Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive - Display

[Seneral]

@Adrian_Joachim

I could see someone making a dual occulink expansion bay module for the framework for a really baller egpu setup (minus the hotplug unfortunately) pcie4x8 should not bottleneck at least the next couple generations too much.

But without hotplug the idea of an egpu gets a lot less convenient.

@David_Bristel

For something like an external video card, it still comes down to how fast the interface on the card is. I’d rather see a “external PCIe x16” connection that isn’t Thunderbolt, but is designed where you can potentially feed a display back to the internal display in a laptop or a “video in” option on a laptop screen.

@Krisztian_Vasas

Is there any chanche for the expansion slot to be a 2nd battery for traveling , and an Pcie X16 slot to connect desktop gpu-s to it?

Got progress over in this thread and also this.
I made a dual OCuLink 4i + DisplayPort in card here, and there’s also a OCuLink 8i + DP design. Hopefully able to get a battery charge controller on there to for an optional additional battery (though a dedicated battery design would be able to fit a slightly bigger battery)

@John

There’s an essential issue that I haven’t seen mentioned yet: In the Framework 16 AMD, are the external monitor ports via the iGPU or the dGPU - or both? And which are connected to which? This is essential for people wanting to pass the more powerful GPU (Nvidia) through nicely. So the iGPU would be with the host and dGPU is passed through.

In case you haven’t found the answer yet, the internal display can be driven directly by means of the DisplayPort input (and a MUX afaik), the outputs on the laptop itself are sadly only driven by the iGPU. However, the dGPU has a USB-C port on the back with DP-alt Mode support, so you’d have to get an external dongle. I assume you could drive a few displays over that single USB-C port. Sadly no full size DP or HDMI, maybe because of space reasons, idk