I don’t mind the GPU options long as there’s options with enough vram to last a few years going forward. So a 16 gB option minimum, with 20+ preferred. Definitely an AMD CPU though.
I have only a slight preference for AMD+AMD over AMD+NVIDIA.
What I would be particularly interested in is in one of the dynamically switchable display MUX systems (known as “Advanced Optimus” for NVIDIA and “Smart Access Graphics” for AMD). I’m not sure the extent to which this is technically feasible, though, or the extent to which this is gated behind specific AMD/NVIDIA contracts.
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I am pretty sure the expansion bay spec includes a dp back channel so that would require a hardware mux (which for some reason everyone needs to make up some fancy name for).
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Well, it could be the case that the internal panel is connected to the integrated GPU and the external ports are connected to the expansion bay/discrete GPU; there are plenty of laptops with that sort of setup.
Even if the external ports are muxed, there’s still a question of whether
- There’s a mux between the discrete & integrated GPU to the internal panel¹, and
- Whether that mux is runtime controllable - it’s only quite recently that (non-Apple) laptops with muxes that don’t require a reboot and switching in the BIOS firmware have become available.
¹: Lots of laptops with discrete GPUs have only the integrated GPU connected to the internal panel, and rely on copying rendering onto the integrated GPU in order to display
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The spec for the expansion bay explicitly refers to the displayport back channel as “for the internal display” so some form of mux needs to be there, if it is runtime configurable is a different question.
Am aware. The performance hit for display backhaul via the pcie4x8 link probably would not even be that bad but they do need a mux anyway so might as well make it controllable.
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I would be ecstatic with a Ryzen 7 7840hs and a RX 7600S external GPU.
Based on some reviews, both are relatively energy efficient if you run them at lower power limits. Apparently ryzen 7040 CPU efficiency suffers with a power limit above 45W.
But I’d be happy with only an iGPU as long as we have a decent iGPU like 7040.
On the topic of a muxless dGPU, I currently have one where internal display is on iGPU and external on dGPU (4800H + 5600M) and it works fine. Performance doesn’t seem to be affected much compared to benchmarks and it works perfectly in Linux.
That notebook has other issues, like suspend being completely broken except on Windows 10, it’s even broken under W11 with not a single firmware update from MSI.
So I’m super ready to throw my money at a Framework 16.
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All AMD for the Linux support, I dealt with Nvidia drivers in the past, never again. Yes, I know they improved since a decade ago.
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Tbh I don’t think nVidia is a suitable idea given how consumer friendly this company is. nVidia may have the best GPUs in terms of performance only, but AMDs are far more efficient and will out perform the nVidia GPU from the last generation anyways. Thats not an issue as we can always upgrade it.
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I would like to see an options for both an intel or amd cpu with an option of an amd, intel or nvidia gpu, but only GPUs with open source drivers please.
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Something doesn’t add up here XD
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There is news around Nvidia moving towards open source drivers but I’m also hoping that by the time this laptop comes out AMD graphics cards won’t suck at 3D rendering, wishful thinking i guess
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I would like something that works well with Linux but also with Windows. For that reason, it seems like AMD + AMD is the preferred choice.
Honestly, Intel + AMD would also work, and may even work better on the Linux side of the house.
Of course, in a perfect world, NVIDIA would get with the program and then it would be a matter of whoever has the best solution.
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Moving towards, though more by pushing more of the driver logic onto the cards themselves than actually open sourcing stuff.
How well that actually ends up working out remains to be seen.
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I wouldn’t hold my breath for NV to open source their drivers to the same extent as AMD and Intel.
I don’t know of anything that would put Intel ahead of AMD in the category of better Linux support for their CPUs. Can you expand on that a bit? AMD has better laptop chips IMO, but that has nothing to do with Linux compat. Open to learning more 
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I voted for AMD CPU + NVIDIA GPU. (I tend to prefer AMD CPU over Intel ones, but having the option Intel CPU + NVIDIA CPU would suit me too)
Honestly, even if I understand why people would prefer an AMD GPU, one of my fear is that Framework will only have an AMD GPU, I just really hope we will have the choice between NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. I’m a developer on a Linux OS, I need to have CUDA support for my work. My current laptop has a NVIDIA GPU for that reason. But I cannot have a Framework laptop if I have no NVIDIA GPUs… The CUDA ecosystem is just really mature. (And having an external GPU is not really an option for me, since it’s not really portable…).
In any case, I’m really rooting for you guys, and I was thrilled to see the news of the Framework 16. I just hope I will be able to buy one when it will go out 
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Well, for the FOSS minded AMD’s ME equivalent is even more of a black box and nearly impossible to irradicate. Intel is better, in this case, because it is at least a known quantity and has had a few companies able to disable it with varying degrees of success.
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If people want to know, yes there are some alternatives to CUDA. But honestly, NVIDIA is ahead on this race. As you can see here (reddit/r/MachineLearning: [D] ROCm vs CUDA) using AMD alternatives can be very hard to setup with slower performance (and sometime lack some basic features).
There is also the fact that a lot of production environment deal with NVIDIA GPU / CUDA. So having a NVIDIA GPU on a laptop give you some serenity that you won’t have to redo some work when deploying your app.
It’s not because alternatives exists that they are usable… I however hope AMD will get better to have a real competition there.
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ah yes, I forgot about disabling intel me. Is that still possible on the latest generation of intel chips?
I know some progress to bring coreboot to AMD has been made, but not sure how much.
No, it isn’t, and hasn’t been for a couple of generations.
AMD PSP (pre pluton) did not have network access, ME always has had, and Intel is going to end up with pluton as well so its all much of a muchness now.
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