I am writing because I want to know whether or not the Framework 13 intends to support the current gen Intel Core Ultra 288v or the AMD Ryzen AI 375HX. These are the most advanced current gen x86 processors and I am going to need to upgrade my computer soon, and having current gen high end processors like the Intel Core Ultra 9 288v or the AMD Ryzen AI 9 375HX are very important to me and would make or break my decision on whether I go for a Framework or a System76.
All the best,
Thank you for your attention,
Joseph Knapp
Currently, Framework does not really do any sort of reveals before they officially have the product so we can only guess about what they will release next.
The Core Ultra 200 Series (Lunar Lake) currently use on package RAM, which goes against Frameworks mission of upgradeable RAM as the RAM is built into the package.
AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 Series use LPDDR RAM, which currently requires either soldering the memory onto the motherboard, or using LPCAMM2. This does seem like the more likely route Framework would choose, although that would mean they would be leaving DDR5 compatibility quite soon.
Either way, Framework will have to do quite some adjustments if they want to adopt the latest CPU generation, so it remains to be seen. They have usually been slower than other laptop manufacturers at releasing the latest generation of CPUs.
Framework has not made any official announcements (and they usually don’t until they are close to launching a product), however I have some speculation for what I expect.
The Core Ultra 200V series are designed for much lower power and heat levels than the Core Ultra 100H or Ryzen 7040 series that Framework currently offers. Furthermore they don’t support replaceable memory or replaceable Wi-Fi and they only support three Thunderbolt 4 ports (instead of 4).
I think it is unlikely that Framework will offer the 200V series.
The upcoming (leaks indicated Intel may be releasing this next month) Core Ultra 200H series however is expected to be the direct successor the 100H series and will have support for repairable memory and Wi-Fi while supporting four Thunderbolt 4 ports. I think it is likely that Framework will offer 200H series eventually, although like 100H series it may take several months.
I believe that that is a specific HP-exclusive CPU model (there were leaks that AMD was preparing a model exclusive to a specific manufacturer with a 10% higher clocked NPU but otherwise equal specs to the 370HX then the 375HX showed up with a 10% higher clocked NPU and only in HP laptops so far).
If that is correct then Framework will not be getting the 375HX. However the 370HX would be a decent match for the Framework Laptop 13 and I wouldn’t be surprised if Framework is already working on it.
AMD’s website states that Ryzen AI 300 series supports DDR5. Furthermore AOOSTAR (a company that makes mini PCs) has announced devices with Ryzen AI 300 series that will use SODIMM ram.
I may be missing some specs in the comparison of the 288v vs 165H currently offered by FW. However I see the only advantage being the 5.10Ghz faster core speed on the 288v vs the 5.00Ghz core speed of the 165H. The 288v has a 32Gb memory limit as well where the 165H can go up to 96GB RAM (48GB x 2 modules).
(credit to unknown comparison site)
The Intel Core Ultra 9 288V has 8 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 5.10 GHz. Up to 32 GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The Intel Core Ultra 9 288V was released in Q3/2024.
The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H has 16 cores with 22 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 5.00 GHz. The CPU supports up to 96 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H was released in Q4/2023.
The 288v (and other 200v series CPUs) have a high focus on battery life and on being well suited for extremely thin and quiet laptops without much cooling capacity. So when comparing performance related specs it is indeed worse.
One of the big features of Meteor Lake (the family of CPUs that the 165h is a part of) was the Low Power Island, which is 2 cores (the two slowest cores) with separate power management from the rest of the cores, meaning that under light load it could shut off power to the rest of the cores completely and massively boost battery life.
There was just one problem with Meteor Lake’s low power island: In practice it was too slow (consisting of 2 very slow cores and no L3 cache) for most tasks and the CPU usually reactivated the other cores for most loads.
IMO the biggest advantage of Lunar Lake (the family of CPUs that the 288v is from) is that it solves that. Lunar Lake’s Low Power Island is supposed to be four times as fast as Meteor Lake’s Low Power Island, which enables it to keep the performance optimized cores disabled under most day to day loads and significantly improve battery life.
I had hoped that those same improvements would be applied to Arrow Lake (Lunar Lake’s big sibling), however recent rumors/leaks indicate that Arrow Lake may be reusing Meteor Lake’s Low Power Island and Panther Lake (Arrow Lake’s successor) will be what gets the improved Low Power Island.
The Intel Core Ultra 288v also has a much faster GPU than the 165H. The fact that it is lower power is a big plus for me because I want a laptop that lasts all day. I also would like to state that four thunderbolt 4 ports could be used with an external thunderbolt controller.