I have ordered a FW16 with both bays, with and without GPU but since I have other USB4 laptop at home I would be really interested to share the 7700s to my wife’s laptop when I’m not using it.
Since it has been presented as a prototype, I was wondering if Framework is really making this accessory or if it will remain a proof of concept.
If the dock is on the roadmap, could you share information about it ? Is there any ETA about the finalized version ?
I can’t hide the fact that I would love to buy such enclosure with the same order of my FW16 for Q1 next year.
I saw this as a concept idea in a behind the scenes video for the Framework next level event in 2023. Other than that, I’ve not heard of an eGPU enclosure as a prototype product being presented by Framework for their GPU to be used outside the Framework 16.
Its has been around since day 1 of the announcement:
More recently on the last event
That’s why I’m wondering if such project will be a real accessory of if it’s more like the Oculink extention (eg relying on the community to build it).
Thanks for sharing the link to these videos… this was new information for me. All this is exciting and I hope the egpu will not just be a proof of concept but will also be available to buy from framework.
I wish they would make it possible to use more than just USB4 or TB4 to interface with it as the difference in performance between 4 or 8 PCI4 lanes is huge and the difference between encapsulating the traffic within USB/TB versus using native PCI lanes (oculink style) is important too.
I would imagine it’ll be some time before the eGPU dock is available. The case for the FW13 mainboard wasn’t available until long after the FW13 first went on sale (granted, they did make files available for people to 3D print their own long before the Cooler Master case was available).
The way I look at it is Framework is still a small and growing company. They can’t do too many new things at once. I would think that once the FW16 finally launches and demand stabilizes, then they’ll be able to diverse attention to accessories and other projects.
I got your point but I think it would greatly help the synergy between the two laptop lines:
why not just buy the 7700s bay with the dock for the FW13 that a lot of people already own ? Then it would be a first step toward buying the FW16 with the simple bay later on.
The real question is : is the showcased dock really working (since there’s no demo of it anywhere) ? Or is it just an empty box to let people imagine about the future of their bay system ?
If it’s already a real/working prototype then most of the work is already done despite your argument of Framework company being young with almost no people. Maybe a batch of this accessory is not that far after all.
Even if the eGPU enclosure shown is a working model, I’d keep in mind that it may only be one working bay, which means, Framework wouldn’t have any of the precision manufacturing processes worked out for mass production. That’s an entirely different issue that takes a lot of time and effort that they’re probably working with the Framework 16 for, especially since they’ve got a great deal of preorders for that laptop out there, which they’re probably focused on fulfilling with the least amount of problems and the most amount of customer satisfaction.
Despite this, I do agree that an external bay for the GPU in the Framework 16 would be a good thing for any of Framework’s laptops or otherwise. However, I imagine that’s further into the future. the initial design goal seemed to be for the use of the GPU within the Framework 16 rather than using it outside the laptop, that was the case with the Framework 13 mainboard. And Framework isn’t even the one producing the case for the mainboard to be used as a standalone Desktop like system, either. With that in mind, Framework might join with another company for the production of any eGPU enclosure that they may or may not release.
FW16 is currently only AMD, which will be the same for the first year after launch to keep sales up i believe.
A good solution for people wanting a NVIDIA GPU would be this dock, which could be announced around mid next year, with thunderbolt and (occulink if the community bay is developed) to further utilise this and a 180W PD, which is currently very rare for docks.
I think i will be announced rather earlier than later, because its the first accessory, which provide meaningfull support to both the FW13 and FW16.
From what we saw in the video the “proof of concept framework dock” is to make the fw16 GPU expansion bay into a separate device connected to a laptop through a USB4/TB4 port.
This is not a standard eGPU dock where you can put any desktop GPU such as a nVidia card.
As long as there is no expansion bay with an nVidia GPU in it, there is no way to use that framework dock for nVidia.
