weird traffic patterns and maybe even add enterprise-ish email server with spam detection. There has been several projects started that are experimenting with this including Suricata and pfSense. I wonder how well this chip could handle packet inspection.
- alt227 1y ago
  If you call what AI generates 'slop' then what do you think the quality of firewall rules it generates will be? I dont think any enterprise is going to hand over the keys to its firewall any time soon.
  - neuroelectron 1y ago
    You don't understand AI if you think generative AI is the only kind of AI. I specifically said generative AI so please just read my comment before replying.
reactordev 1y ago
>The AMD 395+ uses unified memory, like Apple, so nearly all of it is addressable to be used by the GPU. This is why they went with the “laptop” cpu. While it’s slightly slower than dedicated memory, it allows you to run the big models, at decent token speeds.
- nottorp 1y ago
  unified and soldered :( I understand it's faster but still... Did they at least do an internal PSU if they went the Apple way or does it come with a power brick twice the size of the case? Edit: wait. They do have an internal PSU! Goodness!
  - trostaft 1y ago
    For anyone else curious, they actually have a deep dive on the subject. You can also replace it with another since it's just flexATX, albeit with some requirements. https://community.frame.work/t/framework-desktop-deep-dive-power-supply/69518 https://community.frame.work/t/framework-desktop-deep-dive-p...
  - ivape 1y ago
    LPDDR5, it looks like this is the only ram type that is going to work with Ryzen AI chips.
    - heavyset_go 1y ago
      Framework offers Ryzen AI laptops with replaceable memory.
      - ivape 1y ago
        That ram is slower than soldered down lpddr5 at the moment.
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  > it allows you to run the big models, at decent token speeds Without CUDA, being an AMD GPU. Big warning depending on the tools you want to use.
aomix 1y ago
I’ve been agonizing over getting the Framework Desktop for weeks as a dev machine/local LLM box/home server. It checks a lot of boxes but the only reason to look at the Framework Desktop over something like a Minisforum MS-A2 is for the LLM and that seems super janky right now. So I guess I’ll wait a beat and see where we are later in the year.
- microtonal 1y ago
  My main worry about all the Minisforum, Beelink, etc. PCs is: potential lack of UEFI firmware updates (does anyone have experience with how good they are with updates?) and potential backdoors in the UEFI firmware (either intentionally or unintentionally). A China-aligned/sponsored group has made an UEFI rootkit targetting ASUS/Gigabyte mainboards: https://www.spiceworks.com/it-security/vulnerability-management/news/cosmicstrand-uefi-firmware-rootkit/ https://www.spiceworks.com/it-security/vulnerability-managem... Why not require/compel certain companies to implement them directly?
  - starkparker 1y ago
    As a Framework 13 owner, their firmware update history isn't that great either.
    - rgrieselhuber 1y ago
      Any more details you can share?
      - NegativeK 1y ago
        https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/looking-at-frameworks-progress-on-software-support-for-its-repairable-laptops/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/looking-at-framework... has a brief writeup. The summary is that Framework was understaffed and has brought in an established third party to help with firmware and driver updates.
  - Shadowmist 1y ago
einpoklum 1y ago
I don't really understand Why one should bother with the pluggable ports in something that's not a laptop. Even in 4.5L, shouldn't we just have "all the ports"? Also, this reminds me of "SkyReach Tiny": https://store.nfc-systems.com/products/skyreach-4-tiny https://store.nfc-systems.com/products/skyreach-4-tiny an even smaller case, very versatile. No pluggable gimmicks though.
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Only two on the front. So you get to decide what to put there. Also protects the port. Kind of a gimmick, but could be worse.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- sowbug 1y ago
  If you already have a Framework laptop, it's nice to be able to reuse the extra cards that you might have lying around. "Leveraging the benefits of the Framework ecosystem," as a marketing person might say.
lucb1e 1y ago
> 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 days than ×2 actually, but apparently not, also considering that Framework comes with a (totally fair) niche-vendor premium
- wmf 1y ago
  That's purely due to Apple's ridiculous SSD pricing. You can save a lot of money by using an external SSD.
  - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
    Don't forget how Apple rips you off on RAM. Always.
    - rubyn00bie 1y ago
      RAM isn’t cheap but it’s not awful, or as bad as it once was, especially in their laptops. One of the primary things that has kept me from buying a new Apple desktop or laptop is honestly SSD pricing. It’s absolutely ridiculous given how cheap 1TB or 2TB drives are. And generally, in my experience, the ones Apple uses have had subpar performance compared to what’s available for the PC market for less than half the price. Not to mention their base configuration machines usually have subtly crappier SSDs than a tier up. I haven’t bought a new Mac since Apple released the M-series. I’ve wanted to multiple times, but the value just isn’t there for me personally.
  - alt227 1y ago
    Except they keep making it harder and harder to install your own drives into apple machines.
    - 1y ago
temptemptemp111 1y ago
[dead]
zargon 1y ago
So DHH fell for Sam’s scam. He tried OSS 20b and wasn’t impressed, and apparently dismisses all local models based on that experience with a known awful model.
arp242 1y ago
I looked at the Framework Desktop a few week ago; mainly to get something that has nicer gaming performance than my laptop's iGPU. I'm not a big gamer really, but as of late I've been wanting to play some things, like The Witcher 3 (saw thread on Reddit celebrating its 10 year anniversary: "that's the new one I still need to play", so that's about how up to date I am with games – some of these "new" games are already classified as "good old game" on gog.com). My take-away was/is that the Framework Desktop is a very nice machine, but it is expensive IMHO. You can get better performance at a lower price by building your own machine; in this article the 9950X scores lower than the Max 395, and I'm not entirely sure that's accurate – that wasn't my take-away at all (don't have links at the ready). This is also what you'd expect when comparing a 55W laptop chip vs. a 170W desktop chip. That said, Linux compatibility is a bit of a pain, for example some MediaTek WiFi/Bluetooth chips that ASUS boards use don't have a Linux driver. In general figuring out what components to get is a bit time-consuming. In one of the videos Nirav mentioned that "just get the Framework Desktop" is so much easer, and 100% agree with that. In the end, I decided to get a USB4/Thunderbold eGPU, which gives me more than enough gaming performance for me and is much cheaper. I already have a laptop that's more than performant enough for my needs, which I got last year mainly due to some idiotic JS build process I had to deal with last year that took forever on my old laptop. On the new machine it's merely "ludicrously slow". Sometimes I think JS people are in cahoots with Intel and/or AMD... For LLM stuff the considerations might be different. I don't care about that so I didn't look into it.
znpy 1y ago
> Linux is really efficient. Especially when you're using a window manager like Hyprland, as we do in Omarchy. Window managers are usually the last issue on modern Linux. Pretty much any native app is okay. Troubles really start (and start fast) when you open any browser and load any modern website. Had we more native applications (so not cloud stuff, and not javascript stuff with a bundled chromium) we'd all have a much better overall computing experience.
babl-yc 1y ago
I was in the market for a Linux desktop machine and considered the Framework Desktop. I respect their mission, but ended up purchasing a Geekom mini PC instead. Given repair isn't practical with soldered DRAM and such, I prioritized small form factor, price, and quick delivery. The Framework Desktop was a much larger form factor, 3x the price, and delivery wasn't for months. That said, I still hope the company is successful so they have more competitive offerings in the future.
focusgroup0 1y ago
I loved my Framework. and yet, Linux is free if your time is free
trelane 1y ago
Wonder how this compares to a Thelio's performance.
syphia 1y ago
> The Framework Desktop with 64GB RAM + 2TB NVMe is $1,876 And it's ~$1000 to build a PC with a similar CPU, somewhat larger form factor, and fans. Unless the AI processor is actually useful for AI, and you need that, this is silly. Framework desktop dimensions are 20.6 x 9.7 x 22.6 LWH. My IM01 case is 37.2 x 18.5 x 28.7. It won't be going in my bag, but it fits nicely on a desktop. Pre-builts are so expensive these days...
- khuey 1y ago
  The upcharge for decent specs, especially on RAM, is insane. I just checked Dell and upgrading from the base 16GB of RAM to 64GB of RAM on their generic tower costs $450. You can buy 2x32GB DIMMs of the same speed for less than half of that.
- vikramkr 1y ago
  The memory on chip that's shared between CPU/GPU is the main thing, for AI stuff it's more competing with gpus and apple silicon than comparable CPUs.
alberth 1y ago
Physical Size: Framework: 4.5L (~5.5x larger than Mac Mini) Mac Mini: 0.8L That’s a lot of extra cooling capacity, and sizably larger space it’s taking up.
p0w3n3d 1y ago
Okay so why is the ram non upgradable again? Because this was the main reason I was holding to PC architecture (I'm considering non upgradable ram as a method of upselling for a ridiculous price of higher amounts)
- Doxin 1y ago
  I assume it's related to the following: > The AMD 395+ uses unified memory, like Apple, so nearly all of it is addressable to be used by the GPU. There's probably some fairly strict timing requirements etc on that. Still it'd be nice if they figured out a way to have swappable RAM.
  - p0w3n3d 1y ago
    thanks! Yea, it's easier to ship it with the RAM I guess, but I wonder does the slot make things so much harder? Or maybe they want to enforce some certain producer/sub-protocol
hamandcheese 1y ago
> But so what? Docker is an integral part of the workflow for tons of developers. We use it to be able to run different versions of MySQL, Redis, and ElasticSearch for different applications on the same machine at the same time. You can't really do that without Docker. Nix + Process Compose[0] make a great combo, and runs completely native. [0]: https://github.com/F1bonacc1/process-compose https://github.com/F1bonacc1/process-compose
hk1337 1y ago
The non-upgradable memory seems contradictory to their ideals of DIY and BYO

498 points by lemonberry 1y ago

> 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 soldered on the RAM. Which makes it a very strange entry for a brand marketing itself as the DIY dream manufacturer. They threw away their user-repairable mantra when they made the Desktop, it's less user repairable than most other desktops you could go out and buy today.

sethops1 1y ago
The RAM is soldered on all Halo Strix platforms because physics is getting in the way. With pluggable DIMMs the memory bandwidth would be halved, at best.
- wishinghand 1y ago
  Why is that? Why would soldering the connections vs plugging them in affect how much data per second they transfer?
  - tejtm 1y ago
    mind the gap
  - colejohnson66 1y ago
    Sockets have resistance and crosstalk, which affects signal integrity.
    - aeonik 1y ago
      Wait, your telling me, I should have been desoldering the sockets off my motherboard, and directly soldering my RAM to the leads this entire time?
      - ElectricalUnion 1y ago
        Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM) tries to be a middle-term solution for that, by reducing how crappy your average RAM socket is to latency and signal integrity issues. But, at this point, I can see CAMM delivered memory being reduced to a sort of slower, "CXL.mem" device.
        aeonik 1y ago
        Seriously though, Would desoldering the sockets help? Why are the sockets bad?
        komali2 1y ago
        As stated previously, the sockets reduce signal integrity, which doesn't necessarily make them "bad," but is why Framework wasn't able to used socketed ram to maximize the potential of this CPU. This sort-of-interview of Nirav Patel (ceo of framework) explains in a bit more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lErGZZgUbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lErGZZgUbY Basically, they need to use LPDDR5X memory, which isn't available in socketed form, because of signal integrity reasons. Which means you won't see an improvement if you solder your ram directly, I think mostly because your home soldering job will suffer signal integrity issues, but also because your RAM isn't LPCAMM and isn't spread across a 256 bit bus.
        aeonik 1y ago
        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.
- onli 1y ago
  He is still right. It is a desktop PC that is less repairable than all other desktop PCs, from a brand that is known to champion repairability. They had a reason for it, but could've chosen to not create more throwaway things.
  - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    The 128GB version wouldn't be throwaway, since that's the maximum the platform as a whole supports anyway- more memory than that would require a new mainboard and CPU at the same time.
    - nemomarx 1y ago
      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.
      - cyanydeez 1y ago
        it's basically the same as asking what happens when your M4 Apple has a fault. It's soldered based on the desire to use the ram as part of the GPU. Without that, it's really not a interesting solution. demanding replaceable ram means also not wanting the benefits of the integrated memory
      - rs186 1y ago
        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?"
        nemomarx 1y ago
        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.
- beeflet 1y ago
  Why not make a platform with a greater number of channels
  - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
    That's a question for AMD and TCMC. They only have so much space on the silica. More memory channels means less of something else. This is not a "framework platform" issue, it's the specification of that CPU.
    - beeflet 1y ago
      Well they chose to use this hardware platform. It all sounds like market segmentation to me, now that AMD is on top.
      - wmf 1y ago
        To be clear, AMD is giving you 2x the bandwidth of competing chips and you're complaining that it isn't 4x.
        beeflet 1y ago
        My complaints are the maximum RAM of the system and the modularity of the RAM. With an increased number of channels, you could have a greater amount of RAM at a lower frequency but at the same bandwidth. So you would at least be able to run some of these much larger AI models.
        wmf 1y ago
        I don't think that would fit in a laptop which was the original market for this chip.
        aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
        This isn't ram. this is unified memory. It's shared between GPU and CPU. Soldered VRAM for GPUs have been the norm for probably 20 years because of the latency and reliability required, so why is this any different? The only way to achieve what you're after is to do any of; - Give up on unified memory and switch to a traditional platform (which there are thousands of alternatives for) - Cripple the GPU for games and some productivity software by raising latency beyond the norm. - Change to a server-class chip for 5x the price. This is an amazing chip giving server-class specs in a cheap mobile platform, that fill a special nieche in the market for for both productivity and local AI at a very competitive price. What you're arguing for makes no sense.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- undersuit 1y ago
  I wonder if there were similar complaints when cache moved from motherboards to soldered on the cpu package.
  - beeflet 1y ago
    The difference in performance between DRAM and flash memory is far greater than SRAM and DRAM. The total RAM of a system is a hard limit on the type of programs you can practically run because swapping is slow.
    - undersuit 1y ago
      The old motherboard cache was socketed SRAM and it was replaced with soldered SRAM just as the socketed DRAM was replaced with soldered DRAM. L2 CPU cache used to be on the motherboard and user expandable.
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  That's fine, but not what I was commenting on so your comment is mostly irrelevant. I was commenting on a brand based on repairability selling a product that's deliberately not repairable. It's a curious choice to throw away the branding that brought them to where they are, and hopefully not the start of a trend for their other devices.
  - rs186 1y ago
    The only non repairable part is RAM due to technical constraints. The rest is as repairable as any other desktop, if not more so (e.g. power supply). Why are you accusing them of "throwing away the branding" and holding such a purist view, when they are doing their best and just making compromises in order to release a decent product.
antonvs 1y ago
> And even more curious It's easy to find out the reason for this. And the article's benchmarks confirm the validity of this reason. Why comment from a place of ignorance, unless you're asking a question?
- aniviacat 1y ago
  Your comment is unnecessarily hostile. There are plenty of components to choose from which do not need soldered-on RAM. Giving up modularity to gain access to higher memory bandwidth is certainly a trafeoff many are willing to make, but to take that tradeoff as a company known for modularity is, as the parent comment put it, curious.
  - antonvs 1y ago
    Every single description of the Framework desktop that I've seen has addressed this issue. To comment as though it's some sort of mystery is disingenuous at best. My comment was precisely as friendly as the commenter deserved. And as I said, if you read the article, you'll see that the tradeoff in question has paid off very well.
    - Jtsummers 1y ago
      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 good reason to solder on the RAM, but I wasn't commenting on that and have no idea how anyone could read my comment and have that be their takeaway. I was commenting on a brand throwing away the thing it's marketed itself for. In exchange for repairability, you now get shiny baubles like custom tiles for the case.
      - tomnipotent 1y ago
        > 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 bit uncharitable, maybe naive, and leaves the company little room to be a company.
suspended_state 1y ago
> They soldered on the RAM. Which makes it a very strange entry for a brand marketing itself as the DIY dream This was also my first thought when discovering this new model, but I think it was a pragmatic design decision. The questions you should ask yourself are: - which upgradable memory module format could be used with the same speed and bandwidth as the soldered in solution, - if this solution exists, how much would it cost - what's the maximum supported amount of ram for this CPU
- beeflet 1y ago
  >which upgradable memory module format could be used with the same speed and bandwidth as the soldered in solution CAMM perhaps? The modular memory is important, because they are selling them to two different markets: gamers that want a small powerful desktop, and people running LLMs at home. The modularity of the RAM allows you to convert the former into the latter at a later date, so it seems pretty critical to me. For this reason alone, I am going to buy a used epyc server instead of one of these desktop things. I will be able to equip it with a greater amount of RAM as I see fit and run a greater range of models (albeit at lower speed). The ability to run larger models slowly at a later date is more important than the ability for me to run smaller models faster now. So I am an example of a consumer who does not like framework's tradeoff. You would think that they would at least offer some type of service where they take it into the factory and refit it with new ram chips. Perhaps they could just buy used low-ram boards at a later date and use them to make refurbished high-ram boards. Another solution is to make it so that it supports both soldered and unsoldered ram (but at a lower frequency). Gaming is frequency-limited but does not require much ram, but a lot of workloads like AI are bandwidth limited. Hell, if you're going to have some high-frequency RAM irreplacibly soldered to the motherboard, it might as well be a chiplet!
  - suspended_state 1y ago
    You should do what better fit your usecase. I don't know how large is framework's market, nor how deep their pockets are, which condition their ability to produce 2 different models. It's clear that a modular design is preferable, hopefully once a standard emerges they will use it in their next devices. Perhaps framework will help in that process, but I don't know if they can afford to put up with the initial costs, particularly in a market they don't have a strong foothold yet.
trenchpilgrim 1y ago
The CEO mentioned in an LTT video that they worked with AMD to try to make CAMM memory work and hit some technical problems.
bluescrn 1y ago
Gotta chase that AI bubble at any cost
jeroenhd 1y ago
According to the Framework CEO on the Linus Tech Tips video about this thing [1], they tried and AMD assigned an engineer on getting modular memory to work and decided it's not possible. Unless there's another company out there shipping this CPU with replaceable memory, I'll believe them. Even with LPCAMM, physics just doesn't work out. Of course, there are plenty of slower desktops you can buy where all the memory can be swapped out. If you want a repairable desktop like that, you're not stuck with Framework in the same way you would be with laptops. You'll probably struggle to get the same memory bandwidth to make full use of AMD's chips, though. [1]: https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY?feature=shared&t=446 https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY?feature=shared&t=446
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  there isn't. This thing was designed the same way apple designed their unified memory. This thing is meant to work hand in hand with it's iGPU.
tgma 1y ago
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.
- SomeHacker44 1y ago
  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 end desktop today. Real joke. Huge waste of money. I will buy prebiilt systems in the future. In the meantime if I need a lot of RAM I use an Intel 14900K desktop or my new HP G1a Zbook. * ASUS X870E ROG CROSSHAIR HERO AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard
  - tgma 1y ago
    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.
sliken 1y ago
Dunno, nice, quiet, small machine, using standard parts (power supply, motherboard, etc). If you want the high memory bandwidth get the strix halo, if not get any normal PC. Sure apple has the bandwidth as well, and also soldered memory as well. If you want dimms and you want the memory bandwidth get a threadripper (4 channel), siena (6 channel), thread ripper pro (8 channel), or Epyc (12 channel). But be prepared to double your power (at least), quadruple your space, double your cost, and still not have a decent GPU.
- heraldgeezer 1y ago
  Nice is subjective. Fractal cases he compares to looks nicer to me. Quiet? A real PC with bigger fans = more airflow = quieter Smaller - yes, this is the tradeoff GPU is always best separate, that is true since the ages. "double the power" oh no from 100W to 200W wowwww "quadruple your space" - not a problem
G3rn0ti 1y ago
> 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 years that’s actually going to be easy to install for much less cost than buying a new desktop computer.
- amaranth 1y ago
  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.

pzmarzly 1y ago

HN admins: can the domain extractor be changed to say "world.hey.com/dhh" here instead of just the domain name? From what I see, Hey World is a blogging platform, similar to Medium but markdown and email based. And the username (blog name) is in the second part of the URL.

mtmail 1y ago
Best to email the moderators (link in footer). I've made similar suggestions about other blogging platforms and got a positive reply.

ahmedfromtunis 1y ago

It fun to see that, in an era where most CEOs are all-in with AI both on a personal level and at their companies, dhh chose to rather take a deep dive into the world of linux and config files and indie computer brands. Curious what will the long term impact of this be on the longtime viability of Basecamp and its sister/daughter brands.

ashleyn 1y ago

How is AMD GPU compatibility with leading generative AI workflows? I'm under the impression everything is CUDA.

trenchpilgrim 1y ago
Certain chips can work with useful local models, but compatibility is far behind CUDA.
pja 1y ago
llama.cpp combined with Mesa’s Vulkan support for AMD GPUs has worked pretty well with everything I’ve thrown it at.
- throwdbaaway 1y ago
  https://llm-tracker.info/_TOORG/Strix-Halo https://llm-tracker.info/_TOORG/Strix-Halo has very comprehensive test results for running llama.cpp with Strix Halo. This one is particularly interesting: > But when we switch to longer context, we see something interesting happen. WMMA + FA basically loses no performance at this longer context length! > Vulkan + FA still has better pp but tg is significantly lower. More data points would be better, but seems like Vulkan performance may continue to decrease as context extends while the HIP+rocWMMA backend should perform better. lhl has also been sharing these test results in https://forum.level1techs.com/t/strix-halo-ryzen-ai-max-395-llm-benchmark-results/ https://forum.level1techs.com/t/strix-halo-ryzen-ai-max-395-..., and his latest comment provides a great summary of the current state: > (What is bad is that basically every single model has a different optimal backend, and most of them have different optimal backends for pp (handling context) vs tg (new text)). Anyway, for me, the greatest thing about the Strix Halo + llama.cpp combo is that we can throw one or more egpu into the mix, as echoed by level1tech video (https://youtu.be/ziZDzrDI7AM?t=485 https://youtu.be/ziZDzrDI7AM?t=485), which should help a lot with PP performance.
wolfgangK 1y ago
Indeed, recent Flash Attention is a pain point for non CUDA.
1y ago

OrvalWintermute 1y ago

very impressive... Max+ 395 specced with: 128GB of non-upgradeable LPDDR5x WD_BLACK SN850X NVMe - M.2 2280 - 8TB Noctua fan 3x + 3x extra USB-A & USB-C ports No OS option. only $2,776.00!!!

micromacrofoot 1y ago
everything's cheap when you're rich
- OrvalWintermute 1y ago
  A mac studio configured similarly With 128 GB of memory and an 8 TB SSD is $5799
  - mft_ 1y ago
    One detail is that the memory bandwidth on the M4 Max and M3 Ultra (especially) is considerably higher than the 395+.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    The Mac Studio (at least the M3 Ultra model) blows the Framework out of the water when it comes to AI performance, though, at least according to this (Dutch language) benchmark: https://tweakers.net/reviews/13614/framework-desktop-de-framework-die-je-niet-koopt-voor-de-upgrades.html#chapter_6 https://tweakers.net/reviews/13614/framework-desktop-de-fram... Paying twice the price for twice to seven times the performance may not be such a bad thing. Then again, with Apple you're kind of stuck with macOS and the like, so Framework may still be the better option depending on your use case.
    - Rohansi 1y ago
      The M3 Ultra also consumes a lot more power because Strix Halo is actually a chip for laptops. The Framework here is a desktop but that doesn't change what AMD prioritized when building this chip.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

kristianp 1y ago

> There's at least a little flexibility with the graphics card if you move the board into a different case—there's a single PCIe x4 slot on the board that you could put an external GPU into, though many PCIe x16 graphics cards will be bandwidth starved. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/review-framework-desktop-is-a-mash-up-of-a-regular-desktop-pc-and-the-mac-studio/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/review-framework-des...

monster_truck 1y ago
There are no situations where this matters yet. You have to drop down to an 8x slot on PCIe 3.0 to even begin to see any meaningful impact on benchmarks (synthetic or otherwise)
conradev 1y ago
You can also use an adapter to repurpose an M.2 slot as PCIe x16, but the bandwidth is the same x4
- tgma 1y ago
  That's just called a PCIe x4 [1]. Each PCIe lane is an independent channel. The wider slot will simply have disconnected pins. You can actually do this with regular motherboard PCIe x4 slots by cutting the plastic at the end of the slot so you can insert a wider card and most cards work just fine. [1]: It sounds like a nitpick but a PCIe x16 with x4 effective bandwidth can exist and is a different thing: if the actual PCIe interface is x16, but there is an upstream bottleneck (e.g. aggregate bandwidth from chipset to CPU is not enough to handle all peripherals at once at full rate.)
wolfgangK 1y ago
For LLM inference, I don't think the PCIe bandwidth matters much and a GPU could improve greatly the prompt processing speed.
- ElectricalUnion 1y ago
  Only if your entire model fits the GPU VRAM. To me this reads like "if you can afford those 256GB VRAM GPUs, you don't need PCIe bandwidth!"

chvid 1y ago

[flagged]

micromacrofoot 1y ago
he's mad they take a cut of his app store subscriptions, this is a huge saga that's been spanning years for him (not sure why I'm being downvoted, it's true... https://x.com/dhh/status/1747697778455962014 https://x.com/dhh/status/1747697778455962014)
- linotype 1y ago
  Not sure why you’re being downvoted. He’s also the guy that inflicted Ruby on Rails upon us.
TheRealDunkirk 1y ago
Sorry, but what's "bogus" about benchmarking your specific workloads? What benchmark do you think he should have run?
- Rohansi 1y ago
  One more that favors Apple, obviously. 2/3 of the benchmarks having Apple Silicon on top is not enough!
OrvalWintermute 1y ago
I don’t know about pro or anti Apple, but the framework optional 8TB NVME SSD is only +$699 whereas Apple charges $2200 for a similar 8TB NVME SSD
dlivingston 1y ago
Context on DHH vs. Apple: https://youtu.be/mzDi8u3WMj0 https://youtu.be/mzDi8u3WMj0 I find myself agreeing with much of what he says. The Apple of today is not the same as the Apple of 15 years ago.
- 1y ago

dustingetz 1y ago

for $2k that is a lot of computer

Xenoamorphous 1y ago

Oh, to be young again and care about benchmarks, bogomips and stuff like that.

beeflet 1y ago
Do you even bench, mark?
Terr_ 1y ago
Or to generally be back in the era where such a thing would be useful for LAN-parties...
TiredOfLife 1y ago
Note that the main benchmark in the post is practical. How long a test suite for the product he makes runs.
LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
Das Balkenspiel ist schlechter Stil. (The bar game is bad style/lame)
- ggm 1y ago
  Pong!
  - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
    Errm, No :-) I meant bars as in benchmarks, often rather meaningless, because within the range of statistic noise. For instance, something having 100.200 points in one config, in another 100.220, with the bars/scales distorted to make that difference seem much larger. Gaming the bar-game, so to speak.
    - alpaca128 1y ago
      OpenAI recently played a bit too hard with their GPT-5 announcement. Two bars with the same height but wildly different values, things like that. Such a lack of subtlety that their claim it was accidental is actually almost believable.

ThinkBeat 1y ago

Reads like an advertisement to me.

coolgoose 1y ago
I doubt that Dhh if all people would do advertisement (as paid) for this. He genuinely seems to enjoy his macos break
- echelon 1y ago
  Apple's walled garden and mob tactics pissed DHH off [1-3]. Of course he's going to advocate for alternatives. Tim Sweeney is in the same camp. [1] https://www.hey.com/apple/ https://www.hey.com/apple/ [2] https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-rejects-the-hey-calendar-from-their-app-store-4316dc03 https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-rejects-the-hey-calendar-fro... [3] https://world.hey.com/dhh/hey-is-finally-for-sale-on-the-iphone-a08cb218 https://world.hey.com/dhh/hey-is-finally-for-sale-on-the-iph...
- jstummbillig 1y ago
  Then again that's just what he does. There is little room for soft opinions in DHHs communication to the public, and nuance often goes next.

jamesgill 1y ago

I like Framework and own one of their laptops. But the desktop seems more a triumph of gimmicky marketing than a desktop that's meaningfully different. And, it seems significantly overpriced.

zozbot234 1y ago
It's taking a newly released mobile- and mini-PC-focused platform that's usually paired with proprietary technology, and building something that's as close as possible to a standard desktop with it. Seems very much in the Framework spirit once you account for that side of it.
- mschild 1y ago
  Right, but why go with mobile at all? I get the laptops. For desktop you already have thousands of choices though and reparability, assuming its not some proprietary Dell/HP desktop, is already as good as it gets without breaking out your soldering iron. That said, they'll know more about the market demand than I do and another option won't hurt :)
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    Supporting OSS and repairable hardware?
    - mschild 1y ago
      OSS is fair. From the product page I don't see how that mainboard is more repairable than a typical ITX one though. As far as I can tell, you also cannot change the CPU on it so even less than a typical desktop mainboard.
      - wiseowise 1y ago
        By buying their devices you directly support company and mission that they're on. I'm not a diehard OSS supporter (Mac user here), but I consider buying The Framework Desktop just to support the company over, say, Dell or HP.

damonll 1y ago

You need to use Orbstack as the engine on Mac, otherwise it's not a fair fight. It's at least 2x as fast as Docker

fmajid 1y ago

I cancelled my Framework Desktop order and ordered a HP Z2 Mini G1a instead, the goal being to replace my Mac Studio as I've had it with Apple's arrogance and lousy software quality. The HP is much smaller, has ECC RAM and 10G Ethernet. Significantly more expensive, however.

mixmastamyk 1y ago
Was scoffing at HP, but then you got my attention with ECC RAM. Looks nice as well.
- sliken 1y ago
  Keep scoffing, it's not real end to end ECC, just "link" ecc, which is just part of the chip -> CPU pipeline. So it's not full ECC like servers have with dimms with a multiple of 9 chips with ECC protecting everything from the dimms to the CPU. Keep in mind the ram is inside the strix halo package, not something HP has control over.
  - Marsymars 1y ago
    Wait is there any actual difference in the RAM between the HP and the Framework Desktop?
    - justincormack 1y ago
      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
      - geerlingguy 1y ago
        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!
  - wtallis 1y ago

rtpg 1y ago

huhm the ars review makes it seem like this thing does worse on benchmarks than stuff like the mac but the test suite in DHH's example goes way faster. Bursty perf perhaps?

TiredOfLife 1y ago
Ars and other sites used Windows for benchmarks. DHH used linux

ilaksh 1y ago

How 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?

angst 1y ago
same CPU, likely a different TDP setting. This comparison uses hp G1a but I imagine it wouldnt be too far off from GMKtec: https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-desktop-linux/9 https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-desktop-linux/9 Framework can be fed with more power to support better sustained performance is my understanding.
jychang 1y ago
They're the same price. Both 395 machines (with 128GB of RAM) are $1999.
Fnoord 1y ago
Hehe, that is just a Chinese company, isn't it? Say bye bye to warranty and support, repairability. I am not saying you shouldn't consider it but describing Framework merely as cool factor is the other extreme.
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  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 this day and age when Chinese companies are on average ahead of the curve. [0] https://de.gmktec.com/en/pages/ruckgabe-umtausch https://de.gmktec.com/en/pages/ruckgabe-umtausch
  - lucianbr 1y ago

Kirth 1y ago

I 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?

izacus 1y ago
Yes, the Strix series of AMD uses a similar architecture as M series with massive memory bandwidth and big caches. That results in significantly better performance.
- sidewndr46 1y ago
  Isn't this the desktop architecture that Torvalds suggested years ago?
  - JonChesterfield 1y ago
    It basically looks like a games console. Its not a conceptually difficult architecture, "what if the GPU and the CPU had the same memory?". Good things indeed.
  - izacus 1y ago
    I don't know, but it's primarily very expensive to manufacture and hard to make expandable. You can see people in rage due to soldered RAM in this thread. There's always tradeoffs and people propose many things. Selling those things as a product is another game entirely.
  - yonisto 1y ago
    This how the Amiga worked 40 years ago...
  - numpad0 1y ago
    Faster and bigger SRAM cache is as complicated of a solution as adding moar boosters to your rocket. It works, but expensive. RP2040 uses ~8x more die space as its dual CPU just for the RAM.

heraldgeezer 1y ago

Not really. A laptop CPU defeats the purpose. Get a 9800X3D for gaming will be waaaay faster or Threadripper for productivity or the 9950X3D chips with 16 cores/32 threads. Why this laptop crap when you can get a nice PC case. Then again he thinks the Fractal North was "bulky"? What?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
rs186 1y ago
You completely missed the point. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44853961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44853961
- heraldgeezer 1y ago
  Nice is subjective. Fractal cases he compares to looks nicer to me. Quiet? A real PC with bigger fans = more airflow = quieter Smaller - yes, this is the tradeoff
mkl 1y ago
The 9950X appears in one of the benchmarks in the article, and this machine beats it. It has 16 cores and 32 threads itself. You might want to read more details instead of dismissing it out of ignorance.
- heraldgeezer 1y ago
  okay the new real PC CPUs are better. there.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

politelemon 1y ago

I could do with someone explaining to me (sorry not very advanced knowledge in this area), how did Framework manage this performance at a lower price point? And why can't average Joe at PCPartPicker do something like this?

vaylian 1y ago
The key piece is AMD's high-end AI CPU. The whole desktop is literally built around it, to take full advantage of it. AMD reached out to Framework and said "Hey, we have this new CPU, do you want to do something with it?". And the engineers at Framework jumped at the opportunity.
jychang 1y ago
AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ as the APU (CPU + GPU), and its corresponding soldered LPDDR5X RAM, which has a super fast memory bandwidth of 256GB/sec. So the CPU and RAM are soldered on the motherboard. You can buy just the motherboard from Framework: https://frame.work/products/framework-desktop-mainboard-amd-ryzen-ai-max-300-series?v=FRAFMK0006 https://frame.work/products/framework-desktop-mainboard-amd-...
12345hn6789 1y ago
Real question, it's not. It's close to the m4 mini performance. Which puts the price point within spitting difference ($50). Basically identical price wise to equivalent Apple products.

Archit3ch 1y ago

RDNA 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.

zozbot234 1y ago
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.
- Archit3ch 1y ago
  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?
- bigyabai 1y ago
  The NPU is generally pretty weak and not pipelined into the GPU's logic (which is already quite large on-die). It feels like the past 10 years have taught us that if you're going to create tensor-specific hardware then it makes the most sense to put it in your GPU and not a dark-silicon coprocessor.
- SomeHacker44 1y ago
  I have the HP Zbook G1a running the same CPU and RAM under HP Ubuntu. I have not seen any OOTB way to use the TPU. I can get ROCm software to run but it does not use it. No system tools show its activity that I can see. It seems to be a marketing gimmick. Shame.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

lvl155 1y ago

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.

zozbot234 1y ago
> 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?
Marsymars 1y ago
A desktop-grade chip would nerf the APU and memory bandwidth, and would need a discrete GPU for comparable compute, which is a completely different class of machine. (One which would be, IMO, much less interesting.)
JonChesterfield 1y ago
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.

paolomainardi 1y ago

Is 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.

vaylian 1y ago
> 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.
- 7jjjjjjj 1y ago
  "Device Management" means "hardware-level backdoor."
  - oblio 1y ago
    Only if it's your hardware. If it's corporate hardware, it's their hardware and you're a guest.
- aesh2Xa1 1y ago
  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/ 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 Redfish to configure the hardware itself. Apple devices don't have this. You can also buy hardware to act as a remote keyboard/mouse/monitor and power button, and it supports systems whose motherboards have the right headers: https://pikvm.org/ https://pikvm.org/
  - wtallis 1y ago
    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.

cuu508 1y ago

What 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?

SomeoneOnTheWeb 1y ago
Minisforum 790S7/795S7, mini-ITX desktop. 16 cores, 32 threads, only a bit less powerful than a desktop Ryzen 7950X or a 14900K, but with a comparatively low power usage. About 500€ barebones, then you add your own SSD and SO-DIMM RAM.
- nextos 1y ago
  How is the cooling system on that Minisforum? Is it noisy? Does it keep up with the 7950X?
yencabulator 1y ago
I bought https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um890pro https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um890pro to compile Rust faster than my laptop, with 96 GB RAM and 2x4 TB NVMe as a ZFS mirror. Back before Framework Desktop existed. It has the 8945HS CPU, the article benchmarks against 8745H which is a little bit slower. It's a very worthy price point to consider, tiny and very quiet. qwen3:30b-a3b runs locally at 23.25 tokens/sec. I know 395+ chip would about approximately double that, but I'm not quite willing to put $2000 into that upgrade.
ohdeargodno 1y ago
>My test suite currently runs in ~6 seconds on 9700K Absolutely nothing. 6 seconds is about the time it will take you to tab to your terminal, press up arrow, find your test task and run it. There's no amount of money that makes it go from 6 to 3, and no world in which there's any value to it. In addition, upgrading to a 13900K means you're playing the Intel Dance: sockets have (again) changed, in an (again) incompatible manner. So you're looking at, at the very least, a new CPU, a new motherboard, potentially a new cooler, and if you're going too forward with CPUs, new RAM since Intel's Z890 is not DDR4 compatible (and the Z390 was not DDR5 compatible). Or buying an entire new PC. Since you're behind a socket wall, the reasonable option for an upgrade would rather be a sizeable one, and most likely abandoning Intel to its stupid decisions for a while and instead going for Zen 5 CPUs, which are going to be socket compatible for a good 7 years at least.

pragmatic 1y ago

[flagged]

smithcoin 1y ago
IMHO for a comment of this level of vitriol you should probably cite some sources rather than rely on anecdotal evidence.
dismalaf 1y ago
So what do you use now instead of Rails? And what kind of app?
mixmastamyk 1y ago
Oh no, someone’s an optimist… get him!
christophilus 1y ago
This is the way I make my tech decisions. If a programmer says something I don’t like, especially about a domain completely unrelated to tech, I don’t use their stuff. That’s why I don’t use EMacs, rust, zig, Jai (whenever it’s released), go, JavaScript, neovim, or any OS I don’t personally build from assembly, any digital devices— I’m going to burn this iPhone when I’m done typing. That’ll show them. It’s a tough life, but this way I don’t accidentally appear to support someone who is different from me.

zyx321 1y ago

There'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.

yencabulator 1y ago
> 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.
- zyx321 1y ago
  It's not a fixed split. I don't know if it's possible live, or if it requires a reboot, but it's not hardwired. I want to know if it's possible. 4GB for Linux, a bit of room for the calculations, and then you can load a 122GB model entirely into VRAM. How would that perform in real life? Someone please benchmark it!
  - yencabulator 1y ago
    You're still thinking of the old school thing, where you set the split in the firmware and it's fixed for that boot. There's dynamic allocation on top of it these days. I have that split set at the minimum 2 GB and I'm giving the GPU a 20 GB model to process.
- geerlingguy 1y ago
  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-allocation-on-amd-ai-apus-under-linux https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/increasing-vram-alloc...
  - yencabulator 1y ago

neuroelectron 1y ago

You know it would be a great use for this chip besides AI generative slop? A desktop server with AI-enhanced firewall and a silent home server. This could be effective for zero-days and other weird traffic patterns and maybe even add enterprise-ish email server with spam detection. There has been several projects started that are experimenting with this including Suricata and pfSense. I wonder how well this chip could handle packet inspection.

alt227 1y ago
If you call what AI generates 'slop' then what do you think the quality of firewall rules it generates will be? I dont think any enterprise is going to hand over the keys to its firewall any time soon.
- neuroelectron 1y ago
  You don't understand AI if you think generative AI is the only kind of AI. I specifically said generative AI so please just read my comment before replying.

reactordev 1y ago

>The AMD 395+ uses unified memory, like Apple, so nearly all of it is addressable to be used by the GPU. This is why they went with the “laptop” cpu. While it’s slightly slower than dedicated memory, it allows you to run the big models, at decent token speeds.

nottorp 1y ago
unified and soldered :( I understand it's faster but still... Did they at least do an internal PSU if they went the Apple way or does it come with a power brick twice the size of the case? Edit: wait. They do have an internal PSU! Goodness!
- trostaft 1y ago
  For anyone else curious, they actually have a deep dive on the subject. You can also replace it with another since it's just flexATX, albeit with some requirements. https://community.frame.work/t/framework-desktop-deep-dive-power-supply/69518 https://community.frame.work/t/framework-desktop-deep-dive-p...
- ivape 1y ago
  LPDDR5, it looks like this is the only ram type that is going to work with Ryzen AI chips.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    Framework offers Ryzen AI laptops with replaceable memory.
    - ivape 1y ago
      That ram is slower than soldered down lpddr5 at the moment.
SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
> it allows you to run the big models, at decent token speeds Without CUDA, being an AMD GPU. Big warning depending on the tools you want to use.

aomix 1y ago

I’ve been agonizing over getting the Framework Desktop for weeks as a dev machine/local LLM box/home server. It checks a lot of boxes but the only reason to look at the Framework Desktop over something like a Minisforum MS-A2 is for the LLM and that seems super janky right now. So I guess I’ll wait a beat and see where we are later in the year.

microtonal 1y ago
My main worry about all the Minisforum, Beelink, etc. PCs is: potential lack of UEFI firmware updates (does anyone have experience with how good they are with updates?) and potential backdoors in the UEFI firmware (either intentionally or unintentionally). A China-aligned/sponsored group has made an UEFI rootkit targetting ASUS/Gigabyte mainboards: https://www.spiceworks.com/it-security/vulnerability-management/news/cosmicstrand-uefi-firmware-rootkit/ https://www.spiceworks.com/it-security/vulnerability-managem... Why not require/compel certain companies to implement them directly?
- starkparker 1y ago
  As a Framework 13 owner, their firmware update history isn't that great either.
  - rgrieselhuber 1y ago
    Any more details you can share?
    - NegativeK 1y ago
      https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/looking-at-frameworks-progress-on-software-support-for-its-repairable-laptops/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/looking-at-framework... has a brief writeup. The summary is that Framework was understaffed and has brought in an established third party to help with firmware and driver updates.
- Shadowmist 1y ago

einpoklum 1y ago

I don't really understand Why one should bother with the pluggable ports in something that's not a laptop. Even in 4.5L, shouldn't we just have "all the ports"? Also, this reminds me of "SkyReach Tiny": https://store.nfc-systems.com/products/skyreach-4-tiny https://store.nfc-systems.com/products/skyreach-4-tiny an even smaller case, very versatile. No pluggable gimmicks though.

mixmastamyk 1y ago
Only two on the front. So you get to decide what to put there. Also protects the port. Kind of a gimmick, but could be worse.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
sowbug 1y ago
If you already have a Framework laptop, it's nice to be able to reuse the extra cards that you might have lying around. "Leveraging the benefits of the Framework ecosystem," as a marketing person might say.

lucb1e 1y ago

> 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 days than ×2 actually, but apparently not, also considering that Framework comes with a (totally fair) niche-vendor premium

wmf 1y ago
That's purely due to Apple's ridiculous SSD pricing. You can save a lot of money by using an external SSD.
- cmrdporcupine 1y ago
  Don't forget how Apple rips you off on RAM. Always.
  - rubyn00bie 1y ago
    RAM isn’t cheap but it’s not awful, or as bad as it once was, especially in their laptops. One of the primary things that has kept me from buying a new Apple desktop or laptop is honestly SSD pricing. It’s absolutely ridiculous given how cheap 1TB or 2TB drives are. And generally, in my experience, the ones Apple uses have had subpar performance compared to what’s available for the PC market for less than half the price. Not to mention their base configuration machines usually have subtly crappier SSDs than a tier up. I haven’t bought a new Mac since Apple released the M-series. I’ve wanted to multiple times, but the value just isn’t there for me personally.
- alt227 1y ago
  Except they keep making it harder and harder to install your own drives into apple machines.
  - 1y ago

temptemptemp111 1y ago

[dead]

zargon 1y ago

So DHH fell for Sam’s scam. He tried OSS 20b and wasn’t impressed, and apparently dismisses all local models based on that experience with a known awful model.

arp242 1y ago

I looked at the Framework Desktop a few week ago; mainly to get something that has nicer gaming performance than my laptop's iGPU. I'm not a big gamer really, but as of late I've been wanting to play some things, like The Witcher 3 (saw thread on Reddit celebrating its 10 year anniversary: "that's the new one I still need to play", so that's about how up to date I am with games – some of these "new" games are already classified as "good old game" on gog.com). My take-away was/is that the Framework Desktop is a very nice machine, but it is expensive IMHO. You can get better performance at a lower price by building your own machine; in this article the 9950X scores lower than the Max 395, and I'm not entirely sure that's accurate – that wasn't my take-away at all (don't have links at the ready). This is also what you'd expect when comparing a 55W laptop chip vs. a 170W desktop chip. That said, Linux compatibility is a bit of a pain, for example some MediaTek WiFi/Bluetooth chips that ASUS boards use don't have a Linux driver. In general figuring out what components to get is a bit time-consuming. In one of the videos Nirav mentioned that "just get the Framework Desktop" is so much easer, and 100% agree with that. In the end, I decided to get a USB4/Thunderbold eGPU, which gives me more than enough gaming performance for me and is much cheaper. I already have a laptop that's more than performant enough for my needs, which I got last year mainly due to some idiotic JS build process I had to deal with last year that took forever on my old laptop. On the new machine it's merely "ludicrously slow". Sometimes I think JS people are in cahoots with Intel and/or AMD... For LLM stuff the considerations might be different. I don't care about that so I didn't look into it.

znpy 1y ago

> Linux is really efficient. Especially when you're using a window manager like Hyprland, as we do in Omarchy. Window managers are usually the last issue on modern Linux. Pretty much any native app is okay. Troubles really start (and start fast) when you open any browser and load any modern website. Had we more native applications (so not cloud stuff, and not javascript stuff with a bundled chromium) we'd all have a much better overall computing experience.

babl-yc 1y ago

I was in the market for a Linux desktop machine and considered the Framework Desktop. I respect their mission, but ended up purchasing a Geekom mini PC instead. Given repair isn't practical with soldered DRAM and such, I prioritized small form factor, price, and quick delivery. The Framework Desktop was a much larger form factor, 3x the price, and delivery wasn't for months. That said, I still hope the company is successful so they have more competitive offerings in the future.

focusgroup0 1y ago

I loved my Framework. and yet, Linux is free if your time is free

trelane 1y ago

Wonder how this compares to a Thelio's performance.

syphia 1y ago

> The Framework Desktop with 64GB RAM + 2TB NVMe is $1,876 And it's ~$1000 to build a PC with a similar CPU, somewhat larger form factor, and fans. Unless the AI processor is actually useful for AI, and you need that, this is silly. Framework desktop dimensions are 20.6 x 9.7 x 22.6 LWH. My IM01 case is 37.2 x 18.5 x 28.7. It won't be going in my bag, but it fits nicely on a desktop. Pre-builts are so expensive these days...

khuey 1y ago
The upcharge for decent specs, especially on RAM, is insane. I just checked Dell and upgrading from the base 16GB of RAM to 64GB of RAM on their generic tower costs $450. You can buy 2x32GB DIMMs of the same speed for less than half of that.
vikramkr 1y ago
The memory on chip that's shared between CPU/GPU is the main thing, for AI stuff it's more competing with gpus and apple silicon than comparable CPUs.

alberth 1y ago

Physical Size: Framework: 4.5L (~5.5x larger than Mac Mini) Mac Mini: 0.8L That’s a lot of extra cooling capacity, and sizably larger space it’s taking up.

p0w3n3d 1y ago

Okay so why is the ram non upgradable again? Because this was the main reason I was holding to PC architecture (I'm considering non upgradable ram as a method of upselling for a ridiculous price of higher amounts)

Doxin 1y ago
I assume it's related to the following: > The AMD 395+ uses unified memory, like Apple, so nearly all of it is addressable to be used by the GPU. There's probably some fairly strict timing requirements etc on that. Still it'd be nice if they figured out a way to have swappable RAM.
- p0w3n3d 1y ago
  thanks! Yea, it's easier to ship it with the RAM I guess, but I wonder does the slot make things so much harder? Or maybe they want to enforce some certain producer/sub-protocol

hamandcheese 1y ago

> But so what? Docker is an integral part of the workflow for tons of developers. We use it to be able to run different versions of MySQL, Redis, and ElasticSearch for different applications on the same machine at the same time. You can't really do that without Docker. Nix + Process Compose[0] make a great combo, and runs completely native. [0]: https://github.com/F1bonacc1/process-compose https://github.com/F1bonacc1/process-compose

hk1337 1y ago

The non-upgradable memory seems contradictory to their ideals of DIY and BYO