I recently picked up an old Thinkpad T470. With the expanded + internal battery (96Wh capacity) and my battery optimized install of Arch, I can get a theoretical 34hrs of battery life (assuming 2.8W power draw, which I’ve seen the T470 pull). This is insanely long, and I’m not optimistic about Framework being able to come close, but I hope that whatever they do manage isn’t disappointing.
I’d love to see an expanded battery for the bay that adds another 85Wh.
IMO the fact that Asus was able to cram a 100-125W vapor chamber cooling system inside a pretty slim ROG Zephrus G14 for a CPU and GPU independent of one another seems like it would be very possible to fit a similar cooling solution within 2/3rds the space of a 16-inch chassis that is almost 60% longer, 10% wider, and 15% thicker.
And recent Nvidia cards can maintain 90% performance at 65-70% the stock TDP – for the 4060TI that means 3060TI performance at 122 watts.
Also mobile CPUs like the Core i9-13980HX (55W TDP, 8 “P-cores” + 16 “E-cores”) and the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D (45-75W configurable TDP, 16 “P-cores”) exist that boost up to 155 watts of power draw and can maintain around half that wattage in games.
So given 25% less CPU cores and at least 20% IPC efficiency boost on 4nm (30% less power draw compared to 16 Zen4 cores) as well as another 30% boost in GPU efficiency from 5nm to 4nm (RX 6750XT grunt @ ~90W) AMD could manage a 55W TDP APU with a 12-core/24-thread Zen5 CPU + 40CU RDNA 3.5 integrated GPU that peaks at 110 watts with 20-80 (50W average) dynamically allocated to the CPU and the other 30-90 (60W average) dynamically allocated to the iGPU when gaming.
So assuming iGPU performance scales somewhat linearly it could match the RX 6750XT at 90W, the RX 5700 at 60W, and the RX 470 at 30W while accessing up to 48GB of DDR5-6400/7200 – half of 96GB max system RAM – as VRAM.
I’m trying to be moderately conservative with these power efficiency and performance estimates but I honestly believe we could see this amount of processing power packed into a moderately large modular laptop like a Generation 2 Framework 16.
Well I bet there’s a 50-50 chance we could get a 10% bump up in the standard battery capacity from 85Wh to 93.5Wh or at least an option to configure a larger main battery for Generation 2 kinda like what we saw happen for the Framework 13.
And a 45Wh battery could definitely fill the volume where the RX 7700S is crammed into right now inside the current “thicker” expansion bay and probably a 61Wh one too with the expansion bay fans removed.
Here’s hoping for larger capacity main battery, but a 45-61Wh expansion bay battery for a potential grand total of 130-154.5Wh would be sick AF.
Would totally have to pack the expansion bay battery in a convenient corner inside a carry-on luggage to pass airport security though before slotting it into the laptop mid-flight…at least until non-flammable solid state batteries arrive in 5 years.
I think I can settle for reducing battery drain on an international flight with a super compact 90W+ PD charger and serviceable StarLink inflight Wi-Fi internet though 
The expansion bay fans are the only cooling fans in the chassis, so they are required.
I see that now. Thanks for pointing that out!
A vapor chamber over the CPU/APU would be very cool. I do wonder how feasible ot would be to remove and replace compared to just removing the heatpipes and repasting the processor.
So yeah a 42-46Wh battery should do it. Maybe even 55Wh if you really want the rear to be off the table for an angled keyboard, extra airflow, and whatnot.
None of those things he is listing are CPU’s, so their CPU cooling system hardly seems relevant.
The way heat pipes work is as a vapour chamber, and the vapour goes to the other end of the heat pipe to be condensed.
He is listing APUs, which are a category of CPU, so the CPU cooling is very relevant.
An APU is just a CPU with a good GPU built in. An APU with a really really good GPU could potentially eliminate the need for the expansion bay to be used for a dedicated GPU even for GPU heavy tasks, which would free up the expansion bay for other things.
Leaks indicate that AMD has some upcoming super high end APUs with more than triple the GPU performance of current APUs (almost as good as the GPU module Framework currently offers). But those are expected to have power draws around 120w, or about 2.7x what the Framework 16 is designed for.
@Kyle_Reis Would 120W of power draw not already be feasible in the Framework 16? The power brick already accommodates up to 180W considering the 75-100W + 45-90W dynamic power draw between the current 7700S + 7940HS configuration.
Also 120W max power draw from a desktop 4060 class APU would be advantageous considering a 60W headroom for expansion bay components and custom I/O on the keyboard/trackpad deck.
And some of us are speculating 240W charging support to be present in a future revision of the FW16 in coming years:
The issue is not power draw but rather mainboard cooling.
The FW16 is designed to be able to cool up to a 45w sustained chip on the mainboard. Then in the expansion bay cooling can be expanded as much as necessary to cool whatever’s there. An APU would be on the mainboard and therefore count towards the mainboard’s cooling capabilities (~45w).
240w charging support has already been announced as a feature on the current FW16. The only reason the official brick is 180w is to keep it compact, but now that PD chips (the part of the charger that communicates with the laptop) with support for 240w are entering mass production Framework has said to expect that many companies will start making 240w bricks (which will work with the FW16) soon.
The current FW16 supports 240W PD. In that post, I was responding to someone who didn’t understand 240W power adapters not being currently available.
But the current FW16 has support right now for 240W PD. As soon as a power adapter is available, you can use it.
Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive - 180W Power Adapter
I missed that, my bad, I just glanced at the models, which are obviously names of pure GPU’s as well, but to be fair, by necessity, the APU’s would be on wholly new boards anyways, so the constraints of the current CPU cooling system still aren’t relevant.
It would be on a new board, but in the same chassis. The current CPU cooling system appears to take up most of the space available for it in the chassis, so I doubt a new board could dramatically improve the cooling capabilities.
would love to get these in there soon to massively increase cooling https://www.froresystems.com/
I had thought about those as well. Given the small size it would be cool to have them in the main chassis of the FW16 while having additional cooling for a GPU module (either fans or more of these). I recall at least two videos from LTT the most recent being them putting it in a MacBook. I think they would be great for keeping the FW16 cool while also keeping it thin, light, and quiet with a GPU. Although it may currently be cost prohibitive given how new it is and how small a company Framework is. Hopefully one day!
I agree probably not till the Ryzen 9000 or post Zen series whatever that gets called
Would love the expansion bay to house an extra/more battery. I have a Framework 13 and the battery is okay at best and terrible at worst. I wouldn’t mind the extra weight if I didn’t have to carry around a charger as well. Hope to see some cool new expansion modules for the FW16 by the end of 2024.
I disagreed before, but especially now, they upgraded the cooling without changing a thing about the size, but also, it really doesnt appear to be taking up all the space, it looks like they could fit at LEAST 1 more heatpipe, if not 2, or just fatter wider pipes, in general, I would never presume to assume that a thing cant be upgraded just because its at a specific point, them not wanting to engineer past what they could reasonably use, doesnt mean it couldnt be done
But that involves a cost in monetary terms, and for what improvement - i.e. is the cost benefit ratio worth it? Probably not.
I can’t see it being a great solution, given the system fans are in there. You’re exhausting hot air next to the extra battery.
In order to put a more powerful CPU in there down the line? Almost guaranteed to be worth it, what are you even talking about?