Hi all, I think this project is amazing on many points of view, but for now the only Intel option is a deal breaker for me.
Ryzen 5000 anytime soon?
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I would also like an AMD option but being ‘stuck’ with Intel wont be a deal breaker for me.
I would like to see a notebook with graphic stickers showing a circle & slash over the typical Intel / Window claims. IE no Intel inside, no Windows inside.
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INTEL processors have been getting ripped to pieces with the meltdown/spectre vulnerabilities & variants
AMD processors are far less vulnerable to these game changing attacks, have far less public vulnerabilities then INTEL’s, dont have CEO’s dumping stock when shit hits the fan, design generally more secure architecture and better performant onboard graphics.
How can frame_work promote a DIY laptop with the customer being restricted to one motherboard cpu architecture only, it just seems too restrictive, which is a huge shame as such a great idea.
Will look again in future when AMD becomes an option.
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Another vote for an AMD Ryzen processor please!
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Unfortunately, in many cases even the big OEMs’ Ryzen models are vaporware given the current industry landscape.
Hopefully once Framework has shipped the Tiger Lake models and established itself, supply on the AMD side will be more favorable.
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Besides what what you guys said, I think the one of the main reasons we have intel may actually be due to the expansion cards. In Adam Savage’s Video the ceo mentions that’s one of the reasons they chose tiger lake.
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AMD all the way guys !!
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“DIY Laptop” is the best part of the concept as this give a choice to User what’s the “parts” they want to assemble in just like the Desktop. 
As long there’s options for us to choose the Processor that we want to build & the price is reasonable, I’m ok for this, although current Intel Processor really “milking” us the money & AMD really catching up a lot, who know suddenly Intel return & take back their Throne. 
It’s hard to satisfy all different user as they have different needs or opinions whether Intel or AMD (even for ARM, RISC-V etc) processor, there’s always “somebody” need “something”.
But don’t let the brand of the processor spoil the fun of DIY. 
Let hope Framework established itself on this first DIY Laptop design so that in future they can come up more design & option.
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my guess is possible thunderbolt.
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+1 for a RISC-V laptop, not that I’m holding my breath.
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The back end of the port modules they use is thunderbolt 4… well kinda, it hasn’t been certified yet, but it is thunderbolt4. I have not seen an AMD laptop support thunderbolt4 or even USB4 yet. this is likely the reason for the Intel choice.
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AMD and Thunderbolt exists, dont know how practical the choice is though.
All computers and servers I buy now are AMD ones, Thinkpad creates Ryzen ones. I would really like to have an 8 core AMD CPU in my Framework laptop…
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they exist on the desktop side yes, but I’ve never seen an AMD equipped laptop that also has thunderbolt.
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AMD Ryzen CPUs support ECC memory and support for ECC memory in a laptop would be a killer feature.
It’s something that’s not used a lot because Intel locks ECC option in non Xeon CPUs but I believe it would be something that would make this laptop stand out.
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OK, some really good points made so far. From a purely technical side I agree completely, AMD is the way to go, and I would have absolutely picked an AMD option had it been offered without hesitation. That said, based on everything said I’ve got some guesses on why they went with Intel.
First, you have to remember that framework has probably been in the works for years at this point, this isn’t the sort of thing that just crops up over night. That in turn means that the decisions on core things like the first motherboard were made years ago. Yes AMD is dominating Intel across the board today but say 5 years ago that was very much not the case, particularly in mobile. It’s only with the very latest APU releases that AMDs mobile CPUs are starting to really compete with Intels.
Second, the choice wasn’t just if they use a Intel CPU or an AMD CPU, it was who do they work with to design their motherboard. A small company like framework probably (this is guess work, but everything seems to point this way) relied heavily on Intel to provide a lot of the design of the motherboard including such key parts as the USB controller which for the design of the framework laptop is even more critical than most other laptops. Going with Intel was most likely the fastest and easiest way to achieve thunderbolt level speeds which they absolutely needed in order to make the framework design work. Had they partnered with AMD they would potentially not only have needed to do more of that work themselves, but they also would have been facing an uphill battle trying to get thunderbolt (something Intel has a stranglehold over) working on an AMD designed motherboard. By partnering with Intel they had a much better chance of getting technical support for any issues they ran into while trying to get thunderbolt working.
So the question is when will we see an AMD framework laptop? Well, first the company has to survive the near term. I’m not sure how many actual sales they’ve made, and this particular time is a really rough time to be launching anything let alone a laptop company. We’re in something of a recession (thankfully looking to be much smaller than it seemed like it might have been), but even more critically there has been an across the board breakdown in shipping which in turn has lead to a collapse of manufacturing world wide. That has been most keenly felt in the semiconductor industry with the “silicon shortage” impacting essentially everyone. As a customer myself I’m really hopeful that they’re actually doing really well and the companies future is already secured, but we just don’t know how it’s going to pan out, and likely won’t have even a clue until the first waves of framework laptops are in peoples hands and reviews start to go out. Assuming things go well however, framework potentially could already be in talks with AMD to design an AMD based motherboard, or possibly will be in the near future. Since they’ve already got all the thunderbolt kinks worked out with the current Intel motherboard ideally that should allow them to do the same on an AMD chipset (maybe, this is speculation, there could still be significant hurdles to doing so).
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Upvote here as well. Ticks all boxes except the Ryzen CPU for me.
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I would love to see Ryzen in it like the next guy… but how does ryzen power profile look in laptops… I have not seen many ‘hypermiling’ on it… yes a laptop should be snappy but first and foremost it should not drain its battery at a stupid rate.
Yes intel makes trash indeed… but they have been in laptops for a decade while AMD was nowhere and I am a bit unsure about their power consumption.
Yes! Would love an AMD option. The battery life differences are better than Intel at the moment for laptops.
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Afaik from reviews of laptops like Zephyrus it is doing very well on the battery front. Of course, that laptop is just too game-y for me.
Also in terms of performance for all my workloads from dev to things like occasional Blender stuff, more cores beat possibly the slightly higher single-core performance of Intel (if that is even the case).
Again for me framework laptop ticks all boxes:
- 3:2 (would potentially settle for at least 16:10) display is awesome for productivity for me. I am absolutely willing or maybe even preferring to go FHD here as the ratio is much more important to me than resolution (I see 4k as a battery drain more than anything on such a small displays)
- the form factor of laptop + not a gaming RGB LED everywhere alienz design
- high build quality (according to reviews I’ve seen on youtube the chassis of framework laptop is very rigid despite being made upgradable - good job here guys)
- at least 32 GB RAM
- works with Linux (some need for tinkering accepted until distros update etc.)
The only thing keeping me from instantly press that buy button is the Ryzen CPU option.
That being said I would probably consider anything but Intel. E.g. if ARM alternative with reasonable performance (think M1x equivalent or at least runner-up) comes out first I would instant buy it as well (providing it works with Linux).
Unfortunately for me, it is quite hard to find one currently that does tick all those boxes 
no matter the price point.
Personally I think a lot of you are getting hung up on a CPU brand over the underlying concept. Is AMD great yes I have them in my stuff. However Intel has more resources to help create this product. Not to mention has anyone actually attempted to purchase and AMD CPU lately? Up until like a month ago they were very difficult to get them unless you like Newegg shuffles. Intel has had more product availability due to their supply chains not falling apart under covid and water shortages. They had to build something that was readily available and easy to secure. I imagine getting AMD to hand a small company a load of CPU chips right now is no easy task. However getting hung up on the processor is absurd when both brands have good performance. The point of this device is upgradability and the ability to repair it. They already said they will still upgrade boards in the future so that should ease anyone’s panic of not having AMD. In the future once the company gets some traction you might be able to buy a AMD upgrade for your device. But if everyone wrings their hands of the company just because they didn’t include AMD then that’s on you when they don’t have the sales to even attempt a AMD laptop.
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