Everyone can re-use old tech. It’s still wasteful even if it lives a second life as a server, or gets donated to charity/family member etc. Big chunks of it will still end up in landfill eventually. My main gaming rig is still running in a case from 2008, which is the framework principle of upgrade only what you need.
Back on laptops … external water cooled gaming laptops have been done before. XMG have done it, pretty sure Alienware and Asus has tried it as well. It’s a gimmick.
Air cooling is enough for the majority of the performance you can get out of a given CPU/GPU. If you are REALLY pushing to get that last couple percent of performance, water cooling may help, assuming any of the performance loss is due to thermal throttling. But the way I see it, a laptop is already a compromise when it comes to absolute performance. If I was worried about pushing absolute, max performance in games, I’d just build a desktop, where your performance, even with air cooling, is a jump up from what a laptop provides (assuming best available hardware in both machines).
Water cooling may be appealing for the potential noise reduction in certain situations. A small, loud fan on a laptop is annoying, but having to plumb in lines to an external radiator, pump, and fan setup seems like it would be a bit annoying as well. Considering the cost, size, and cumbersome nature of setting up an external water cooling setup for a laptop, I think you’d be FAR better served to just have a dedicated, gaming desktop.
Once you have your gaming desktop sorted, you can decide if the Framework 13 or 16 would best fit your laptop needs.
It sounds like you are mostly concerned about the GPU, yes?
You could use an eGPU, then you could add water cooling if you really wish. Besides Thunderbolt eGPUs, there are also two members working on an OcuLink Expansion Bay Module so that we could have eGPUs without the overhead of using Thunderbolt.
So, to answer the question whether custom laptop or framework laptop is better, a couple of points. It has already been said that the new Lenovo notebook is a gimmick (see Dave2D video). This leaves us with only one other option, the XMG Oasis solution (2nd gen please). If I am not mistaken this gives you a 10% performance boost in terms of fps. However, in order to truly use this, you need a serious high-end version of the compatible XMG laptop - we are now talking about 4000 Euro laptops.
Given this inevitable cost dimension, I would truly go for a framework 16, save 1500 Euros, and simply wait a bit longer. Yes, the framework 16 is far away from any true performance, but it is an adventure and gives you potentially unique compatibility in the future.
If the question was not about 2 laptops, but about best system, then very likely BigT is right - desktop is simply far superior when it comes to watercooling - and much more versatile.
A final point - I think I get it what you mean regarding the environmental impact. But just beware, “And don’t take the environmental damage as a downside” can be misunderstood and I have seen a couple of threads here already crash and burn fast. So I guess you mean you have use cases and wouldn’t throw it away easily, but it is not clear from what you wrote.
PS: and besides that everything that MJ1 just wrote - its exactly what I would personally do ;).
Optional Watercooled and gpu and other useful stuff ??? Is it possible? How hard would it be? Price to make it? If possible should I sell on fw marketplace?
Leakage?type of water?water cooling or exteternal aio? Plz help
There are two community members separately working on an OcuLink Expansion Bay Module so that we could have eGPUs without the overhead of using Thunderbolt.
I think it would be wise to not lecture people when they are simply asking a question. Someone who has not learned why it is important to protect the environment isn’t going to get there because you badger super well.
That said, I think the answer here is do you need portability? Follow up question: Is water cooling important to you because of the ambient temps where you live? Do you have AC at home? Or is this a matter of noise and the desire for a quiet setup?
To try to answer the question with my personal plans, I would opt to buy the FW16 and also get an oculink EGPU (I am getting the second version of the OneDock from China (you can contact a person with the name Handtalker via Discord, see egpu.io website for information). I would then personally deshroud the desktop GPU for optimal open cooling, but you may prefer - if watercooling is your preference - also go for an AIO option of a Desktop GPU. I would recommend a used 3090 which should give solid performance for relatively decent cost. Deshrouding kits are available on Etsy.
PS: I would in any case strongly recommend the FW16, it is a one of a kind product from one of THE most innovative companies at the moment. The versatility in the coming years will be unparalled. And Framework as a company needs to be supported ;). If you are looking for cool watercooling options in a laptop, FW16 would be my bet for the coming years due to the community.
By the way, my “plan” has a huge hole in it ;). It hinges on framework or the community actually incorporating an oculink port into the FW16 laptop. But until that happens you have USB4.
I chose this option for two reasons: it is cheaper than a laptop with the same performance, and it prevents you from having two systems (desktop and laptop).
Understand this isn’t a judgement call. Your reprimand was based on the community guidelines. Personal attacks are not accepted no matter how justified (perceived or otherwise) they are.
Furthermore it is clear that the person posting is not a native speaker, in which case more patience and reserve should be exercised as misunderstandings are more common and not usually meant.
We appreciate you being here, and don’t enjoy doing things like this. I personally loathe it.
Twitter is not real life. People can buy a product without caring about the green-washing that companies like to perform. To many people if you make a big deal about the environment, it appears to them as the product being inferior and needing some kind of reason to get people to buy it. Not everyone is obsessed about the environment to the degree that you are. Don’t flip out over that. If anything that will make said people more hostile to environmentalists and their arguments.
Why are you focusing on a water cooled laptop? There is next to no benefit, has a higher likelihood of leaking, which would damage your computer and would be very expensive?
Framework’s main points are upgradability and repairability. If you do not care about that, then Framework is worse value than a gaming pc. Basically the worse build quality and reliability other manufacturers’ laptops are the better the value Framework offers.
For the record, as I was mentioned in a comment by someone else here, this is just to distance myself unequivocally from a comment such as that someone else should get “bent”.
I believe this is a tech forum by a company I think is as objective as it gets.
Folks, this thread has gone way off the rails into toxicity. Please review our community guidelines. I’ve removed the offending messages. If this thread continues down that path, it will be closed. Thank you.
