Hello ,
I am looking to buy Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen™ 7 7840U (up to 5.1GHz, 8-core/16-thread) with intention to be hooked to two 4k monitors over DP connection while on the desk. I cant find any clear answer if it will be possible for the laptop to drive them without issues. Target OS is Windows 10/11.
Any saturated information will be useful and appreciated because it is bit confusing what work and what not searching over the forums:
- How many displays I can drive directly from DP or HDMI on laptop it self (no dock)?
- Which USB C dock station I need to buy to get most of it over single USB C port - charging + 2xDP(4k@60Hz) + couple USB A devices? Any particular brand which work the best?
Thanks!
You’ll need something with DSC for 2x 4k60 since the DP outputs are only 1.4.
So we can say that Framework 13 with 7840U can support 2x4k @ 60Hz , and the trick is finding proper Type C dock?
In theory this USB C dock from Lenovo should o the work: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/docking/docking_usb-docks-(universal-cable-docks)/40b20135us
Something that I forgot to mention, machine will be used for work exclusively, so gaming performance is out of scope completely but unfortunately it will need to run Windows 10/11.
I will appreciate if people which already paired Type C docks with Framework 13 to give some feedback and opinions
That part definitely, displayport 1.4 with DSC already has way more than enough bandwidth to do that without any chroma sub-sampling (you don’t want that, it makes text look bad).
The igpu itself would be capable of somewhat half-assed displayport 2.1 (only UHBR10 though) but the redrivers on the framework apparently only do 1.4 so we are limited to that.
That one could work, I see no mention of displaylink (you really don’t want that if you can avoid it) but also no mention of dsc but the supported resolutions do suggest it.
That is probably the safest bet, especially with how quirky the pd implementation still is.
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Hi, Adrian. Could you say something about why DisplayLink is best avoided? I’m looking at a number of docks that have require DisplayLink drivers and would like to understand why they should be avoided. Thank you so much!
TLDR: It’s worse than the alternative and you got the alternative available
It adds latency and compression artifacts (and driver complexity) when you have better options available that don’t do that, the newer ones somewhat less so than older ones, and honestly it’s pretty impressive what they can do even over usb2.
Displaylink is a lot better than no second monitor and does have some niche applications but most people who dock their laptops use the external screen as the primary and displaylink as primary display just isn’t fun. It’s probably fine for a 5+th auxiliary display that mostly just displays static images.It is also helpful for laptops that don’t have any display-port outputs at all.
On the framework you got at least 3 usb-c ports that have Displayport 1.4 and usb, displayport thanks to mst can support up to 256 displays on a single connection (though there are no gpus that support that, these days 4 is pretty much the max outside of non specialized stuff, amd used to give you 6 before the 7000 series on higher end cards but now it’s also 4). So as long bandwidth permits you can dive up to 4 displays on a single docked connection without extra latency or compression artifacts and with DP1.4 especially with DSC you got quite a lot of it.
Also if you are the actual author with that name, I quite enjoyed the golden fleece and terminal experiment XD
Hi, Adrian. This is very, very useful. Thank you! I’ve previously used a USB DisplayLink adapter from Plugable to add a third (mostly static) monitor to my desktop computer, but all your points make sense. I’ll steer clear of DisplayLink docks for my Framework 13.
And yes, I’m the science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer. Many, many thanks for your kind words about my books!
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