I don’t know if I’ve missed this or not, but theres a bit of information I’d like to know with the GPU.
I decided to request a modification to my order to include the GPU, because I’m starting to work on multi-media projects, and having the Graphics Card will prove in useful.
However, I had questions running through my head.
How does the none-gpu version do with games, vs what the laptop can offer with the graphics card, even just having a base vs’s would be helpful for people deciding if they want to add the gpu for gaming, or if it’ll make a big enough difference to there Blender rendering computing for the task, or if they’re happy to save some money and battery because the APU is good enough?
Secondly is power use, When the 16 inch is doing something none-intensive, such as writing some documents, watching some videos, how does the battery compare with and without the GPU, will it roughly be the same since the GPU wont be doing anything intensive?
Unfortunately, both the processor and the GPU model are relatively new, so it’s tough to give specifics. There isn’t a whole lot of testing data out there and none of the Framework versions are in people’s hands yet.
However, it sounds like the iGPU in these machines is one of, if not the fastest available to date. It’s not going to max out the latest games, but it should be able to play most games at reasonable framerates, depending on the resolution and graphics settings. The dedicated GPU should be a definite step up. I’ve seen estimates ranging from 2x to 2.5X the performance of the integrated GPU. That’s a big jump in gaming performance, for sure. But it’s not like the days of old when an integrated GPU only allowed you to run older and/or simple games and a dedicated GPU of any sort was a colossal improvement. The 780m iGPU is usable for gaming. So, depending on the type of gaming performance you are looking for, it may be enough. But the 7700s will be a big improvement, if you go that route.
BigT gave you some numbers but you can also think a little bit different.
You can start small with no dGPU and try few monthes since the iGPU seems to be quite good. Then, if you feel the need to upgrade, by the time, you might be able to order a new graphic bay module that can be better than the very first 7700s.
Why such assumption ?
See all the complains about having an “high end” GPU on the forum… Give some time to the Framework Team and you’ll have it for sure.
The only drawbacks :
be -a little bit- more patient
it will cost you fews extra bucks for the posting fees of the new order.
Maybe on windows the drivers are more mature than linux but I always had issue to reduce consumption with an optimus laptop on Ubuntu. That’s why I created the following topic GPU expension bay: physical ON/OFF switch?. Anyway, @MJ1
I really hope you’re right about this.
The APU will die in actual blender renders if you are rendering scenes etc… hi-poly will be a huge demand for it.The AMD Radeon 780M will be just ahead of the 1650 MaxQ (Laptop) gpu, and 7% behindt he desktop 1650.
If you are just building models in low or mid poly you should be fine.But this thing won’t get you super far gaming wise.
The Radeon 780m is among the most powerful GPUs ever integrated into an CPU. Some ARM chips (ex. Apple Silicon) and console CPUs have better integrated GPUs, although part of how those achieve better integrated GPUs is through using soldered ram (which can achieve better signal integrity and bandwidth.
The Radeon 780m integrated into the Ryzen 7 7840hs and Ryzen 9 7940hs has 12 compute units running at 2.7 GHz (2.8 GHz for 7940hs) and has access to up to 89.6 GB/s of ram bandwidth.
The Radeon RX 7700S offered by Framework has 32 compute units (2.67x as many as the 780m) and 288 GB/s (3.21x as fast as the 780m) of ram bandwidth, however the compute units only run at 2.2 GHz (0.79-0.81x as fast as the 780m).
So based on that I’d estimate that the 780m will probably be around 40% as fast as the dedicated GPU option. For many people (myself included, I ordered without dedicated GPU) I expect it will be good enough.
Theoretically the dedicated GPU should only be active when doing something intensive. At all other times the dedicated GPU should be automatically disabled to save power while the computer uses the CPU’s integrated GPU.
However I’ve seen a lot of reports across a lot of laptops that that doesn’t work so well in practice as some software (ex. The Microsoft Phone App of all things is a major offender) has a tendency to get stuck on the dedicated GPU and prevents the system from shutting the dedicated GPU off in the background, which wastes power.
I’m interested in the GPU mainly for the Blender, and video rendering performance boosts, if the
Then it’s absolutely worth the extra for me.
If I can get close to the same battery as without the graphics card, when using a text editor, even if it’s a little less, then that would be fantastic.
I’ll have to look into the GPU enable/disable situation, might be able to just play a script that turns the gpu off regardless of what apps are open, then just re-enable it during working on videos. or playing video games?
Thank you for linking to this, I will have a look and hopefully it’ll be fine with framework, especially since they’re working on windows and Linux software stacks.
I am doing exactly that. I am a game developer and want to play some mid range games (Civ, Cities Skylines, Outer Wilds, Indies…), and I was really certain I was going to get the dGPU. However, since the iGPU is good enough for now, I am ordering it without the bay and whenever I need more graphics power (ie 2 years) I will order the dGPU expansion they have available by then. Not only am I splitting the cost of the laptop, making it more accessible now, but by the time I get the new GPU it will be more modern, there will hopefully be more options and it will last more.
Also, right now my laptop has a Hashwell intel processor with no dedicated graphics, so even just the iGPU will be a masive jump.
For anyone interested in seeing the 780M integrated graphics (included in both the 7840HS and 7940HS CPU) in action, here’s a video that benchmarks Forza Horizon 5 (no discrete graphics used):
TL/DR (average framerates):
“High” graphics settings:
720p: ~67fps
1080p: ~53fps
1440p: ~40fps
“High-ish” graphics settings:
1080p: ~64fps
1440p: ~49fps
2160p: ~31fps
“High + Raytracing” graphics settings:
720p: ~57fps
Note: exact settings, as well as more detailed benchmark results are in that video
Edit: further research indicates that Forza Horizon 5 is a very demanding game, even compared to the likes of GTA 5, which gets ~95fps with a mix of normal and high settings on 1080p.
Blender Cycles really, really likes NVIDIA GPUs with OptiX. If you intend on rendering scenes in Cycles, I highly recommend checking out laptops with RTX 4060 instead. It can easily be twice as fast in Blender Cycles.
TLDR… isn’t it about like comparing a Steam deck with a PS5? They can both play games. One will definitely look prettier.
There’s also some pretty incredible stuff happening with streaming games from one computer to another. nVidia cloud, Steam Play (from one of your other PCs, or a friend’s PC, to anoter)… it’s just incredible what’s going on in that space. It is possible, with compromises, to get games happening on non-gaming equipment.
Original post did mention graphics work. Even for that there are cloudy options, but an onboard discrete GPU will be more convenient… and probably cheaper, in the long run, if there is a long run.
Not necessarily, its not just about fidelity, it’s about things like, idle battery life, if the extra weight, and size would cause any issues, and stuff along those, and weighing many different differences.
Part of that is looking at what the difference actually looks like and means, and another part of it is, “yeah you loose an hour extra of battery life when you’re writing scripts”.
Maybe it’s not as comfortable to have on your lap with the extra bulk as well, which would be fine during gaming, but might not be fine when you’re just typing up notes or watching youtube, etc.
The APU (igpu) can game modern games at 1080p at LOW to Med settings, for AAA games. The 7700S is a 1080p High to Ultra settings benchmarks I am seeing from benchmarks for the 7600S shows that the 7700S should be getting 80-120 FPS on most Moderns AAA games with ultra settings.
Not sure Until batch 1 gets it’s hands on it. they did state that It got 10 hours of battery life of straight video playback. On battery, the DGPU should turn off and rely on the APU(igpu)
Its harder to tell since they dont show the earlier pre-order Q’s.
If there are 8 in the 4th quarter, and they do them weekly, it’ll probably start early November, however, it also depends on there plan during Christmas, they might stop shipping for 2 weeks over the Christmas break, bringing it to mid October.
As someone who ordered a batch 1, 11th Gen 13 inch model, it does no good to speculate on when they will begin shipping. Mine was supposed to be shipped in July, it was August when I received it.
The haven’t mentioned it in a while, but they will not ship in timestamp order.
Instead, the factory and distribution will be based on groups of orders with similar configurations. And we don’t know how they will rank those groupings.
Just be patient, they only take the final money when they are close to shipping.
@Edward_Gray thank you for sharing your experience on this.
Did you get a date itd be sent of then given a different date later?
How do they take the money? Im asking because Im worried that my banks security messures could stop, delay, or cause some weird issue with shipping my laptop.
In my case, I actually did get an email indicating a slight delay in actual shipping after they had taken the balance for the order.
It is entirely possible that your banks fraud system could reject a sudden large charge. You can reduce that risk by calling the bank and notifying them that an unusual charge will be coming soon.
I think the pattern Frame.work uses gives you a notification email before they actually charge you, so you have an opportunity.
There have been reports of such problems in the forum. I think they were all worked our, however.
