I’ve been watching presentations from Intel and their upcoming Lunar Lake. Intel is going to have their memory soldered right next to the chip and it’s not going to be optional for replaceable memory on the motherboard. This is for massive power savings because memory controllers are very power hungry. Also, this memory will only go up to 32GB. Apparently AMD is probably going to do the same.
With Framework being a small company, I don’t think they have much power to request memory that isn’t soldered on. While this is still a full year before we see this generation in Framework, who is just launching Core Series 1, I think this is a reality we have to accept in 2025.
IMO I think CAMM2 is where Framework should (and probably is) looking to go towards as it allows for upgradable memory while providing the power and speed benefits of LPDDR, which SODIMM can’t (or at least, has no standards for).
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32GB only, and not expandable? Not happening (for me). I’ve got the FW16 equipped with 64GB and waiting to upgrade to 128GB if and when those become available. Soldered RAM might be okay for a tablet computer or low-cost low-end notebook, but nothing else. I’ve come across an article today stating 32GB as minimum for a Linux install, and 64GB recommended…
In that article, it’s talking about storge space, not memory. 32GB of ram is good enough for even gaming users. But it’s still strange to have a limit of 32GB. Photo editors in particular would want 64GB of ram
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Lunar Lake however is targeted at laptops with much lower performance/lower cooling than anything that Framework produces.
Arrow Lake (which hasn’t yet been announced but is expected to be sold as part of Core Ultra Series 2 alongside Lunar Lake) is targeted at laptops like the Framework Laptop 13 and Framework Laptop 16 and it does support replaceable memory.
I don’t know that I’d describe 2% overall laptop power savings (by my math) compared to LPCAMM2 (a new standard for more efficient replaceable memory) as “massive power savings”.
My Math
According to Micron, LPCAMM2 at 6400 MT/s consumes under 150 mW per 2 GB chip under full load and under 20 mW while active but not under load. Assuming 32 GB that would be 2.4 W under full load and 0.32 W when active but not under load.
With many computer components power draw increases mostly linearly with frequency as long as voltage is constant. Assuming that applies to ram then the 8500 MT/s that Intel is using would be around 3.2 W under full load in LPCAMM2 form factor. The 0.32 W number wouldn’t change as laptop CPUs reduce the ram frequency when not under heavy load.
Intel claims a 40% savings by using on package ram, which would mean the reduction should be 1.28 W under full load and 0.128 W when active but not under load.
From what I’ve seen the Framework Laptop 13 consumes ~60w when hit with an absolute full load and ~6w when under essentially no load (such as just staring at the desktop). That means that the power savings of on package ram are around 2%.
There were rumors (and even big YouTubers stating) that AMD was planning on moving to LPDDR5X only on Strix Point (which is almost always soldered, but can be made replaceable using the LPCAMM2 standard), however AMD has officially said that it does support DDR5 (so support for normal replaceable DDR5 SODIMMs seems likely).
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I was a bit confused with the naming. Because everything I found about Arrow Lake was talking about desktop CPUs. Lunar Lake was said to be the successor to Meteor Lake, which is the new Framework 13 is releasing soon.
Yeah, these code names are messy.
Arrow Lake has 4 variants: Arrow Lake U, Arrow Lake H, Arrow Lake HX, and Arrow Lake S
Similarly Meteor Lake has 2 variants: Meteor Lake U and Meteor Lake H.
Meteor Lake H is what the Framework Laptop 13 uses and is intended for medium power laptops.
Meteor Lake U is the same underlying chips as Meteor Lake H, except crippled for use in lower power laptops.
Arrow Lake H is the direct successor to Meteor Lake H and is designed for laptops like the Framework Laptop 13.
Arrow Lake U is the direct successor to Meteor Lake U (and is also a crippled version of Arrow Lake U).
Arrow Lake S is the desktop version of Arrow Lake.
Arrow Lake HX is the same chips as Arrow Lake S except in laptops.
Lunar Lake is an alternative to Arrow Lake U that was designed specifically for low power laptops (Arrow Lake U is a chip that was designed for medium power laptops and then crippled for use in low power laptops). Lunar Lake is the only one to use on-package (non-replacable) memory and Wi-Fi.
I expect Framework to offer Arrow Lake H in the future.
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As soon as lpcamm becomes viable it definitely makes sense moving to that, lpdds has a lot of advantages but they aren’t worth the drawbacks of needing to be soldered to me. Even if lpcamm is signifficantly more expensive than sodimms I would go for it.
But since I got a 7840u my next upgrade should still be a few years down the line so that will hopefully be figured out by then.