IMO it goes like this for compatibility, in order of “100% works”:
Framework’s officially supported memory list you linked.
Anecdotal user reports (mainly in this forum and the Framework subreddit).
Most RAM should just work, and at their standard JEDEC timings. Intel XMP and AMD EXPO timings aren’t supported currently. However, since this is a pretty new platform, keep in mind that there may be issues and incompatibility for a while. Picking completely blind (without 1. and 2.), I’d go for the major brands (also for quality assurance), but most if not all should eventually work as if I’m not mistaken are all either Micron (Crucial), SK Hynix, or Samsung chips.
Theoretically it should work, however I wouldn’t recommend it.
That ram has a JEDEC speed (default speed where it is super stable and low power) of 4800 MT/s CL40. That’s what it will run at if you use it in the Framework Laptop.
The advertised speed (6000 MT/s CL38) is the XMP speed, which is essentially an overclock (raising performance at the cost of higher power consumption and possibly worse reliability) that the manufacturer has tested it to be able to handle without becoming unstable. Framework does not support running ram at XMP speeds.
The fastest ram that can work in the Framework Laptop is anything using the 5600A JEDEC profile (ie. 5600 MT/s CL40), which is mainly a few kits from G.Skill and Kingston.
Edit: Also, some users have reported issues booting with some (not all) ram with a JEDEC speed other than 5600 MT/s. So there could be issues with that.
when shopping for dram what should i be looking for i understand, DDR5-5600 (no xmb) and sodimm but what else besides that. looking for 2x32. when i go to the ram support page im a bit confused about validation. is there a way that i can tell which rams will validate? as well as what does it mean if it partially validates and how would it effect performance? any help would be goated
You got it right. 2x32GB DDR5-5600MT/s SO-DIMM sticks will most likely work straight out the gate (except for some documented Linux cases).
What is important here, is understanding the difference between JEDEC specs and XMP/EXPO profiles. The Framework laptop does not support XMP/EXPO, so if a manufacturer advertises speeds and/or timings with XMP/EXPO profiles, I’d call it a yellow flag. It can work, but it doesn’t necessarily have to work. People reported about some of those sticks defaulting to 4800MT/s. This will cause performance losses that are just unnecessary.
In regards to validation of RAM: There’s no way the Framework team can validate every single stick/kit on the market. I would not think that this is the kind of thing they want to spend a lot of resources on. The way I see it, they transparently validate the sticks/kits you can order in a DYI or pre-built laptop and give you the JEDEC specs if you want to try your own. As far as I’m concerned, the validation status doesn’t matter as long as the RAM works for me in the laptop, which it does.
The community is doing a great job in collecting info on many different configurations and the results. For your 2x32GB config, I guess you could go with the above mentioned Kingston KF556S40IBK2-64 or with the also mentioned G.Skill F5-5600S4040A32GX2-RS. Both kits checked out green at 5600MT/s and CL40 which seems to be the max speed in the Framework 13.