I’d prefer socketed RAM, but I’d cave to soldered / in-SoC RAM in some cases:
If RAM must be soldered, maybe one could have daughter boards with CPU and RAM on the daughter board and then all the usb ports etc. On a mainboard.
I.e. a bit like a raspberry pi. CM4
The eventual problem would be once pcie speeds increase, and then needing that soldered as well.
Or one finally gets affordable optical interconnects.
So… a post-Panther Lake perspective on this. Seems that all the SKUs with Arc iGPUs need LPDDR5. I think we’re pretty squarely hitting bandwidth limitations with iGPU performance, so there is a fork in the road for Framework. We could continue to use SO-DIMMs and be limited in iGPU performance and probably efficiency, or shift to LPDDR5.
I think the time to shift to LPCAMM2 is here. I would really like to see Panther Lake offered for the next FW13 and 16 refresh, but I would also like to use a SKU with the Arc B370 or B390. To me it seems like the only way to have Panther Lake, Strix Halo, etc. is to make this transition. It doesn’t look like AMD is going to move away from RDNA 3.5 in their iGPUs before Zen 6, but i can bet that RDNA5 based iGPUs will require LPDDR too.
I really don’t want to use soldered RAM, but it does look like SO-DIMMs may have reached the end of their life cycle, unless there’s a possibility to use clocked SO-DIMMs (i suspect they’re more power hungry though).
Of course, ideally we would be able to use SOCAMM2 in laptops and skip LPCAMM2, but unless the AI bubble bursts, i don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon, especially given the ongoing RAM hyperinflation crisis.
If Framework starts offering soldered RAM in more models than they already do, I’m convinced they’ve lost sight of their vision.
Remember back in 2020 this dumb TV blog post?
The product was perfect for us: a dumb TV that as an added bonus reduces e-waste by using panels that would otherwise be scrapped.
I don’t care if the industry is moving towards this or that kind of chip, supporting specific kinds of memory. Heck, the fact that the AI bubble is making DDR5 so scarce should have already seen Framework embracing older tech. Probably less money and glamour in that.
I’m a simple technologist. I don’t run AI models. I write code, tolerate the occasional container, and generally see computers as dumb tools that do things I can’t do in a notebook.
The product that would be perfect for me: a dumb computer that as an added bonus reduces e-waste by using old chips and memory formats that would otherwise be scrapped.
I was big time in favor of framework aggressively adopting lpcamm2 early, even at higher cost but the last 6 months have basically cooked that. Micron was the only company really even selling them to the consumer market, and now they’ve exited consumer altogether because they can make way more money selling every single thing they can make to AI hyperscalers.
I don’t know who you’re even going to source modules from at this point unless MS/Google et all decide they’ve finally built enough datacenters.
I’ve said this in other threads but if the only way you can do panther lake is soldered, do that. It’s way too good to ignore, honestly the first really good upgrade from Phoenix. If you’re willing to do soldered in a desktop of all things, at least it makes more sense in mobile. I want to see lpcamm2 and further camm evolution but right now “ai” is destroying consumer markets (along with some frankly way more important things) so I’ve done a complete 180 on whether I think *camm is going to be viable in the short to medium term.
You will get similar results with Pantherlake.
@earthling Intel sometimes allows for out of paper spec configs. There’s an Asus device out there with 358H using DDR5-7200. It will be slower, but it’s going to be faster than whatever Framework has right now. Also, Intel Xe3 uarch is pretty balanced. 7200 to 9600 is 33%, and the differences will be some fractions of that. Probably 10-15%.
Possible I’ve missed it, but I don’t think I’ve seen any market availability of csodimms over 6400MT, and using xmp is probably a nonstarter in a thin and light because those profiles drive the ram at 1.35v or more. There are already threads here about the fw13 chassis having issues with heat on jedec spec sodimms with sustained loads.
Higher clocked csodimms are probably going to face the same issue as *camm right now; early adopter tech in extreme market conditions.
12 Xe cores are still going to be massively faster even with 6400. Neither FW systems with AMD nor Intel has that support and the new uarch is much more efficient at using memory plus a better architecture.
Have you thought maybe there’s nothing over 6400 because there’s nothing that supports it yet?
https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/NUC-358H
https://data-us.aaeon.com/DOWNLOAD/2014%20datasheet/Systems/UP%20Xtreme%20PTL%20Edge.pdf
So interesting thing came up, apparently Intel is allowing pairing B370 and B390 GPUs with slower DRAM, but companies can’t use Arc branding if they do that.
That said, something exciting has happened in the last week or so…
(cc: @fish_177 )
Lenovo Starts LPCAMM2 Rollout With Chinese ThinkBook 14+ and 16+ Launch
The ThinkBook 16+ appears to be Lenovo’s first consumer device to feature LPCAMM2, launching with up to 32 GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory backing up an Intel Core Ultra X7 385H and its Arc B390 iGPU.
@nrp maybe this is already on your radar but given that large OEMs have started rolling these out… would sure love some LPCAMM2 + Intel Arc / RDNA 5 stuff once DRAM pricing insanity comes to an end… it’s less about having gaming laptops, more about very efficient work machines that have enough juice to provide a decent gaming experience (especially plugged in).
Lenovo, to their credit, at least has been trying to use lpcamm2 on some select models; these actually won’t be their first - one of their existing p series workstation replacements uses them I think. Believe there have also been some articles floating around of a Lenovo rep showing off a 9600MT 96 GB Samsung lpcamm2 module as well.
I really hope they succeed, but it’s hard to be optimistic with things going the way they are.
They’re also embracing repairability now with Thinkpad T14 7th gen and T16 Gen 5. Nice to see framework pushing companies to be better. Conversely, these also come with LPCAMM2, so I think Framework really doesn’t have a good excuse to not shift to LPCAMM2 as well at this point.
Lenovo is also shifting to CXMT, which might be the way to go for Framework’s non-US markets, at least as long as tariffs and sanctions against CXMT and co are in place.
Just adding to this post, Framework please keep using socketed memory only.
I am counting LP-CAMM2 memory as socketed. LPDDR5 would be a great idea as an optional but given the current market I would be surprised if this was offered, unless its affordable (which is subjective yes) of course.
looks like framework decided to go the hannah montana route!
LPCAMM2 will give the best of both worlds. great work framework 
Only socketable RAM unless soldered gives such an incredible boost to make socketed nonsense.
Really, I’d like GPUs with socketable CAMM GDDR memory.
GPUs with upgradable memory would be fantastic! It would definitely extend the life of the GPU!
You missed those days by about 30 years lol
If we thought we had signal integrity issues with ddr, gddr is on a whole other level. It both runs faster and is on a way wider bus. Socketing that would come at a huge power and/or performance tradeof.
If I get more performance and efficiency with soldered RAM, then I want it. Pluggable RAM will soon be niche - it’s the only way to advance.
Lpcamm bought it a lot of time as it massively reduced the performance/power/board-space penalty for having removavle ram vs soldered. On package memory is still more efficient but also more expensive.
I could see a mix of on package and regular ram happening though in the future.