Another thought I just had—around 5 years ago, m.2 SATA SSDs were pretty common. Why not add a SATA-only m.2 slot? Or is the issue that SATA still requires PCIe lane(s) due to SATA presumably not being natively integrated into the SOC directly?
NVMe and wifi are both just PCIe devices, and so the m.2 connector is simply being used as a smaller version of the bog-standard PCIe slot you find on desktop motherboards or the like (even more-so since I don’t believe any Framework mainboards support m.2 SATA SSDs).
There was already another user that repurposed their wifi slot on the x86 Framework 13 mainboard for their SSD in order to use the main NVMe slot for an external GPU and it all “just worked”… at least on Linux:
Sata does require sata, some socs do provide that directly or you can convert pcie or usb or something into it.
You can easily, you just need an adabter that wires the 1 pcie lane for the wifi to the e-key pinout. You can do that pretty much anywhere pcie wifi cards are used (some devices use the same chipset with just the proprietary intel wifi protocol and no pcie).
Is the RISC-V chip on this Mainboard affected by this vulnerability? The article mentions a specific RISC-V based chip, but stops short of commenting on whether it affects all chips implementing this architecture or not…
Any updates on a possible release date? I’m excited to get one whenever they’re available. I’ve just been waiting, and haven’t heard any new info in the last couple of months.
Framework released a new video today interviewing their CEO together with the CEO of DeepComputing. The CEO of DeepComputing mentioned at the end that they’re starting mass production of the motherboards in November.
I’m trying to understand the pricing, sales, and marketing here:
This is a JH7110 SoC with 8 GB RAM. I can’t specifically find what GPU it has beyond that it is made by Imagination (the specs listing on DeepComputing’s page leaves something to be desired, to say the least). That would seem to make it very comparable to the Star64, also with a JH7110, Imagination BXE-4-32-G52-2EE, and 8 GB RAM. That Star64 is around $90. This is more than double, after the sketchy options are removed. It includes various accessories, akin to a scammy camera seller, but those accessories are things many buyers probably would neither need nor want.
Perhaps more confusingly, the board seems like it would primarily be interesting to enthusiasts and hobbyists. Yet the sales are only open to ‘enterprise and business customers’. Why would an enterprise or business customer want this? What would it offer to business customers that any of the much cheaper or more powerful RISC-V SBCs would not? Why would a business be comfortable buying from this company? The laptop aspect is neat, but it seems neat to hobbyists at this point.
And this marketing… the pre-selected ‘value-added services’ seems to amount to a scam. The specs say almost nothing. It appears there’s an NDA involved for user experiences; while I might trust Framework with that, considering the sketchiness of their marketing, who would trust DeepComputing not to abuse that NDA?
This is clearly a company with very different ethics than Framework. On the one hand, it’s a bit disappointing to see them working together. On the other, in seeing Framework as trying to make an open framework for others to participate in, perhaps it’s a good thing that there’s also a sketchy company making alternative mainboards.
Discussions elsewhere (eg, here and here) have some information on the plans for mainboards DeepComputing has discussed, which apparently include four iterations of mainboards in 2025, some of which would be significantly higher performance. That would seem to make the purpose of this board for third parties even more confusing.
To be completely fair, the $199 / €192,95 “Basic Tier” includes:
DC-ROMA RISC-V Mainboard
Framework & Cooler Master Case (€45)
2 x USB-C Expansion Card (2x €10)
SD Card 64G
Not saying it’s cheap, but the pricing is therefore not that transparent.
If I’d be interested, I’d prefer ordering it on the FW site, then I would be able to just select what I need and not a by DeepComputing made selection of accessories.
Edit:
Oh, and shipping + customs are not included in the price.
I would not be surprised if ‘shipping fees and customs duties are not included’ should be interpreted as also meaning that VAT is not included, so the €192,95 EU price might not be directly comparable to the VAT-inclusive prices Framework shows.
