Are there plans to introduce Snapdragon X Elite in the future? I want to try X Elite. Actually, if the framework had added a new line, I would have bought it right away.
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If Windows-on-ARM becomes popular, I’d be very surprised if Framework didn’t create a motherboard that uses an ARM CPU. It’s likely too fringe a platform for the moment, but there’s a good chance that will change in the future.
That said, I doubt anyone at Framework has the time to do much more than think in passing about such things at the moment, with the Framework 16 rollout. Give them at least a couple weeks after that. 
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I’ve wanted to see a FW13 carrier board for the ARM based Raspberry Pi CM4 (and soon to be CM5) boards. It would take the place of the mother/main board and allow for a thin, light, and power sipping Raspberry Pi laptop.
Maybe they’ll collaborate in the future, but who knows.
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If you’re into that sort of thing then you’d be better served by the MNT Reform. They already offer a Pi4 compute module as well as one that uses a Rockchip 3588 that is, I believe, an even more powerful ARM processor than the latest Raspberry Pi.
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It would be amazing, except for how ram is directly soddered onto the chip. This decreases upgradeability and goes against the whole concept of framework.
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It may be compatible with lpcamm
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I don’t think framework is that fast. Don’t forget that they haven’t announced Intel Meteor Lake 13/16 yet.
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Also highly interested in a Snapdragon X Elite based motherboard for FW16. The dream of efficiency similar to Apple M1 series and performance at least comparable to current CPUs is very much becoming a reality soon IMO. Maybe not right away with 1st gen of Snapdragon X series, but the gap to Apple Silicon is closing for sure. I would like to be an early adopter for ARM-based laptops but I don’t want to buy a whole separate laptop, a new FW16 motherboard would be perfect for me.
The major plus of having a FW laptop is the ability to buy that new motherboard for relatively cheap and to just go back if the software is not ready for ARM yet. Or swap based on workload and plans, maybe x86 at home for plugged in use and swap for ARM when taking it on vacation or mobile work. Although, so far looks like ARM is closing the gap fast enough and first gen chips are going to have good hardware and performance. Only software is left.
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Bump for visibility.
I also would love to see an ARM or RISC-V mainboard for the Framework 13".
To me the 13" is almost perfect, but battery life and fan noise are still not that amazing. I’m on a i7 1280P with the 55Wh battery, so I probably got a pretty bad combo.
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Same. The Snapdragon Elite X is looking very optimistic, and if Framework made a board with one and threw in LPCAMM2 memory I would buy it faster than I bought the AMD board.
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RK3588 supposedly is half the speed of Apple M1 on multi-core
As for single core, I read its above a 1/3 of the speed of M1 and less than a 1/2 of the speed of M1. Somewhere between those two.
I read a benchmark that suggested this. RK3588 is being looked at already by a specific modular project called MNT Reform. Yes, that team has interest in it.
They might even make it work on the pocket version I hear.
Unrelated yes, but I guess my point is, the RK3588 has potential here for laptop use.
Its 2x the speed of the RK3399 also btw.
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Hello lovely community!
Are there any plans to introduce ARM processors in Framework laptop? I think for productivity Apple is far away from any competition if it goes to veratility of the hardware due to the usage of ARM based processors, however, it is completely opposite if it goes to Framework mission.
AMD sees Framework as a strategic partner so they got the chips early. Dealing with Qualcomm is more likely to be like working with Intel; the chip supplier isn’t really interested in small users so they have to get in line behind the big name companies. I don’t think we’ll see a Qualcomm-based Framework until at least 2025, if ever.
Another issue with Qualcomm is that they haven’t been very Linux-friendly in the past. At the kernel level, yes, because of the need for it for Android, but otherwise not so much. Providing Linux capability is important for Framework, so if Qualcomm won’t play ball that will be a deal breaker.
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ARM is so much more complicated to plan around, has a track record of horrible linux support and is notorious for becoming unsupported by manufacturers in such a short time frame.
The upsides of increased battery life, size, and a cooler chip isnt worth the agonizing, proprietary nature of the ARM ecosystem.
Unless something big changes, I doubt we will ever see an ARM Framework laptop.
Qualcomm did change a bit their mainlining stance and X Elite support is already added in Kernel 6.8, so maybe there is a chance for better support. Of course the GPU and other parts are also important and not sure they have been mainlined. More info:
Also the Qualcomm/Ubuntu collab might speed up things a bit:
https://canonical.com/blog/qualcomm-and-canonical-announce-strategic-collaboration
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There’s still the issue of software incompatibilities and a magnitude more development to accommodate for similar situations.
Of course there is. And still… good news everyone, looks like Snapdragon X Elite is set to have good Linux support almost from launch! 
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Sounds good but I’ll believe it when I see it.
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Linux compatibility for the ARM CPU is the easy part. Qualcomm makes most of the CPUs in android phones (which is linux-based already). This will almost certainly be done by launch day or shortly after for the X Elite.
The hard part is linux support for everything else in the laptop. It’ll be up to the team building the specific laptop (framework in our case). They’ll have to choose parts with working linux drivers or write the drivers themselves, and then they’ll have to test it all works together end-to-end and submit bug reports and patches to the linux project as issues arise. Same as they do for their intel and AMD laptops.
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Qualcomm is working on more complete support for Linux: Qualcomm goes where Apple won't, readies official Linux support for Snapdragon X Elite | Tom's Hardware
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