AMD CPUs please

I hope AMD lower market share than Intel does not discourage Framework

Another vote for AMD, is it in the works?

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Does Zen 4 support USB 4/Thunderbolt? I believe that is a requirement for the modular dongles.

Yes it does. USB4 at least.

Thunderbolt is a proprietary Intel technology. So any system not using an Intel CPU needs and extra chip on the board and that costs extra money.

@agentcrm both Apple and Intel

You’re comparing an AMD CPU that’s a 45 watt unit compared to a 28 watt Intel in the Framework laptops.
It’s not exactly surprising there’s a performance difference. Even if they where the same brand, doubling the TDP allowance would make a big difference in performance.

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USB4 is based on thunderbolt, and thunderbolt is now royalty free and anybody can use it.

It is not Intel/Apple only, and there would be nothing stopping the release of an AMD Framework laptop.

I’m pretty sure Framework would love to partner with AMD. It just has to be worthwhile for AMD to partner with Framework. Manufacturing allocation needs to benefit AMD and the only way for that to be profitable is through volume.

The more people want and use Framework PC’s, the more likely AMD will jump on board.

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Get on that, Linus! Chop chop!

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OK, skip straight to the upcoming 6000 series please - those look awesome!

Edit: Seriously thinking once they have AMD I’ll be able to replace all my compay’s laptops with Framework over time to greatly reduce the e-waste of 3-4 year old PCs. It’s only 25 sales at the moment, but we intent to grow much further so happy to boost sales as we do!

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having a Ryzen 6800U would be perfect. And USB4 is also supported.

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The problem is: the Microsoft Pluton in the new AMD is quite controversial to the Linux users and it seems like Apple T2 security chip

At least it’s in the right TDP range, so it’s possible to fit the cooling into the chassis.

With Yesterday’s announcements by AMD, I think it would be fantastic for Framework to reach out to AMD and discuss how “AMD Advantage” can help put together a Framework Laptop.

This could very well be a match made in heaven

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My Framework is on order (Feb delivery), but if there is ever the option in future to replace the motherboard for one containing an AMD 6000 series APU, that’s an insta-buy for me.

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But AMD and Intel already had security processors in their processors. So we’re just switching a black box for a Microsoft black box. Pretty sure nobody wants the black box but it’s not like we had an option.

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That is true, but sort of glosses over the concerns that Linux users have with this new security chip. Intel and AMD black box security chips have no financial reason to prevent booting Linux. And so it isn’t a problem. If Linux ever became competitive with Windows on the desktop there would be a financial incentive for Microsoft to prevent Linux from booting or at least making it a chore to let Linux boot on their security chip.

And if you think that this is a ridiculous idea then you haven’t gone through the hoops to boot Linux on a MacBook with a T2 security chip or even worse tried to get Ashai Linux working on the M1. Is it technically possible? Yes. Does specifically the Apple security chip make it significantly more difficult? Also yes. Linux users don’t want that on their AMD systems too.

I was gifted a Surface Go my aunt wasn’t using for Christmas. Given that she bought the entry model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB eMMC storage, I thought Linux would be perfect. My friends it was anything but perfect. Everything was broken. Aspect ratio, WiFi, even just getting Ubuntu to boot was a chore since there was no option to press a function key or any button for that matter to open boot options and setting to boot from USB only seems to function properly when its a Microsoft bootloader :face_with_monocle:

All this is to say, yeah I believe you

From my understanding the TL;DR: of all of that is that basically you can make a device that is Thunderbolt 3 or 4 in all but name (which is what it looks like Framework actually did), you’re just not allowed to actually call it Thunderbolt until it has passed Intel certification.

As for the Thunderbolt 4 spec, that’s a little complicated. My understanding from my reading is that TB4 is basically just TB3 + USB4, but since the USB4 standard is a superset of TB3 even that is a bit redundant. Reading between the lines a little, it seems like TB4 is really just USB4 with some extra certification requirements added on top that forces devices claiming to be TB4 to implement a number of things that are considered optional under the USB4 specification (the only really tricky one being that TB4 requires DMA protection be implemented by the host). To make things even more complicated, USB in general is something of a mess feature and naming wise, with USB4 basically being USB 3.2 gen 2 + support for some new encodings. Electrically I don’t think there’s any difference between USB 4 and the latest generation of USB 3.2, but supporting the higher data transfer rates required by USB4 might depending on the device require hardware changes.

TL;DR: With the exception of the DMA protection requirement that TB4 mandates for certification I don’t see any reason why AMD couldn’t release a USB4 device that conforms to the TB4 spec and should work perfectly fine with any TB4 certified devices. It’s also not entirely out of the realm of possibility that a device that currently supports USB 3.2 gen 2 and/or TB3, might be upgradeable to USB4/TB4 via software, although due to USB support usually being provided by dedicated silicon it’s somewhat unlikely.