I preordered a 13" DIY edition with 64GB RAM, because that’s the most RAM I could get. In fact, I originally found Framework by surfing the world wide web in search of 13" laptops with more than 32GB RAM and not finding a lot. So I am happy to find something with 64GB, but would love even more.
I noticed the CPU I ordered has support for up to 256GB RAM (https://www.amd.com/en/product/13186). It doesn’t seem like going past 64GB is currently available from Framework, though. I also couldn’t find any compatible DDR5 modules beyond 2x32GB (I only looked at Crucial because I heard they were compatible), so maybe the technology just isn’t there yet.
But is it reasonable to think in the somewhat near future 128GB RAM will be a possibility with the AMD Framework Laptop 13?
Without the new boards being released, we can only speculate Seeing as Framework have tested higher RAM amounts and have it working experimentally (See the above link), it seems to be less a limitation of the mainboard, and more a limitation of current RAM manufacture, since there is currently only one DDR5 SODIMM RAM kit I have heard of that goes above 32gb sticks.
@Azure u said…“there is currently only one DDR5 SODIMM RAM kit I have heard of that goes above 32gb sticks.”
can u plz advice what is this item/brand …n plz also advice brands which r making 1x128gb and 1x256gb rams…or 1st to e expect from? thanks !
Thanks dear for info! i also thought to chip in and a webpage i have been watching for past i guess 2+ months is:
Precision 7680 Mobile Workstation
It has a RAM option saying…
“128GB, 1x128GB 3600MT/s CAMM, non-ECC”
again “1x128GB” and its not even xeon … its 13th gen Intel
So like Mushkin has dell got done some custom RAM crafted for them? by maybe samsung… cuz crucial/skhynix are advance brands specially crucial but they lag in nm fab.
Yeah, so CAMM is Dell’s new RAM Standard that would replace SODIMM, and seems to be able to handle higher RAM capacities. Framework does not currently use CAMM Modules, but may use them in the future.
The Amd 13" has everything in my taste to be a “Workstation” and I really intent to use it as such. So, if it can handle 256go of Ram I will upgrade soon or later.
So, I’d really like to have some feedback from the Framework team about it too.
It seems like the 5600MHz 96GB RAM is sold out pretty much everywhere, but I ordered some on back order and will see how it goes! Who knows if the Framework or the RAM will be ready to ship first.
The backorder period is done and my 96GB will arrive this week. Framework kindly removed the 64GB RAM I had on my preorder. Now I just need to get the laptop!
Every discussion about the new non-power-of-two sized kits immediately veer into discussions about value and “how much ram you really need”. What I have yet to find is: why? Why have we never seen stick density at this size? Was it only possible in DDR5 or with modern controllers? Is it a physical size thing? Is there a different architecture that allows arbitrary die counts? Is this an nVidia moment where there are six dies of one size and two dies of another for yield purposes?
Having dealt with the “only get Samsung B-Die” days of Ryzen, I want to know if weird corners are being cut or these introduce esoteric considerations. Especially if something was snuck in that affects performance, like a triple-rank architecture or something that affects timing/voltage compared to “normal” 16 and 32 gig sticks.
Given that you could previously already use 1 32GB Dimm and 1 16GB Dimm per channel on standard memory controllers and not experience any performance degradation, that does not seem to be that crazy (if the modules are matched, do not have conflicting latencies and you do not consider that you probably could not drive 2 Dimms at the full speed the IMC can drive a single Dimm).
All that means is, you are not getting the full use out of the most significant address bit and to check whether a certain location still exists you can no longer say “bits 0-20 are valid, everything above 20 does not exist”.
But if 128 GB was already supported and you could already have total amounts of RAM that are not power of 2, then this support was present all along. So my guess is, that this comes mostly down to firmware for the IMC setting everything up correctly. And this also looks to be where AMD had a few problems / did not have their firmware ready on launch, whereas Intel did. So I would not even think, that that is some new mandatory feature with DDR5, but simply was theoretically possible for a while, but previously the gap between 2 memory sizes was not wide enough for anybody to deal with the testing to ensure it actually works in the real world.
Edit:
my 48GB Dimms (not So-Dimm) have 2 ranks. I cannot tell, whether 1 rank is just 32GB and the other 16GB, just like you could have done with 2 separate Dimms in the same channel or whether both ranks just have a top address that is not a power of 2. But I do not see where that would make a difference in performance, if the hardware is capable of representing it.
I did go for the Mushkin 96GB 5600MHz kit in the end, and it works really well! Part number is MRA5S560LKKD48GX2 and it is currently available on Newegg for quite a bit less than I paid.
I thought there was a problem at first because the display was completely blank, but after taking the memory modules out and swapping them it worked. I’m guessing they just weren’t fully seated despite having clicked into place.
