I would love a Ryzen U-series board; one of the weird quirks of my Framework is the tendency for the CPU to suddenly & randomly ramp up to 100% and blow like a jet engine for no apparent reason. Ryzen’s better power efficiency should also help with battery life. It’d be an instant upgrade for me, but I’m seeing this entirely from a consumer perspective, but I think there are issues from the manufacturer side:
- AMD has a limited wafer allocation from TSMC. Lenovo and ASUS will probably buy up whatever laptop chips they have rather than allocating it to a small fry like Framework.
- It takes time and resources to develop a mainboard/cooling for a laptop; unlike a desktop, where everything is modular, the constrained spaces of a laptop requires much more engineering. I’m not sure either Framework has the resources to develop that, or if it’s worth it from AMD’s perspective.
- From Framework’s perspective, an additional SKU means more support costs - supply, logistics, labor, etc.
The best reason for AMD to support Framework is that, while small, their customer base is overwhelmingly made up of enthusiasts. The only people who have even heard of Framework, let alone spent thousands on their products, are the enthusiasts. The best reason for Framework to spend resources developing an AMD board is those same enthusiasts now gravitate towards Ryzen. I’d personally upgrade immediately, and I hardly think I’m alone.