The current AMD processors that Framework offers for the 16 inch laptops are in my opinion already a bit outdated. I would like to see a newer AMD or Intel processor for the 16 inch model. Preferably also with a 40 TOPS NPU.
Technically speaking… why?
CPU manufacturers been pushing this marketing strategy with Microsoft to break the current lack of innovation from modern CPUs.
In practice, NPUs are just a slower version of what GPU can do. They are only useful if you:
- Don’t have a powerful GPU
- Have a soldered DDR (LPDDR) because bottleneck happens at RAM speeds.
Soldered DDR goes very against the Framework philosophy. I would wait until LPCAMM2 becomes more popular and cheaper.
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Framework has always been a bit behind when it comes to supporting new processors, as they are still a relatively small team in the laptop space. They will likely come out with updated mainboards for the Framework Laptop 16, since we are coming up on the 1 year anniversary of the release, but no one other than the Framework team knows if or when an announcement like that will even be made.
What do you plan to do with an NPU? The software that supports those is extremely limited, so if you’re specifically wanting it I imagine you’ve got a just as specific use-case.
It is probably going to be some time before they can get an upgrade on the Framework 16. I’m not sure if it is going to take as long as it took getting AMD on the Laptop 13 to get Intel on the Laptop 16 (hopefully not), but either way Framework has to wait until the manufacturers release a model without soldered or on package RAM.
AMD requires that all the new Ryzen AI 300 (Terrible Naming) Strix Point CPUs all use LPDDR5 (soldered down) memory. Framework’s only option to achieve compatibility with this that allows for an upgradeable memory would be to use LPCAMM2. I don’t think Framework is going to make the transition just yet, especially with the new DDR5 modules people purchased with the current Framework 16 having to go obsolete within one year. If they want to retain compatibility with DDR5, they will have to spend some time communicating with AMD about enabling support for SODIMM modules.
On the other hand, Intel also has Arrow Lake delayed, Meteor Lake is too low power and performance, and then you only have Raptor Lake which would be the same generation as the Ryzen 7000 chips. Lunar Lake has soldered down memory and also is not build for high performance so it too likely won’t be in the Laptop 16.
There really isn’t a good path for Framework to go that can allow them to upgrade the Laptop 16 to a higher performance model while retaining the benefits of upgradeability.
Swappable lpddr would certainly be worth “obsoleting” existing sodimms, the performance and especially efficiency gain is large and there is still a lot of use for the sodimms in other laptops so it’s not like they are wasted entirely if they end up on the secondary market.
Being one of the first to actually use lpcamm may come with it’s own set of issues but could be quite worth it.
2 Likes
Looking forward for Intel based Framework laptop 16’.
For me I love to have the next Ryzen AI Max [395/390/380] …
with 2 LPCAMM2 64Go (ie 128Go total?)