I have a 7640U fw13 and use Ubuntu 23.10 with stock kernel 6.5 (beware, not supported my framework but I moved to this laptop a ssd from another one and I didn’t want to reinstall). I have some indirect experience of last gen Intel having a relative and some coworkers with 12/13th gen intel process laptops (but U and P series, both windows and linux user) but none of those is a framework.
I have applied some but not all tinkering suggested on this forum and in framework guides. I get a power consumption(reported by powerstat) slightly higher than the values you seek (5W now writing, 3W playing local music with screen off). But I saw others in the forum have reported values both lower than mine and than your goals. Actually I think I could achieve lower consumption values putting some time into it, or maybe after a system reinstall/upgrade.
I think these AMD chips had some software/driver/firmware issues, on linux at least. But they looks like they are been addressed and fixed with time.
I don’t think with Intel you’d require any tinkering. I haven’t seen anyone reporting so many problems on this forum. Still I’m uninformed in this regard.
One big disappointment for me is the power consumption when just playing videos. In that use case Intel is more efficient. You find some discussion about these issue on this forum and on freedesktop’s gitlab. Some work is being done to address it but I won’t land in Ubuntu 24.04 for sure even with kernel upgrade as it requires changes to compositors.
The mesa+kernel graphics driver, after last BIOS update, has always been stable and performant.
Hardly. Both 7640U and 7840U do NOT support PBO. I thought Intel didn’t support undervolting in any laptop chip without an X in the name, but, since you where able to undervolt a U-series chips maybe you can find a way.
From my experience quieter than all 12/13th intel laptops I have encountered at work/home (Again, none are framework, but some are premium laptop from major brand with U-series processor which are supposed to be efficient. If fan noise is an indication of power consumption, they are not efficient except maybe at idle/light-load). I decided I wouldn’t buy a Intel 13th framework after those laptops became the background noise at my work desk.
Still, I find this laptop of mine too loud sometimes (even doing not heavy stuff). Once I limit the TDP is fine for me. But there is no right way to do it with amd on linux. I wrote about it here.
Meanwhile I think with Intel you can limit the TDP with the RAPL interface (confirmation needed).
Want is quickly for you? I think the fan curve is fine. It does not turn on and off too often, but that’s very subjective.
I have no USB-C charger without USB-PD to test. With last BIOS updates the laptop works fine with my 18W and 45W chargers. But I don’t think “dumb chargers” will work. Take a look at
With regards to Intel fw13 I don’t know. Both the USB chips and the EC are different on the Intel version, so even dumb charger might maybe work.
That’s some old marketing from chip fabs. Even TSMC now calls this fab process “N4 family”. No transistor in “TSMC N4” is 4nm small and no transistor in “Intel N7”/“Intel 10nm” is 10nm small. I too think that AMD has the better and efficient chips but not just because 4 is better than 10. And doesn’t mean in real life uses case amd chips will always perform better (see the linux hw decode higher power consumption).
I totally agree. I’ve spent very little time gaming with my laptop but I tried some different stuffs (not just online multiplayer) and I find that the 7640U handled them pretty well. Also no game crash related to cpu/gpu.