Price Difference between the 3 Processor Options

Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition
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Companies aren’t charities. They don’t sell things to you at cost. For a company to make a profit (i.e. stay alive), they set the price based on a number of factors e.g. quantity, demand, competition, etc.

Framework is a startup selling a fairly niche, premium device at much lower quantities than companies who have literally been around for decades. The fact that they’re able to offer such a product at a competitive price is already a feat.

Let’s do an exercise. How about we look at the competition spec-for-spec in the thin-and-light, premium notebook segment?

Screen CPU RAM Storage Webcam Price (USD)
Framework Laptop 13.5" 2256x1504 i5-1135G7 16GB 500GB 1080p 1065
Macbook Air 13.3" 2560x1600 Base M1 16GB 512GB 720p 1400
XPS 13 13.4" 3456x2160 i5-1135G7 16GB 512GB 720p 1440
Surface Laptop 4 13.5" 2256x1504 i5-1135G7 16GB 512GB 720p 1500
ThinkPad T14 14.0" 1920x1080 i5-1135G7 16GB 512GB 720p 2625
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Framework Laptop 13.5" 2256x1504 i7-1165G7 16GB 1TB 1080p 1415
HP Spectre 14 13.5" 3000x2000 i7-1165G7 16GB 1TB 720p 1730
X1 Carbon 14.0" 1920x1200 i7-1165G7 16GB 1TB 720p 3257
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Framework Laptop 13.5" 2256x1504 i7-1185G7 32GB 1TB 1080p 1895
Macbook Pro 14.2" 3024x1964 Base M1 Pro 32GB 1TB 1080p 2600
ThinkPad X13 13.3" 2560x1600 i7-1185G7 32GB 1TB 1080p 3767

Hope this is enough to convince you that Framework’s prices aren’t crazy. When you step from e.g. i5 to i7, don’t think of it as “how much does it cost the company to offer this spec difference?” Think of it as “what are consumers paying for this spec difference?” Once you step away from the no-nuance Intel ARK estimate and into the real world, you can see why these tiers start to make sense.

And sure, if you’re looking for maximum spec for minimum cost, you weren’t ever considering a Framework anyway. You can definitely save a significant chunk of money by sacrificing one or more of: screen resolution/brightness/color gamut, build quality/materials, modularity/reparability, good thermal design, 1080p webcam, glass trackpad, high-travel keyboard, hot-swappable ports, etc. etc. etc.

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I think lots of people will thinke the last paragraph definitely goes into detail random boldness (its nice.)

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There’s absolutely no reason for a regular consumer to buy the 1185. The difference in performance with the 1165 is tiny. I would guess they’re same chip, it’s just a difference in binning - the chips that can reach higher clocks end up as 1185’s. The real difference is vPro support, which is an Enterprise feature. So it’s simply price discrimination. It’s a way to charge higher prices to corporate clients who require vPro, because they can afford it.

The prices for all the other upgrades (memory, storage, etc) are very reasonable and at least for me in Canada, comparable to what I’d pay to order similar parts on Amazon.

You say that the profit margins on the 1135 are OK, so they should have the same margin on the 1185, but you have no way of knowing that. It’s entirely possible the business would not be sustainable if they only sold 1135’s at the current price. For all you know they are selling the 1135 at very low margins, or even at a bit of a loss, to get Frameworks in the hands of more people, as a longer term strategy.

As someone else pointed out the price for the lower spec models is very competitive. If anything, you should be glad for this pricing, it looks like the consumer-oriented models may be subsidized by the enterprise oriented model.

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I think that the vPro option is OK for enterprise, but I did some research on the CPU, so I went with the mid-tier. If framework makes more money off of enterprise customers, then that means accelerated development for regular consumers (AMD, i’m eyeing you). It’s a win-win if enterprises buy the high-end model, and consumers wait a bit.

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OK, feesh, thank you so much for your detailed post. That was very interesting for the proper expansion of this conversation. :+1:t3:
I’ll try to respond and give my own thoughts on it. (I don’t expect to be right about all of it, and I’m open to be convinced otherwise with good arguments)

Absolutely! For sure, but I’m only trying to point out here that there is a MAJOR difference between whatever it is that Apple does to their own consumers and what a few other companies do.

Looking at the Framework Marketplace, almost all prices there seem to be quite reasonable: not the best in the market but still not too far away.
The company probably makes a profit on ALL components there, but it is not something like double the price you can get elsewhere.

They don’t feel the need to drive customers away and that is really commendable. What I’m sayin’ is that on this front I don’t feel disrespected by the company and I feel almost compelled to pay a little extra than what I could pay elsewhere, just to help.

Thank you for that, I was really lacking that perspective you were able to lay out on this table. The one thing I may say though, is that I have a really hard time accepting almost any of those machines can cost this much with a 2-year old, somewhat weak processor (with the notable exception of the Macbook - they justify the premium, maybe not the price).

It probably won’t take too long before those machines are kind of obsolete and unable to do some important tasks. Most importantly, they won’t offer the possibility of future upgrades without having to buy the whole machine once again.

Another thing we may very well differ is that I can’t possibly consider Framework a “Premium” brand (at least not yet; it’s still a startup). Instead of premium, I prefer thinking of it more like a solid, honest, realiable brand.
There are many reasons to pay more for a Framework laptop, but not a premium for the brand, I don’t think. What I’m sayin’ is that above a certain point is just unreasonable.

I never thought so, oh no, that is not what I intended to say…
I look at the i5 model, for instance, and it is really easy to understand why we would pay like $400 more than a “similar” competing machine from Acer, for example. The Framework offers so much more.

I’m only pointing out the discrepancies when jumping from processor options (those are not different machines). When choosing options for storage, or memory, the prices are incredibly fair; for processors, they’re not (in my opinion) - and they should also be just as much fair.

My hope is that this may very well be a temporary company strategy (hopefully, maybe because they haven’t got yet a wide enough lineup to provide “extra-premium” products at “extra-steep” prices).

That is exactly the type of pitfall I was hoping that this company could avoid. I don’t think it would be outrageous to expect a more fair and democratic approach to technology by this company. I still believe (and this company hasn’t given me reason to think otherwise) that they do not operate under the “how wide can we make our profit margins to be” model, but rather on “let’s bring a much needed change to this industry”.

No, not really. Not at all. Just something a little more reasonable. That’s all.

An 13" u-series 11th gen. i7 laptop could cost today an average of $650 to $850, depending on many factors. It is plenty OK for Framework to slap an extra $400 on top of that (for those wonderful myriad of things they offer in contrast to those laptops).

My hope would be that the same fair price policies they apply to memory and storage to be also applied to processors (specially in the same family, same machine, same lineup).

My hope would be that the company doesn’t go that way in that it prioritizes profit over expanding their consumer base (specially in these early stages).

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:grinning: :smiley: :smile: :sweat_smile: :joy: :upside_down_face:

I love it. (still laughing about it…)
I use the boldness in consideration for people with no time just skimming through my posts (I know I like to be a “little” prolific at times :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)

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Good arguments, I’m just not entirely convinced by this idea that involve the i5’s and a notion of sustainability. It is a good enough speculation, but I don’t believe for a moment the i5’s are sold at a loss (compensated by the i7’s).

They’re a fresh startup with a great model and many solid investors. I believe it is more important for them to expand the user base than a few profit margins.
(what I mean is this is not the time to worry about being “profitable” - not yet)

The i7-1165G7 isn’t a “premium” processor at all (even less so when the 12th gen inevitably inundates the market) and does not deserve to be treated with unfair markups. That’s my position, and yes, I might be wrong and biased by many factors.

But indeed I see your point. Probably, if we were talking about 12 gen. processors (specially the P-series), I wouldn’t have such a big problem with the i5 being the only “affordable” option…

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Here is where I think you lack a bit of perspective on how processors “age”. CPUs don’t arbitrarily become obsolete, especially when we’re talking about different tiers within the same generation. Maybe if we were talking about previous Intel generations (like the tired 14nm++++ Whiskey Lake or the low-yield 10nm Ice Lake), but Tiger Lake is Intel’s best platform in years and will be able to perform the tasks that this product segment targets for years to come.

On the extreme end, I personally was using a dual-core Sandy Bridge for 10 years before I felt the need to upgrade. I wouldn’t be surprised if my Framework suited my use-case for that long too. And for a more reasonable person, I think it’ll suit their use-case for at least half that time.

i7-1165G7 is on the high-end of the best-binned Tiger Lake chips, with (aside from Apple) the best integrated GPU on the market. If you compare it with the dual-core i3-1115G4, then I would absolutely characterize the i7 as “premium”. Alder Lake P laptops aren’t even out yet–but I suppose I too would put a premium on unreleased CPUs lol.

I didn’t say that Framework as a whole is a “premium brand”, more that the Framework Laptop is a premium device, which I base on the specs, quality of materials, level of QC, etc. compared to other notebooks in the market.

I don’t think there is as much discrepancy as you think there is. The pitfall here is that you’re using Intel’s “Recommended Customer Price” to gauge what pricing is reasonable. But here is Intel’s definition:

Recommended Customer Price (RCP) is pricing guidance only for Intel products. Prices are for direct Intel customers, typically represent 1,000-unit purchase quantities, and are subject to change without notice. Prices may vary for other package types and shipment quantities. If sold in bulk, price represents individual unit. Listing of RCP does not constitute a formal pricing offer from Intel. RCP values can vary due to tariffs.

This is the price Intel customers (i.e. the manufacturers of the laptop) are expected to pay, for a bulk purchase of a CPU package. Because a bajillion additional factors go into the cost of designing and manufacturing a laptop, RCP has very little weight on what the final price to the consumer should be.

The point of my initial response was to try and help you understand that the pricing of tiers of laptop products depends on many different factors. While profit is one of them, I think Framework did a very reasonable job of balancing that with the market competition and their customer-focused approach.

And a bit of a tangent, but if you feel ripped off by paying $300 extra going from i5 to i7, vote with your wallet and go with the i5. Aside from a graphics boost, there is very little performance difference between the two.

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Another tangent but…if you couldn’t tell, I closely follow the laptop market. When I first heard about Framework’s mission, before pricing announced, I distinctly remember thinking “this is gonna cost 2k+ starting isn’t it”.

Imagine my surprise when prices were released.

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I do think this assessment is logical, and I gave the purchase options the same hairy eyeball you are giving them now. It’s hard to know exactly what the thought process was behind these price points since we don’t work for the company, but I think it is fair to suppose that there might be more to it than what you or I can see on the surface.

One point to consider is that the CPU price points are potentially the only determining factor for how much a person pays for their laptop. I think most of us ordered some other stuff as well to get a more complete kit, but the option is available to gather the other components from somewhere else and just get the device bare-bones.

If you think about it that way, the laptop might end up being three separate margin targets based on the three available cores. These will be obviously made up numbers, but bear with me:

  • Let’s suppose each model needs to make a thousand bucks a month in order to make it worth it to keep that particular core in production.

  • The i5 laptop has a really slim margin and they are only making $10 a laptop. But that’s okay–with that low price they are hoping to sell a hundred laptops a month–so they make the thousand bucks and can still offer the super affordable option.

  • They don’t expect to sell as many i7-1165 laptops, because most people don’t really need that kind of performance boost and will probably stick with the cheaper unit. They expect to sell ten units a month, so they have to make $100 per laptop instead of ten to make the thousand bucks (margin target goes up).

  • The i7-1185 is only going to be purchased by people who need the added enterprise functionality of the chip, so they are only expecting to sell five units per month. To get a thousand bucks to make keeping this chip in production worth it, they have to make $200 a unit.

That’s all a combination of speculation and made-up numbers there, but the point is sometimes your margin target is fluid from design to design based on what you can realistically move versus what it is going to cost to keep it in production.

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It’s still only 4cores though for the U-models that Framework uses (my HTPC with 14 year old hardware, Nehalem, has 4 cores and 8 threads as seen with the first-gen i7 - even mobile Nehalem i7s were 4c/8t albeit at substantially lower clocks, it wasn’t until Sandy Bridge that mobile 4c/8t i7s had good clocks), and the single-threaded performance over the 14+++++nm products you mentioned is… really not that much (though I suppose it’ll appear more in a thermally constrained environment).

AMD disagrees: see Ryzen 6000, the Steam Deck’s APU, and technically the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X which do have their chips sold as PCs when the iGPU failed (and even a soft-modded base PS4 running Linux could very well be up there, especially the PS4 Pro if it weren’t for poor Linux driver support for the Pro).

There was also a Chinese-only “console” that was just a PC running I think a custom Zen 1 A**PU with something like a RX 470-class iGPU + 16GB GDDR5?

EDIT: indeed it was (RX 470 and RX 570 are virtually identical):

An i3 was dual-core in that same Nehalem (technically Westmere) generation I mentioned that my HTPC uses, even on mobile. Having a mobile i3 still be 2c/4t over 2 decades later should be a crime (and, sure enough, desktop i3’s went to quad core beginning with Coffee Lake in late 2017/early 2018, possibly in response to quad-core Ryzen 3 CPUs on both mobile and desktop (though the absolute lowest-end Ryzen 3 SKU for mobile Zen1 and mobile Zen+ were 2c/4t, but the rest of the Ryzen 3 SKUs were quad core with Athlon SKUs taking up the rest of the dual-core range)

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Yes yes, moar cores etc. etc. My point in praising Tiger Lake isn’t to fanboy or stoke the tired team-blue/team-red tribalism, it’s to dispel OP’s misconception that 1165G7 or even 1135G7 are “low-end” chips.

Steam Deck, PS5, and Xbox aren’t laptops. RDNA2 iGPUs in laptops are still not out yet. 11th gen Iris Xe has been available on laptops for about 1.5 years now, and while Vega is no slouch, for raw graphics power Iris Xe comes out on top.

I would love an AMD variant mainboard too though I think that’s off-topic to this particular thread.

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I can say that, at least from my point of view, the purpose of this thread was much more to make sense of current pricing models for Framework machines than to offer some form of criticism (I believe we don’t have enough data to be able to do that).

So far, I am glad that I’ve learn that:
( 1 ) The i7-1185G7 “exorbitant” pricing may very well be entirely justified due to mostly enterprise targeting. I think that’s fair to say (even if you don’t agree with the “exorbitant” label :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:).
( 2 ) The i7-1165G7 pricing may very well be "not that expensive" if you compare to other premium models currently on the market. (I’m not 100% sold on that, as I also regard those premium machines with this processor capabilities as too expensive in terms of cost/benefit; but I see that Framework offers something more than those, something that is unique among that class - I’m just not sure it should be included and compared to that class is all…)
( 3 ) The i7-1135G7 pricing may not compare well with other budget options on the market, but for sure the Framework Laptop is not a budget machine either, so that is an unfair comparison.

Because I am at the bottom of the market (in terms of expenditure capabilities), and also because I would absolutely love to own a Framework laptop (to have the peace of mind that I could easily replace - with fair prices - any of the components of my machine as needed), I still have a hard time accepting some of that. But I am on my way to reaching that point.

Except for the discussion about the i7-1165G7 being premium or not (with proportional prices being attached to that), I don’t see a point in arguing about this versus other processors, as there is (hopefully) a long road ahead for Framework to widen their lineup and product offerings.

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Just responding some of the points made previously in this thread:

@feesh "I personally was using a dual-core Sandy Bridge for 10 years before I felt the need to upgrade"
I am not too far away from that! I have an i7 u-series laptop from 2016 (so, “only” 6 years old) and already there are quite a few things I can’t do with it. Some of those are pretty simple things like connecting to an external 4K monitor and playing a YouTube video with 4K resolution. Even a FHD video upscaled on those 4K monitors make the laptop sound like a jet engine after a few minutes. When I say that my laptop processor is “obsolete”, this is what I mean… Things you can no longer do with it…

I really want/need a Laptop that can at least come close to matching my Desktop performance (and my Desktop is quite old as well).

@feesh "…Alder Lake P laptops aren’t even out yet…"
Yes, there are a few out there already (Yoga,Swift). From the reviews they have incredible performance, but they’re not so great as we’d expect in other areas.

@feesh "…more that the Framework Laptop is a premium device…"
That is fair. Good point.

@feesh "…profit… Framework did a very reasonable job of balancing that with the market competition and their customer-focused approach…"
Again, that also is a very good point. If we look at everything else at the Market Place, prices are quite reasonable.

@feesh "…if you feel ripped off by paying $300 extra going from i5 to i7, vote with your wallet and go with the i5. Aside from a graphics boost, there is very little performance difference between the two"
No, those are harsh words. I never said (or meant) “ripped off”. My point when starting the thread: the i5 is not powerful enough for me personally; the i7 is barely there (with not much of a longevity in sight in my opinion); there is a possibility (but not a promise) that I could replace the mb./proc. for a reasonable price in the future; but I am afraid that I won’t be able to sell the old mb./proc. combo in the same manner I could do with an used good condition laptop.

I wish I could argue that the i7-1165G7 could/should be “Framework’s budget option” instead, but I can see now that I failed miserably on that point (and I can see why).

@BluishHumility "…I think it is fair to suppose that there might be more to it than what you or I can see on the surface"
Agreed wholeheartedly. It is too bad that Framework (possibly for market reasons) can’t be more transparent about what is driving their pricing decisions, what is the projected roadmap, etc. But it is understandable…

@BluishHumility "…sometimes your margin target is fluid from design to design based on what you can realistically move versus what it is going to cost to keep it in production"
That’s a great point. Rationaly, this is somewhat easy to see. Emotionaly, it is hard to incorporate into our feelings.

@feesh "…Yes yes, moar cores… dispel OP’s misconception that 1165G7 or even 1135G7 are “low-end” chips…"
Not “low-end” really… I said “weak”, as in poor multicore performance, specially when considering the whole of the mobile processor market. I think it is fair to consider these processors at most “mid-range” - for NOW. But, yes, these are just opinions, not facts.

Some of us see an inflection point at the processor offerings, just like when my relatives where still buying DVD’s and BluRays and I kept thelling them “you’re throwing your money away, this format is already close to the point of death”. You may very well look back in just 2 or 3 years and feel completely different about these 4 core 11th gen. U-series processors. Today it’s reasonable to think it is plenty enough, I’m not so sure about “tomorrow”.

@feesh "…RDNA2 iGPUs in laptops are still not out yet…"
Yes, there are some of those already out (G14). And they are really good! $1650 for a 14” laptop with vapor-chamber and liquid metal cooling, top last gen. mobile processor, solid last gen. mid-tier dedicated graphics card, quad-speaker set, bigger set of I/O, DDR5, and so on… Still far out of my budget, but quite a dreamy machine. Quite unreasonable to compare it to a Framework machine, but hard to resist.

@feesh "…I would love an AMD variant mainboard too…"
Me too… :+1:t3: I think this tangent is unavoidable at this point… :smile:

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I was referring to devices in Framework’s class i.e. ULV processors. G14 is using the -H class which always comes out earlier.

While reviews may have just come out, I can’t find any place to buy one. Keep in mind that the Framework Laptop is approaching a year old now. I don’t think comparing it with almost-available laptops is really apples-to-apples.

Ah yes, that horrible feeling of FOMO. Tech moves fast. There is always the “next big thing” around the corner. Remember when people were complaining about years of 14nm++++? When Intel finally moved off to 10nm, it was lackluster (Ice Lake) until Tiger Lake refined it.

I can see you’ve bought into the “4 cores in <current year> lol” corporate marketing. I hope you can combat that with a bit of research into just how capable these “weak” processors are, for example:

https://community.frame.work/t/some-benchmark-numbers-for-anyone-interested/8067
(you might also be interested in that Yoga comparison, as it should be similar to your 2016 laptop).

TLDR; buy what you need, when you need it. If you can wait, wait. If you need something now, don’t. But if you’re always speculating about “tomorrow”, you’ll be waiting forever for the “next big thing”.

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It’s at least worth mentioning that, for AMD, -H class chips use the exact same silicon…

(actually AFAICT, there’s only one Zen3+ die being made at all)

I would argue that 4c/8t is the sort of thing that has long overstayed its time as a supposed “high end chip configuration” (why else do you think Intel moved even i5 chips to being 4c/8t on mobile? Can you even get a 4c/4t mobile chip anymore that isn’t using an Atom-derived core?). I have a friend with a Sandy Bridge 4c/8t laptop he bought basically on launch day back in 2011!

There’s a difference between buying today’s tech and worrying about what’s coming out tomorrow (e.g. buying DDR4 today and worrying about DDR5) and straight-up buying yesterday’s tech today (e.g. buying DDR3 anytime in the last couple of years).

I mean, 4c/8t was high-end when mechanical hard drives, not even SATA SSDs, were still the go-to storage solution even for most enthusiasts.

Also, I don’t know about you, but most enthusiast circles I know of always looked down on dual-core i7s as basically a marketing sham considering that 2c/4t was historically i3 on the desktop (or an i5 if you count 1st gen dieshunk Core aka Westmere).

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Same silicon or not, for a given CPU generation, the availability of notebooks with -U variants always lags the -H by at least a quarter.

The pitfall here is that just looking at core/thread count in a vacuum is not a good indicator of performance, especially when we’re talking about the ultraportable space, where the vast majority of use-cases (i.e. non-heavy) still can’t take advantage of having >4 cores.

This isn’t a workstation nor a desktop replacement. I’ve yet to see any reason that 4c8t won’t last a long time for the use-cases the Framework Laptop is targeting.

Hell, at this very moment I’m using a throttled, dual-core i7 that works plenty well for my job (Excel crunching, basic GIMP editing, heavy Electron apps). In this product segment, I’ve yet to see any hard numbers to convince me that the “lol 4 cores” sentiment isn’t the result of ignorance and marketing-induced FOMO.

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So fun fact, I run a 2c/2t Haswell @ 4.5GHz. It’s normally perfectly fine, but batch audio transcoding as well as any video rendering can take… a while.

I am very well aware of this as an emulation enthusiast - a notoriously demanding single-threaded workload.

Virtualization, 'nuff said. You cannot use SMT threads for VMs and the Framework audience has many software developers and Linux enthusiasts, both of which can at times heavily rely on virtual machines.

The system I’m looking to be moving towards, a Ryzen 4800U, will be particularly useful in this use-case as I’m similarly looking to move my primary PC from Windows to Linux (I have existing non-primary PCs running Linux) and will use “Disk2VHD” to import my existing Windows installation into VirtualBox to pick up the slack when native Linux or WINE doesn’t work (I’ve already tested everything I’ve described).

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While a valid one, I’d argue that that is a fairly niche use-case.

I think that is just by virtue of Framework’s mission. Given the form factor, it’s quite clear that the Framework Laptop is not enthusiast-grade wrt performance.

The 4800U (while hard to find) is a beastly chip and I’m glad it will work for you. But again, looking at the target audience and their use-cases, I’d argue that the Tiger Lake platform is at least on par, if not better (despite having half the core/thread count):

1440×1000 87.2 KB

The only reason I’d like to see an AMD mainboard variant is for the potential battery savings.

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Nice.

I’m on a Ryzen 9 4900H [gaming laptop…and I don’t game] when it comes to virtualization, and use it’s dGPU for various transcoding when needed. The Framework laptop is nice…but doesn’t fit some of my heavier use cases.