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I understand their reasoning but it’s still a shame Framework opted for a proprietary motherboard instead of mini-ITX with a socket CPU and GPU. I value repaira
by artisinal 3mo ago
I understand their reasoning but it’s still a shame Framework opted for a proprietary motherboard instead of mini-ITX with a socket CPU and GPU. I value repairability over a little bit of extra performance.
- culopatin 3mo agoWhat’s stopping you from building that yourself instead of having to go through Framework?
- delfinom 3mo agoFramework is going for a computer OEM market where they need to make margin, hence the soldered-on components and relatively limited options. People in the pre-built computer market overwhelmingly don't care about replaceable components, because anyone else will just buy components and build a PC, for both the greater market of options AND overall lower price than buying pre-built (if they don't overspec).
- throwuxiytayq 3mo agoYou literally can't make this machine without soldered components. You don't understand this computer's design goals. It's been 1.5 years since they announced the Framework Desktop. I don't get how people are still confused about this.
- DHowett 3mo agoBased on the product spec sheet[1] it appears that the Framework Desktop motherboard is mini-ITX, and that the chassis is[2] as well. It’s fully possible that I’ve missed something, but it doesn’t appear to be proprietary to me. [1]: https://frame.work/desktop?tab=specs https://frame.work/desktop?tab=specs [2]: https://frame.work/products/desktop-case https://frame.work/products/desktop-case
- artisinal 3mo agoI’m unable to pass the human test on those links but if it’s true mini-ITX including standardized USB and IO headers that’s pretty cool!
- nrp 3mo agoThis is correct, we used a standard Mini-ITX form factor, and we've seen a number of customers pick up just the Mainboard and drop it into standard ATX cases. The power supply is also a standard FlexATX PSU.
- pdpi 3mo agoWhat do you mean? The whole point is that these APUs present a pretty unique value proposition (lowish performance GPUs with massive amounts of RAM attached), and framework is afaik the only vendor shipping them on standard mini-ITX boards
- artisinal 3mo agoAnd the whole point of Framework is to have great repairability on their products, better than the competition even. Shipping products with soldered RAM and CPU goes against that ethos.
- xingped 3mo agoIIRC, Framework did ask AMD to explore a more repairable approach with socketable CPU and RAM for these chips and they did but came back and said it wouldn't perform well enough that way.
- eigenspace 3mo agoIt's not really about performance, it's about signal integrity. AMD said that even with LPCAMM2, you just wouldn't be able to send a clean enough signal from all these different memory channels to the chip, and they insisted on a soldered design because they just couldn't make anything else work. Technically it's not wrong to say it's about performance in the sense that if you clocked the RAM slow enough you probably could maintain signal integrity, but we're not talking some small hit to performance here, it'd probably be more like a multi-generational drop in memory bandwidth.
- artisinal 3mo agoAnd that is where Framework should have stepped in and said “we as a company value repairability, so we will take the performance hit to make the product easier to repair”
- eigenspace 3mo agoIt doesn't work that way. AMD said they simply couldn't do it. It wasn't about taking some modest performance hit, it was that they couldn't make the chip function with modular memory due to signal integrity problems.
- artisinal 3mo agoThen why not pick a CPU that is socketable? There are dozens of them on the market that Framework could have picked for their Desktop product.
- eigenspace 3mo agoNone of them have something even close to the memory bandwidth or integrated GPU performance of the Ryzen AI Max processors. They want a Apple M_ Max like machine.
- tristor 3mo agoThere is no socketable Unified Memory platform. The entire point of this SoC is that it has Unified Memory. The Framework Desktop has a Mini-ITX board, but you MUST use a solderable SoC with HBM stacked memory to get a Unified Memory outcome. For local AI workloads, that's the only part that matters, which is the entire point of wanting 192GB of RAM available on an APU. I like the repairability and modularity of my Framework 13 laptop, and I still bought a maxed out MBP M5 Max because for local LLM, unified memory is all that matters.
- artisinal 3mo agoIf this CPU is not socketable by design, why not pick a CPU that is? There are plenty of options. Repairability is more important than raw speed. That is why people pick Framework. It’s not the best machine at everything but it’s easy to repair.
- tristor 3mo agoYou fundamentally cannot do things on the system you are envisioning that you can do on a Framework Desktop, or DGX Spark, or MBP M5 Max. Simple as that. Repairable modular laptops were a fairly rare thing when Framework came out. A repairable modular desktop is just a normal desktop computer. A desktop computer in a compact form factor that can run AI workloads though is a much rarer thing.
- artisinal 3mo agoMy computer with socketed CPU had no issues being a computer. It’s so strange for Framework to make a machine you can’t repair. It’s the Framework Desktop. Why not create the best possible repairable Desktop instead of using some niche CPU soldered to the board? Not everyone has AI workloads. Some people just browse the web a little.
- tristor 3mo agoCan it run a local LLM with 35B+ parameters using GPU acceleration for reasonable token performance? If not, then you're being obtuse.