13th Gen Intel® Core™ and AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series join the Framework Laptop 13 family

Today, we’re introducing a major set of upgrades to the Framework Laptop spanning two new models - the Framework Laptop 13 (13th Gen Intel® Core™) and the Framework Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series). We’ve not only scaled up performance and enabled an AMD-powered version for the first time, but we’ve also delivered refinements to the day-to-day user experience with a higher capacity battery, matte display, louder speakers, and more ridgid hinges.

The Framework Laptop 13 (13th Gen Intel® Core™) and Framework Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series) are now available for pre-order in all countries we currently ship to: US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, Australia. First shipments for 13th Gen Intel® Core™ systems are in May, and AMD Ryzen systems will ship in Q3. We’ll be launching in Belgium, Italy, Spain and Taiwan later this year, and you can sign up for our newsletter to be notified when we are available in these and other countries. Like before, we’re using a batch pre-order system, with only a fully-refundable $100/€100/£100 deposit required at the time of pre-order. As always, we have both pre-built configurations starting at $1049 USD that work out of the box with Windows 11 and the Framework Laptop DIY Edition starting at $849 USD, allowing you to bring your own memory, storage, and operating system, including Linux. You’ll also now be able to select your Bezel color and Keyboard on DIY Edition when ordering, with a range of new Bezel colors coming this year.

In keeping with our product philosophy of designing for longevity, all of the upgraded modules are compatible with existing Framework Laptops. Mainboards with 13th Gen Intel® Core™ and the Mainboard Kit with AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series processors are available for pre-order today with a fully-refundable $100/€100/£100 deposit and shipments beginning in May. For the other new modules, you can sign up to get notified as they become available in the Framework Marketplace.

System upgrades

As we planned the latest set of upgrades, we carefully studied the feedback that all of you have provided around the Framework Laptop over the last two years. We focused on improving the lived experience everywhere we could.

We’ve developed a higher capacity 61Wh battery that is compatible with all existing Framework Laptops via a firmware update that we’ll be launching this spring. The new Battery - 61Wh is the same form factor as the original battery, and achieves 11% greater capacity through advancements in lithium ion chemistry. We’ve kept our focus on longevity too, with 80% capacity typically available after 1,000 cycles of use.

We’ve also refined the display; the Display Kit - Matte maintains the same resolution, color gamut, contrast, and brightness of the original display, but with a matte top layer that lets you work better in a wide range of lighting conditions. The new Hinge Kit (2nd Gen) - 3.5kg increases screen stability with a force profile that’s easy to open with one hand and keep secure at your desired angle. Both of these items are now available for waitlisting in the Framework Marketplace.

We have also integrated our Speaker Kit - 80dB into the Framework Laptop 13 (13th Gen Intel® Core™) for increased loudness. For the Framework Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series) we’re tuning the audio circuitry to achieve both loudness and fidelity with the original Speaker Kit.

Key components by processor

components

Mainboard performance

The 13th Gen Intel Core processors have incredible performance with both 4 or 6 Performance Cores with Hyper-Threading and 8 Efficiency Cores. This means that the top version we offer, the i7-1370P, has an incredible 14 CPU cores and 20 threads. The total solution offers both performance and efficiency improvements over the last generation. Between the new processor, higher capacity battery, and firmware optimizations we’ve made, you can expect to see 20-30% battery life improvement across a range of real world use cases in both Windows and Linux.

For the AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series processors, we’ll be sharing more detailed specifications as we get closer to shipment.

Optimized for Linux

We continue to focus on solid Linux support, and we’re happy to share that Fedora 38 and Ubuntu 22.04 will work fantastically out of the box for both the 13th Gen Intel® Core™ and AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series models. We have thorough setup and troubleshooting guides and will continue to provide official support for these two distributions. Manjaro XFCE 22.0 and Linux Mint 21.1 are also working great, and we’re detailing the documentation for those as well. You can check compatibility with popular distros as we continue to test them on our Linux page or in the Framework Community.

Module re-use

Finally, we want to ensure that as we release all of these great updates, that we’re not encouraging the generation of e-waste through upgrade behavior. To address this, last year we released open source design documentation and a 3D printable case for the Mainboard. This year, we’re going even further by partnering with Cooler Master on the new Cooler Master Mainboard Case. This is a small form factor case that can turn a Framework Laptop Mainboard into a minimal PC. It’s available this spring for $39 USD, and includes both a stand and VESA mount capabilities. We’ve also launched open source documentation around the display and battery modules to encourage and enable development of products that re-use those.

We’re happy to continue to live up to the promise of longevity and upgradeability with the new modules and upgrades we’re launching this year, on top of continuing to deliver a great core product experience with the Framework Laptop. Now with two great processor options, the choice is yours!

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Pre-ordering an AMD board as we speak, and so excited to see the 16"!

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I wonder what would be the max RAM supported by the AMD version.
Sure 64GB RAM is already plentiful, but just curious as the max for the CPUs themselves seems to be 256GB.

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Super excited for these! Congrats to the framework team for this awesome announcement. Think I might pull the trigger on one of the Ryzen main boards.

Any idea if the Ryzen APUs will support Thunderbolt displays @Framework ? Say with an LG 38wn95c?

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Please offer ECC-capable mainboards. The Xeon brand has been retired from Intel’s mobile lineup, so ECC support is now found on the Core i5-13600HX, i7-13850HX, and i9-13950HX SKUs. ECC is allegedy also supported on Ryzen 7 mobile chips if enabled in firmware. Your target audience is desperate for reliable equipment:

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Will the AMD mainboards support thunderbolt specs over the two USB4 ports? I’m currently using an eGPU on my current framework and want to know if it will be able to still be used after the upgrade.

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Yeah what an absolute luck to buy a laptop days before the new models were announced and price was dropped :smiling_face_with_tear:
Anyways pleased to see your growth, keep it up

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I’m a bit confused by “Key components by processor” table

I thought user will be able to choose the screen for glossy or matte. Also I thought all new laptop will get 61wh battery

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Does the new 13th Gen i7-1370P motherboard support PCIe v5 or is it still v4? I see we stuck with DDR4, and DDR5 RAM is only available with the Ryzen motherboard.

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Am I the only one who thinks it’s absolute bonkers :exploding_head: to pay $50 EXTRA for a bezel? AND $100 EXTRA for the keyboard now?
Both of these things should absolutely be already included in the base price. I might be wrong, but I think it was already in both previous gen models?

They can’t be serious… :angry:
Is Framework trying to build an inclusive community or an exclusive club only for aficionados with money to spare? :man_shrugging:t4:

That maximum secrecy policy before launch, with no public roadmap, no launch dates, is only good for the company. How much money you end up having to spend is your problem and their best solution. :roll_eyes: Ridiculous.

Even if they’re thinking about motherboard upgrades, those old boards aren’t gonna work without their own memory sticks…
Makes no sense to keep DDR4 for 13th gen processors. DDR5 has dropped in price quite a lot by 2023 (and will drop even more by the end of the year).

I think Framework has been swimming in a kiddie pool and thinking it’s just like the ocean.
It could still go in the ocean, if it wanted; there’s no shame in not going past the waves.
But it persists on catering exclusively to the same group of people, with no intentions of competing in the real market. It’s a shame.

For what it’s worth, they did post about their Next Level event several weeks ago (2023-03-09):

Usually when companies pre-announce these sorts of keynote events, it means they are launching new things. It’s worth waiting to place an order to see what they announce, in case it affects your decision. :woman_shrugging:

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But It is included in the base price.
For example, the base price for AMD DIY is “starting at €979.00”, and this is exactly the price you get by selecting Ryzen 5, black bezel, and US Englisk keyboard (and without RAM or SSD).

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None of these are “extra” as they are included in the price. It’s just breaking them out into their individual prices in the configurator. If you select the bezel of your choice, and the input cover language, it adds up to the “starting at” price on the previous page. Again, this is not extra.

Before getting upset, typing in all CAPS and bolding things, I politely ask that we have civilized conversations around requiring clarity on any information that’s been posted. No mistake was made here on our side, but we’re happy to discuss how to make things more clear if necessary.

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I see that the AMD mainboard has USB4 on the rear two ports, USB3.2/DP on one, and USB3.2 (no DP) on another. Can someone @Framework give us a technical explanation for why that is?

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The matte display is described as having the same color gamut, contrast, and brightness.

But does that mean it is the same display, with a matte coating (and thus not a significant upgrade over a glossy display with a well-applied matte screen protector), or does it mean that the display itself is better, in order to have the same contrast/brightness/gamut as the glossy display despite the additional matte coating?

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I guess there aren’t any photos of the AMD mainboard yet? :slight_smile:

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@Gargaj The lack of photos is likely due to AMD, as they have not yet released information on the SKUs used in the Framework boards. As such, Framework won’t be able to provide said info until given the green light by AMD.

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Oh my bad I thought user can configure everything with for base price. I can buy extra stuff like battery or screen myself. Just saw the verge article about it.

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I recently bought a Gen 12 i5 framework, and I’m quite happy with it so far. The battery performance could be better but I can live with it. Maybe I’ll get a bigger battery at some point but a ~13% increase in capacity is not going to do wonders.

Could someone explain the fervour for AMD? Is it mostly just better for gaming or people just have their preferences. I’m not changing the mobo - I don’t need loads of power. I’m just interested why the community is so keen when the performance looks similar between the two platforms. If anything the AMD chips seem to need more power and will run down the battery faster (based on TDP anyway).

What would interest me in the long run is if the firmware is running coreboot. Framework -care to share any details on the BIOS for the new boards?

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A lot of that is just standard computer holy wars stuff. Favorite Linux distro, Mac vs PC, vi vs emacs, and God help you if you indent code differently. :slight_smile: There are some notable differences between Intel and AMD, which start to show in the latest generation of chips with Intel’s P and E cores. AMD doesn’t do big/little and all of their CPU cores are “Performance” – just like computers have been since the introduction of multi-core architectures.

Intel, with their 12th Gen chips, introduced “Efficiency” cores. They are physically smaller than P cores (1:2), don’t support hyper-threading (only one thread per core) and use less power, hence the “Efficiency” name. They’re great for handling background tasks that don’t need a lot of CPU, while P cores can focus on foreground tasks. Does it really matter in the real world of DESKTOP computing and not just synthetic benchmarks? :man_shrugging:

The other difference is Thunderbolt 4 support. While the AMD has USB 4.0, I believe that is a 20 GB/s spec vs the 40 GB/s of TB4. PC World explains all the differences in this excellent article with charts. As I have a Thunderbolt 4 dock, there’s no way I’d switch to AMD Ryzen – even though I really want DDR5 and PCIe v5 for the speed. I’ve been drooling over the PCIe v5 SSD specs.

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