I have a Framework 13” Intel 12th generation i7-1260p, purchased January of 2023. I’m on team Debian.I was hoping to get the AMD model, but it wasn’t going to be ready for a while, and I needed a laptop. Its got 36gb of memory in it and it is doing ok, but its struggling sometimes under “modern” computing. Have you ever tried to be in a Jitsi meeting while compiling a Rust program? You typically aren’t coherently in the meeting any longer. I use this machine for my daily driver, and am usually powering two monitors off off it.
I’m looking to upgrade, and I’m unsure what paths I have to use what I have to get to a better place. Of course I can upgrade RAM and SSD, but I’m interested in moving to AMD, a faster CPU and possibly a bigger/better screen. I’m looking for a meaningful upgrade, not just a few more gigs of ram.
I know I could replace my display with the 13 display kit to get 2.8k 120hz display, which would be an improvement (https://frame.work/products/display-kit?v=FRANJF0001) but couldn’t I move to a more modern mainboard/cpu AND display at the same time?
Any suggestions/tips or guides would be really helpful!
I’m guessing your CPU with compiling threads. This wouldn’t change much with any CPU. Keeping the parallel compilation threads 1-2 lower than the CPU’s max thread count helped me to keep my system usable. Not sure how much capacity is needed by Jitsi.
Yeah, that helps, but unfortunately I’m still maxing things out, and would like to move from this model to maybe the 16, but can I do that without just buying a new framework?
The HX 370 mainboard is significantly faster than the i7-1260p (eg, here’s a comparison). Mainboard replacement is reasonably simple. I’ve upgraded my originally first-gen system’s mainboard twice, and just did an upgrade today in what seemed like 5 minutes or so (I also did a keyboard replacement, which does not take 5 minutes, even with a better screwdriver, so it may have seemed quite short by comparison).
Unless you know that your amount of RAM is a problem, I don’t expect that getting more RAM would be that helpful; 36 GB isn’t a small amount.
The 2.8k screen is potentially a downgrade unless you really care about ppi or refresh rate; the color in particular can be horrible unless corrected, which requires color calibration equipment. I kept mine because I do care about ppi, and could correct the color, but in many cases it might be worse than the original screen.
Thanks for the reply @CGE ! I think upgrading my mainboard to the HX370 would help quite a bit. Nice to hear that its that fast too. I’ve replaced my keyboard and trackpad, so I’ve done the “harder” framework replacements before.
Looks like Mainboard Replacement Guide - Framework Guides is the guide for replacement. I’d just need to get the HX370, some DDR5-5600 and the Wifi7 module to make this all work, right?
I’m curious what you do (if anything) with the older mainboard, once you have removed it?
I can just swap in the HX370 along with an appropriate CPU into the existing case (maybe the CPU comes soldiered on the mainboard)? I thought that there might be a dimensional issue that would require something else.
The only reason why I’d like the 2.8k screen is because of screen real-estate. I find it pretty difficult to use the laptop screen for multiple windowed work, like I can with external monitors. So much so, that my work is significantly degraded if I am ever detached from the externals.
If it is being used as a workstation laptop like it sounds, spend the few extra dollars and get 64gb of memory. The HX370 board will be significantly faster but the same issues will crop up unless the processor cores are limited correctly to multitask the programs you want. Later kernels have improved this but it is still better optimized manually. The exisiting board is more than powerful enough to do these things if managing the core counts is done. I am not a Linux guy so I am of no help on that front.
Alternatively a development workstation could be made of the old board and it could be dedicated to just compiling, then the just remote into this workstation to compile code leaving the laptop free to do other tasks. Just a thought.
If you already have the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 (non-vPro, as the vPro versions of the card won’t work with AMD) card from your past mainboard then you could just re-use it, assuming you don’t need Wi-Fi 7 support.