I produce music using a Mac Book Pro and just discovered the Framework Laptop. CPU performance is critical when making music nowadays, but I see no information about the CPU power and the ability of the Framework CPU compared to the MBP. Is it better? Is it worse? The same? Has anyone had any experience using it in Music Production?
Thank you!
Max
Hi Max, it would be somewhat off-topic, but I’d like to share the following issue.
It seems that Windows 11 scheduler is still struggling with the new Intel CPU architecture.
It’s not a Framework-specific problem, and it’s not relevant if you choose an AMD option.
When it comes to CPU performance, you could refer to websites like www.cpu-monkey.com.
Some points to add:
At full load the cooler on Framework gets really loud, which could bother your work.
On the other hand, if you choose Framework DIY edition, you get more memory and SSD for very reasonable cost.
In terms of raw CPU performance it’ll most likely have better performance, with obviously worse efficiency performance. I’m not sure if music production is reliant on CPU though, almost all media applications use dedicated hardware on sillicon, which AMD and Intel both also do have, but of which Windows/Linux broad support is lacking compared to Apple. It may be worth researching if your application makes use of Hardware Acceleration on your current machine.
(As with the person above I’d reccomend the Ryzen option over Intel, as Zen 4 performance seems better than 13th Gen, while having numerous other benefits as well)
Thank you very much!
Thank you very much for the information, Little.3!
I’ve been using the 11th Gen i7 framework since during its pre-order stages, and I’ve been using it for music production ever since I got it. While I haven’t gone super in-depth with it, I can say I haven’t had any performance issues with music production on it, even when using FL Studio with several samplers, 4 instances of Vital or Harmor and a few effects on one or two mixer channels. My biggest problem with the 11th Gen, at least for me, is that the fan gets very noisy and almost sounds like it’s grinding on something, and it gets very very hot, to the point that if I’m doing something compute intensive with shorts on I have to make sure it doesn’t touch my bare skin.
I think that heat issue is mostly a problem for me as I was in batch 3 of the first frameworks. For the newer ones, I wouldn’t expect any issues with at least 16GB of ram, maybe 32GB if you’re a more advanced producer. Windows is more ram-hungry than macOS so keep in mind that anything lower than 8GB will be a significant bottleneck in daily usage, and 16GB is usually standard anyway.
Thank you for your input!
Hey guys, it’s been a while since you discussed the topic. Can you give a little update on your experience with Framework for music? Do you regret switching from Mac?
Although it’s still kind of off-topic, I would like to post update regarding the issue that I’ve linked earlier. (I’m not a professional music production user and have no experience with Mac Book.)
The music stuttering/drop-out problem is ongoing on my Intel 1340P + Windows 11. For example, when I transfer some data to a smartphone connected via USB, the music being played via another USB port becomes awful. And somehow the playback quality is worse in Cubase 12 which uses ASIO driver. (The linked Steinberg posting insists though the problem now has been mostly(?) resolved.) I’m planning to do BIOS update & complete OS reinstall, I’ll post another follow-up if needed.
I do not have any knowledge about the new Intel Ultra processor, but I guess Mac with M chips may still have another level of efficiency & battery life, which means less heat or fan noise. But as mentioned earlier, with Framework, RAM and SSD cost stays sane.