ETA for Intel processor

Framework Laptop 16
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In general I agree, however I do have some comments:

Regardless of how Intel obtained an advantage, an advantage is an advantage. So if Intel does have an advantage in value that is an argument in favor of buying Intel CPUs.

Some of the reasons that article gives for Intel having an advantage are “Raptor Lake is backward compatible with previous-gen 600-series boards after a firmware update, which can save you some serious cash.” and “Intel gives you the choice of selecting either DDR4 or DDR5 memory, while AMD only supports pricey DDR5.”

AMD is at the beginning of a motherboard socket cycle while Intel is near the end. When a company is at the beginning of a motherboard socket cycle the motherboards tend to be more expensive, however there is a decent chance that they will still be able to be used in a couple years if you want to upgrade. When a company is at the beginning of a motherboard socket cycle the motherboards tend to be cheaper, but next time you want to upgrade you’ll need a new motherboard. There are pros and cons to both and I wouldn’t say either option is superior. Although this doesn’t apply when it comes to laptops so talking about desktop motherboards is useless when debating what CPU should be used in a laptop.

As for the statements about DDR5, those are mostly outdated. DDR5 prices have dropped dramatically in 2023 and Intel has announced CPUs that require DDR5 (which if they’re penalizing AMD for means they should also start penalizing Intel). Also, DDR5 brings massive improvements to iGPU performance, which in a laptop can help even if you do have a dGPU (since ideally the dGPU should be disabled whenever possible to save battery life).

Lastly, if someone does want to be at the end of a motherboard socket cycle (for cheaper motherboards) and use DDR4 (for cheaper ram), there’s nothing wrong with using a previous generation CPU. The Ryzen 5000 series has pretty amazing bang for your buck, especially the 5800X3D.

I agree that the AMD is at a disadvantage due to software being optimized for Intel, however many reviews have shown AMD trading blows with Intel in many applications and I disagree that it is a clear win for Intel.

Also, the graphs in that section of the article do not show any Ryzen 7000 series CPUs. That, combined with the fact that the comments on the article have timestamps indicating they were from 3 years before the article was supposedly posted and the fact that they in one spot say AMD uses 7 nm (Ryzen 7000 uses a mix of 5 nm and 6 nm on desktop and 4 nm on laptop), leads me to believe that the article may be an old article updated to mention new CPUs rather than an up-to-date article.

That article does not even mention Thunderbolt, however they do again mention DDR4 vs DDR5 in this section, which for the reasons I listed above aren’t really a strong argument in favor of Intel anymore.

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At this time there is no ETA for when an Intel version of the Framework 16 might be available, but my guess is that it might be at least a year, maybe 2-3, and that guess is based on a few things with one being known and two being unknown.

The thing that is known is that in the poll done by Framework 83% of people preferred AMD CPUs, as was mentioned above. This is astounding because everyone argues/passionately debates about every little thing on these forums. With that strong of a preference I wouldn’t be surprised if the first year of Framework 16 is ironing out the bugs without the intention to add an Intel variant.

The first unknown has to do with that AMD preference, and that is going to be Framework 13 sales data on the 13th gen Intel vs AMD sales which isn’t going to be public to us. It is one thing for a poll to say that 4/5 prefer AMD, but they are going to have direct sales data for where people actually put their money. I suspect that upgrade sales(mainboard only) will be skewed towards Intel because they chose to keep a DDR4 spec because that makes the upgrade path easier and reduces the need for new parts, and people won’t have to do OS reinstalls or driver swaps or anything else that causes some inconvenience. However, their new unit sales are not going to have these barriers and can show what people want and in what proportions. If there is a strong showing for Intel we can probably expect that for the Framework 16 at some time and as soon as it can be done. If the Intel sales are weak I wouldn’t be surprised to see it take longer.

The second unknown is how involved AMD was with the design of the laptop, particularly with the expansion bay GPU and connection. They worked with each other enough so that we know the Framework 16 is part of the AMD Advantage program, but if they were footing part of the bill for the R&D I wouldn’t be surprised of there being a period of exclusivity for AMD in the Framework 16, a gun to my head I would guess 2 years, but this is also something we do not know and would probably not be made public.

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I want to reiterate this. Per the community guidelines if you can’t respond and bring something positive to the table that helps people to understand your position without demeaning someone else, it doesn’t belong here.

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I’m sorry if I sounded rude. I’m just sad that, because including but not limited to misinformed people like him, a company with consumer-unfriendly business practices like intel became so big. I didn’t mean to be demeaning in my argumentation at all. I apologize, if someone got that impression.

I think a balanced market share would be best for consumers, as competition is needed to keep both companies on their toes. Sadly, even though AMD made a big progress technically since introducing the Ryzen processors, this sadly still isn’t reflected in its market share yet as much as it should have been.

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@nrp did announce, that there won’t be any 8040 series mainboards, due to the update being too minor, so I wouldn’t be too surprised, if the next FL16 iteration would feature an intel processor just to bridge the timeframe until the 9050 series release.
I’d rather like them to introduce a more power-efficient Radeon dGPU with 12GB+ VRAM in the meantime, as soon as it becomes available.

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That’s not surprising - the article is about desktop CPUs, there’s no Thunderbolt integrated on those.

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The funniest part about that is it’s entirely irrelevant in the case of laptops, because the choices will be forced upon you by design decisions.

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@Sebastien_Boulianne Excellent question and I am wondering about exactly the same thing. Only framework staff knows the answer, but my “hunch” would be that it will take at least until Q3 of next year until you could buy an intel variant. This would be based on the hunch that framework will be quite busy and focused on producing and getting out the first iteration. Framework as a company is still fairly new and small, and the FW16 notebook is a truly new innovation - it will take a bit of time for them before new mainboards become available.

But we will see an Intel variant, Framework has already shown interest here asking in a survey about Intel demand, and they are already cooperating of course on the FW13. The survey they did is now of course outdated, given new Intel chips that arrived, so demand may be actually higher now.

I myself am close to cancelling my preorder just to wait for Intel tbh.

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Yeah, many threads crash and burn, no idea why… I hope it is possible to just ask questions in a forum.

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I’ll avoid speculating too much but if you mean Q3 of 2024, I find it unlikely. Not disagreeing with you in that it probably won’t come before, just saying that I think this is still too optimistic.
Take a look at the FW13, it took 3 generations of Intel CPU before an AMD version was developed, in the meantime they created a real ecosystem of expansion cards, spare parts and motherboards.
I would expect the FW16 to go a similar route, albeit maybe with a slightly different timing. So, maybe some additional options for the expansion bay, an upgrade to the AMD main board, new input modules? It’s a whole new ecosystem with a different price tag, making intel mainboards so quickly might be a bit too much for the size of the company.

So, to summarise, I would advise you to make a decision without the hypothesis that an intel version is coming out in less than a year. Then again, I hope you’re right, more choice is good (though I’m probably going to stick with AMD for their power efficiency).

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Yes, may be too optimistic even, I have to admit I have hopes that framework can build on previous collab with Intel through FW13. But the post was mainly to say: don’t expect intel any time soon ;).

And I agree, AMD is a very solid choice for laptops due to power efficiency (as one reason).

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So in other words, intel for desktop builds and amd for laptop builds, because amd’s power consumption and heating is more friendlier on laptops…

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Erm, no.

That’s an entirely different discussion, but not for here and now.

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That is currently correct for lightweight laptops, who only include an iGPU
(e.g. Framework Laptop 13).
Laptops including a dGPU are a bit more diverse.

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My decision will be after CES to be honest ;). FW16 laptop is a 2024 notebook pure and simple, so CES 2024 is its competition. I am just not sure yet if I really want to spend money for a high-end desktop on a notebook with some 2023 AMD mainboard that doesn’t even have a NPU… let’s see.

PS: and rumours on XPS 16 don’t exactly sound bad. So yes, waiting a bit longer for now.

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The Ryzen 7040 series (excluding the 7440U, 7540U, and 7545U) does have an integrated NPU that people have reported is properly detected by Windows. There just isn’t yet a lot of software that can take advantage of it.

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Thank you, then I didn’t say anything. Just read an article about it and you are completely right. A moment of weakness regarding FW16 overcome. :wink:

As someone who simply never used AMD but keeps liking it more and more due to several recent developments (like FSR 3, power efficiency, and others) I think I need to look much more into it…

So then I assume with the latest Intel processors that came out now Intel just “caught up” as Dave 2D put it in a recent video…

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My (completely unfounded) hope is that some day NPU will be relevant for graphics/gaming experience. That’s why I was really unsure before hearing about latest NPUs from Intel. But if AMD has at least some sort of NPU then its probably quite futureproof and that would be all I am looking for.

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Intel’s latest processors are mostly caught up with AMD, which is great for consumers because it means competition is alive and well again.

The AMD 7040 series uses an NPU capable of 10 TOPS of AI performance (and 33 TOPS of AI performance with the NPU+CPU+iGPU all working together).

Intel’s latest NPU is just a smidge faster with of 11 TOPS of AI performance (and 34 TOPS of AI performance with the NPU+CPU+iGPU all working together).

My (also completely unfounded) prediction is that in the near future the main things that NPUs might be used for will be things like the features in Nvidia Broadcast, except universal and much more power efficient due to being run on the NPU instead of GPU.

I suspect that NPUs may eventually be relevant for the graphics/gaming experience, however by the time that happens I suspect that by the time that happens current NPUs will be very outdated (currently NPUs are getting way faster with each generation) and unable to meet performance expectations.

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Thanks, that confirms a lot of thoughts that I had, so ultimately I will be fine as NPUs will in any case be outdated in the near future and as to be honest simply noone knows today what local AI will be used for in a couple of years. It is just that I read in some articles that NPUs could “take load off GPUs” and as a long-time laptop and gaming enthusiast (admittedly with zero experience of using AMD for some reason) this lights up immediately all future proofing concerns ;).

And regarding my comment on AMD, I (wrongly) assumed that AMD simply cannot be so far ahead to already have NPUs in 2023 while Intel was nowhere (again)… ;). Glad to know FW16 has all you can have, even if people have to wait months to get it.

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