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

[Gargaj]

@Lucas_Lindfors

@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.

I think they had a photo of them in their presentation on Thursday though; my concern is more that they might have been better off leaving off a photo instead of putting one there that’s clearly not it.

[nadb]

@Karol_Hennessy1

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).

The AMD chips have better ppower efficiency and battery life. Also the graphics are better. I got an i7-1260p, I will wait for 14th or 15th gen Intel to upgrade. The AMD chips must use DDR5, Intel can use either depending on the board. Framework stuck with DDR4 in this case because of prior sales/backward compatibility i.e. doing their customers a favor. Intel also has Thunderbolt.

I buy whatever fits my need. I have AMD in my Gaming Desktop, I thought about it for a laptop but Thunderbolt fits those workflows better. So I am stuck with Intel on my laptop. The differences between the 13th gen Intel board and the AMD board are a prime exmaple of why Thunderbolt does matter.

[Redsmeg68]

what are the comparison benchmarks AMD v intel 13th gen ?

[Shiroudan]

@Redsmeg68

what are the comparison benchmarks AMD v intel 13th gen ?

Unknown at the time, although it is expected that AMD will do better in both single core and multi-core to my understanding.

[Richard_Lee1]

As a-ron mentioned already, I’d love for ECC memory support (unbuffered, of course). I’ve already pre-ordered 13 Ryzen-7 DIY Edition, and intentionally avoided buying SO-DIMMs with it. I’ll be disappointed if Framework decides to not support ECC memory, but it won’t stop me from buying the laptop anyway. However, I’d love to know if it will work with ECC U-SODIMMs anyway, because, I’d rather NOT buy any non-ECC memory modules, to keep my options open in the future. If the board doesn’t even have traces for the parity pins, I assume it’ll just work and no one will be wiser. But I don’t know for sure. So I’d like some sort of statement on this topic.

1. Awesome: Yes, ECC U(SO)DIMMs will be supported in full.
2. I can live with: ECC U(SO)DIMMs will work, but ECC bits will not be used.
3. Sad: ECC U(SO)DIMMs won’t work.at all.

[Blair]

Sounds like we won’t know the status of eGPU on the Ryzen boards until AMD’s reveal?

[kairoku_suen]

Any reason why the battery and cpu are linked and cannot be chosen separately? Id like the Ryzen 5 and the 61wh battery.

[nasi]

@Charles_Hill

even though I really want DDR5 and PCIe v5 for the speed. I’ve been drooling over the PCIe v5 SSD specs.

Unfortunately there will be no PCIe 5.0 for Ryzen 7040 series, only for Ryzen 7045HX. AMD changed their promise: Computerbase (german)
But at the moment the few available PCIe-5.0-SSDs are quite power hungry and need good cooling for full speed so they aren’t a good choice for a laptop anyway.

[Hugo_Gonzalez]

Im so sad… I finally convinced my SO to let me preorder the Ryzen 5 option but now it is not availble…

[Hugo_Gonzalez]

Oh my bad forgot to mention I was talking about the AMD mainboard. I have 11th gen framework. Batch 3.

[lhl]

@Karol_Hennessy1

If anything the AMD chips seem to need more power and will run down the battery faster (based on TDP anyway).

In practice, that’s not the case. Since there are multiple manufacturers that have been making thin and light laptops w/ Intel and AMD options in the same chassis, we can see the differences in standardized testing. I linked to the reviews a while back here: AMD CPU's, An Open Letter to the Framework Team - #69 by lhl

In summary:

• for the HP 14" Elitebooks with flagship parts, the AMD version had +23% battery runtime and +23% overall performance vs the Intel counterpart.
• for the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s, despite the Intel part being a nominally “15W TDP” and the AMD being a “28 TDP” part, the AMD version had a +35% battery runtime.

These are pretty huge differences - like a multi-generational gap. While the 7040s haven’t been reviewed yet, AMD claims even better battery life for the 7000 vs 6000 series (makes sense considering Zen 4 has better IPC than Zen 3, and that the 7000 moves from 6nm to 4nm). In comparison, the first reviews of Intel 13th gen P chips have come out and it’s not looking great - the Yoga 9 1360P looks like it has a 16% worse battery runtime than the 1260P version (with only an +8% performance boost and no updates to graphics).

[Karol_Hennessy1]

@anon81945988 @Charles_Hill @nadb @lhl thanks for your responses. I look forward to the first reviews and comparisons.

[Bumblebee]

@Charles_Hill

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

Thunterbold 4 is basically just “USB4 with all optional modes enabled”! Hence, if Framework implements all modes defined by the USB4 standard, you could still use Thunderbold hardware on a Ryzen USB4 port.

[Bumblebee]

@ayhcheung

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?

From what I saw in the Framework discord, the Ryzen 7040U models only support up to two USB4 ports natively.

[Tony_White]

Framework is just so packed with to much awesomeness I can barely contain myself in waiting for this Framework 16 AMD version. With all Framework allows us to develop along-side open source architecture I cant wait for Frore’s AirJet Solid State chip cooling to come out. I bet as soon as these get sold that people will be preplacing the CPU/GPU fans with these.

Solid State Active Cooling Could Revolutionize Thermals

Man I cant wait for the AMD 4070’s to come out. I’m so freak’in stoked! If this goes the way I think it is then I may get my Corporation to drop their buggy-arss DELL’s for Framework seeing as we have multiple departments, Inside/outside sales, warehouse, ect…
Just buy the base unit and configure in-house as needed instead of ordering batches of DELL every couple of years.

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS TECH, do not sell-out to ANYONE. I think Framework may possibly put the kibosh on much of the industries laptop makers.

[Jeff_the_man]

@Hugo_Gonzalez It looks like they opened up batch 2 of the amd mainboards in case you’re still interested.

[ajd]

@Hugo_Gonzalez

Im so sad… I finally convinced my SO to let me preorder the Ryzen 5 option but now it is not availble…

Check now, preorders for Batch 2 of the Ryzen 5 board seem to be available! I was in the same boat as you, though I simply was on edge about ordering for batch 1.

[Bluto]

I just placed my order. It is in the (late) Q3 Batch.

My current 12th Gen Intel is great. But I do need a hot backup. The old Dell Latitude that is my current backup will be handed off to someone who needs one.

I struggled with wanting a 16", but the 13" footprint is just too nice for portability. I just switch workspaces to get more screen.

I have looked at many, many options for a hot backup, other than Framework. But the truth is that I love 3 things about Framework:

1. The basic philosophy of upgradeability / expandability
2. The ability to choose what ports and where they go
3. Out of the box Linux support (often dubious for a random new laptop)

Framework is how I rid myself of the Apple/Mac ecosystem. I switched cold turkey over a long weekend, and I have zero regrets. My workflows and development environment are much better now that I am 100% Linux all the time.

[Jhonnatan_borja]

i gonna stay with my 12 gen for now even if i would like the amd
maybe i will wait for the 14 gen

[dimitris]

@Bluto

But I do need a hot backup

So do I. Since my current machine is 11 gen, the RTC issue becomes paramount if I were to switch it to backup role; It would have to stay unplugged for extended periods.

The day FW announces the right fix for this is the day I happily hand over my money for a new AMD machine and get in line/pay to send my 11 gen board in for the fix.