After the first day of CES, we’re seeing quite a lot of new entry to mid-range cpus. The CPUs which I think can be a good fit for FW12 with moderate performance and balanced battery life would be:
Panther Lake/Intel: I see Core Ultra 5 338H and 322 being good options to use. Seems like Intel has made quite a leap of improvement with Panther Lake and most importantly, it is based on 2nm technology which may bring battery life equal to Lunar Lake.
The 338H is the upper-midrange chip with 12 CPU cores, Thunderbolt 5 support, and 10 GPU cores which is an Intel ARC iGPU. However, this chip doesn’t support SO-DIMM, but would support LPCAMM2, solving single stick memory problem and utilising the iGPU to the full extent.
The 322 is the lowest-end Panther Lake chip with 8 cores and 2 GPU cores. It will support Thunderbolt 4 and DDR5 ram up to 6400mhz. While only being the entry-level chip, this would be a huge upgrade over the current 1334U chip in FW12 in terms of performance and most importantly, much better battery life, as well as supporting Thunderbolt 4.
Ryzen 400/AMD: These are minor refresh of the previous gen with increased frequency. However, for FW12, Ryzen 430 and 445 cpus looks to be quite a good fit. These chips share much similarity with the previous gen and the driver support will already be tried and tested. Best Linux support.
Ryzen 430 is the lowest-end chip with 4 cores, 8 threads at 4.5ghz with 4 GPU cores. Just enough for everyday use, light gaming, editing and with such few cores, it will have low power draw.
Ryzen 445 has 6 cores and 12 threads. GPU cores are at 4 but I believe they will be at higher clock rate. Strong chip that won’t throttle under FW12’s small chasiss while still being power efficient with few cores.
This will also mean that FW12 could get the older AI 300 chips like 330 and 340 for slightly cheaper price, while still supporting modern technologies like thunderbolt and having better battery life.
X2 Elite/Qualcomm: Now, these chips are said to support LPCAMM2 except for X2 Elite Extreme which is limited to soldered ram. I see that X2 Plus 42 and X2 Extreme 78 chips would suit well. These chips lag behind in linux support.
X2P-42-100 chip, the lowest-end, has 6 cores at 4ghz, and X2-45 GPU at 0.91ghz. Good enough for everyday use while being super lightweight and power efficient.
X2E-78-100, the mid-range elite chip, has 12 cores 4ghz, and X2-85 GPU at 1.35ghz.
Which vendor would you like to see for Framework 12 gen 2? I know we haven’t been long since the laptop shipped and it won’t have a mainboard upgrade until late 2026. But we can still discuss which cpus would be good choice for the next gen.
An AMD Ryzen cpu motherboard would be the one I would want. I could enthusiastically recommend the Framework 12 if it were available with an AMD Ryzen cpu.
I’ve built thousands of desktop PCs and used AMD cpus back from the days when AMD built versions of the 8088 and 80286 which were faster than the fastest Intel 8088s and 80286s up to the current AMD Ryzens.
I think the most likely next chips are Ryzen 7000 series.
Framework aims for cost with the 12 and the 7000 series are quite old now, a similar age to the Intel 12th gen chips used in the current 12.
7000 series chips offer good power efficiency.
Framework tends to alternate between AMD and Intel.
The AI 400 chips aren’t that different to the AI 300 chips, Framework skipped the 8000 series for similar reasons. The AI 300 chips are the ones currently offered for the 13 model so would be weird to offer the same chips for both models.
I would hope that, whatever they choose, they include Thunderbolt retimers this time as it would help business use cases with office docks etc. But I won’t hold my breath on that one.
Regardless of whether the next upgrade is Intel or AMD, the primary feature I want is Thunderbolt/USB4; they can keep the lower priced mainboards without it but they should have at least one higher cost one with it.
I would love to see Panther Lake in the FW12, especially if they bundle the Battlemage Refresh integrated Arc GPU as well. This is wishful thinking, of course. It’s an incredibly recent product and the FW12 will probably see a Series 1/2 Core Ultra upgrade before we see a Panther Lake CPU or better.
Everyone here is focusing on higher-end chips. How come no one is thinking about a lower-end chip like the N150 or N300, which could both increase battery life AND make the FW12 more affordable??
I would instantly buy an N-series FW12 if it costed <€400 (from the €569 of the current i3), was fanless, had good battery life and could be paired with RAM of my choice.
Because those chips existed before the current 13th gen chips, so it’s quite obvious FW isn’t interested in using them. I’d argue your preference is the correct one given the single channel memory and lack of TB present anyways. Plus, e-cores are more performant than people give them credit for.
Regardless, I don’t see any path towards Lunar Lake as an upgrade since they were an expensive one-off that I’m certain Intel would like to stop manufacture of ASAP. Panther Lake, while amazing for efficiency (tbd) is not going to suit the price class the FW12 lives in. No new chip does. FW probably got some sweetheart deal on 13th gen from Intel so they could clear some stock out. Same strategy Valve is doing with the Steam Machine and the Steam Deck before it.
Maybe Meteor Lake makes an appearance but I hope not. Really this should have been an N series chip and a little less expensive.
