Was wondering what the compatability for the mainboards is for a DIY edition I have from Jan. 2022. The charging circuit is fried and I need it for class, but if there’s an available upgrade in a reasonable price range I’m definitely interested. I thought everything had the same form factors and whatnot but after perusing the marketplace it seems to me that there’s some models that require upgrade kits or something?
All generations of mainboards are compatible with the chassis. The best value upgrade options would be the i5 1340p or Ryzen 5 7640u mainboard for $450 USD. Best option would be to get the i5 1340p. While you won’t get the benefit of a better gpu and potentially better battery life, you can order it right now and still use your existing ram, storage, and wifi card. You also get Thunderbolt 4 if that matters to you. Another thing is that the Ryzen mainboard batches are now in Q4 and if you go down that route, you’ll need to buy new ram and a wifi card.
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All mainboards for the 13" will fit. The AMD boards require different ram, DDR5, because the AMD cpu does not support DDR4 which is used on the intel boards. Also, they say the AMD boards need a different wifi module. This is why there is an AMD mainboard “kit”.
Just for clarity, Framework-16 boards, when they become are available, will not fit a Framework-13 body. And vice versa, a Framework-13 mainboard would not work in a Framework-16 body.
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Upgrade kits have usually been groups of parts that you may want to upgrade together. The first upgrade kits were for the 12th gen boards, where you could buy the kit to get a new mainbard and the newly upgraded CNC top cover together in one “kit”. The other kit available now is the Ryzen kit, that also includes DDR5 RAM and the AMD wifi card, as the new Ryzen mainboards use different RAM and wifi cards from the Intel boards as other users have mentioned.
None of the parts in the kits are only available from Framework, so you can buy any Framework 13" mainboard for your upgrade, but know that the Ryzen boards use DDR5 RAM and cannot use the Intel wifi cards that come with other Framework Laptops, and the Chromebook Mainboards are not compatible with the fingerprint sensor in the power button, and require a separate webcam module.
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