Hi 
so I need some help from people who know about this than me. So im going into a tech college for the bht2 diploma and need a laptop. I’m trying to figure out if I should get the 12 with i5 or the 13 with ryzen 5 or 7, my main problem is its been so long since I’ve touched a computer I have no idea what I’m doing and its taken me days to actually get the courage to ask so, can someone please help me?? I would like to know how well the 13 is on gaming I play xbox games for now but I’d love to be able to play on pc too
If gaming is at all something you’re interested in, the FW12 will be worse than FW13.
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We gave our god-daughter a Ryzen 5 with 64G ram framework 13 for civil engineering - and she’s able to run CAD perfrorming some tasks that she usually had to reserve time in the computer lab for. So it’s a VERY capable system.
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Really depends on what kind of games you would be interested in playing really. Neither are great gaming devices, but if you are interested in older titles, or e-sports they can do okay. If you’re seriously interested in gaming the FW16 with the RTX 5070 is your best bet. But again it really depends on what you are interested in playing. The FW13 should be better at gaming than the FW12 however if you are looking at those two options. But you’d need to look at the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 as it has 2 times the gpu compute unites as the other cpus.
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I would love the 16 but the price is about out of my range. Im mostly gonna play the xbox anywhere games cuz that’s wat I’m used to but I’d like to try some pc games. I play a lot of the cod bo and hogwarts legacy but I’ve seen some titles which I can’t remember now that r pc only games that I wanted to play. I would like the 12 for school only if it can handle the courses im gonna do it’s perfect for walking around but my bag holds up to a 17.3 laptop so any of them will fit. I may get 2 if I can
I bought the FW12 specifically for my bachelor in computer engineering and it’s been fantastic.
The pen support and 360 hinge have proven irreplaceable countless times and seeing my classmates juggle multiple devices (Laptop+iPad/E-ink tablet/drawing tablet) and struggle with syncing their data between them has made me even more happy about my choice.
Biggest inherent issue for me: battery life. It ain’t Apple silicon.
On that front, the Anker 35W Nano has been super convenient as it makes packing up and changing classrooms a breeze. Just bring an additional 2m cable for whenever outlets are far away.
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Hi Kayla,
Welcome the community.
As far as the BHT2 diploma, pretty much any laptop will be good enough. So the FW 12 or FW 13 would do equally well. I.e. web browsing, writing documents, little programming in python for the technology bits of the course.
Games is a different story.
For those games that need high performance, like the full action 1st person shooter types games, need more powerful machines.
The FW12 will be the slowest for games, with the FW13 being faster, and the FW16 being the fastest. (The FW16 has an option for a dedicated GPU which are good for games.)
Another aspect recently has been AI and LLMs. The FW13 can be installed with lots of RAM, and can run the LLMs locally. A recent problem with that is that RAM prices are crazy at the moment, making local LLMs very expensive to do now. So, I would probably avoid that aspect for now, if costs is important.
Summary:
Any laptop will be fine for the course work, it all will then come down to how much you want to pay extra to get good action gaming.
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Thank you for the advice I did expect on getting a power bank and cable that can handle that and more. I’m doing the diy an getting the ssd and ram elsewhere I found some lower prices elsewhere I can afford at least 16 gb ram and 1tb of ssd both are completely compatible also getting windows elsewhere. Will 16 be enough? I have next to no knowledge on computers today when I talk to the administrator im gonna have to see if I can get some extra help on it cuz I don’t like not knowing lol.
Ok did u get the i3 or i5 i absolutely love the idea of the 12 and if this will last me the 2+ years I’m doing the diploma now and then hopefully going for bachelor’s after that then I definitely want it. I don’t believe my programs are like yours so this is amazing news for me! Could you explain more what u do?
Ok thank you im leaning more towards the 12 for school work. I would like to get the 16 but I don’t think I can afford the 9 at the moment how does the 7 do? I think I can get away with buying the cheapest one for now then upgrading later.
Well nether of those games will run well on the FW13 or FW12, If you insist on getting one of the 2, the FW13 with the AI 9 HX 370 is your best bet for gaming. Technically you can get the FW16 without the gpu which will have the same performance more or less as the FW13 and add a dedicated GPU int he future. But if your priority is portability and class work the FW13 is probably the best middle ground. 16GB is a extremely low if you plan on trying to run games on it as well though but it should be enough for the average user for day to day work. Though I can’t say what else that course might involve, if they teach you to run VMs then 16GB could be a struggle.
I went with the i5, mostly hoping to have at least a slim chance of selling the old motherboard should I upgrade to a new one.
For programs, I use Altium Designer, LTSpice, Onshape, Matlab, Simulink. No issues so far.
Though I haven’t dared run any heavy CADs or sims on the poor dual core notebook.
For note taking, Goodnotes is king.
I just wish there was a more efficient native App for Windows instead of the Edge webapp that it is currently.
Ok im going to have to meet with the IT dept after I pick out my classes to see what I’m going to be doing. I’ve been really looking at this company the posts, the news, the videos and its what I want since its repairable and upgradable! It would literally only be for my classes maybe my job too if I can’t figure out the iPad they give me. It’ll mostly be online learning at gntc but I may do blended on the subjects that were difficult for me in hs
If I get the 16 then I’ll put 32 gb im just not sure if it’s better getting a single stick or 2 16gb like i said I have almost no knowledge so any and all advice is welcome. Tbh the community is the biggest reason I’ve chosen fw everyone is extremely helpful.
If you go with the FW16 I’d suggest the 2x16GB kit, you won’t have the dGPU from the beginning and you want the additional memory bandwidth for the iGPU that the 2 sticks give you, and honestly 32GB will probably be enough for you. But I’d still suggest trying to get the AI 9 HX 370 do to the fact that it has 2 times as many GPU compute units as the AI 7. CPU wise they are close for single threaded which is usually the most important for most uses.
If you were willing to give up on the idea of gaming for a while though, switching from the AI 9 to the AI 7 is nearly half the cost of the Nvidia dGPU and would allow you to buy that sooner if gaming was that important to you.
If I get the 16 I can only get 7040 7 version rn I’ll need to wait and save up for the Ai 9 and I’ll have to get the most basic stuff like the expansion bay instead of the graphics mod things like that. I’d also only be able to get 2 c 2a and maybe the audio cards.if i got the ai9 it would be tht only no ram no ssd no accessories id have to get really settled in my job If I can get away with playing on the 13 I’ll be fine with that.
If you go that route I wouldn’t bother upgrading to the AI version, with the exception of more cores and slightly better battery life the performance difference isn’t that massive with the exception of the iGPU. But that can be solved by just throwing the RTX 5070 in it later on instead.
The only downside is you’ll be getting the 1st gen webcam and display module. As far as I understand the most notable difference between 1st and 2nd gen display is adding gsync for the nvidia gpu.
Another option you have is you can look at the older framework 13. They use the same DDR5 as the newer stuff and the same SSDs and you could “upgrade” to the FW16 in the future when you have more money and sell off the barebones FW13.
That’s exactly what I was thinking about honestly I more focused on if I can play and not how it looks right now. The career im going into will eventually pay off and I can get bigger plus technically if I want to play I can get on my Xbox but my bf is kind of addicted to arc raiders so he plays a lot
Oh also will they be any good for palworld?
Well it should run at least run, I don’t know how good the performance will be but I do know palworld runs okay on the steamdeck and it is slower than the framework computers you are interested in.
This might help you but most games should at least run on a modern iGPU, but you will probably have to rely on FSR or some other upscaling tech and have most of the settings at low. With the exception of some demanding or very poorly optimized games you should be able to hit 30fps give or take. The target for consoles is usually a 30fps min or 60fps so if that is what you are coming from it might not be too bad, keep in mind it won’t look as good as the graphics settings will have to be quite a bit lower to hit that framerate on an iGPU but gaming on one is definitely doable.