The Framework Desktop is powered by an AMD Ryzen AI Max processor, a Radeon 8060S integrated GPU, and between 32GB and 128GB of soldered-in RAM.
The CPU and GPU are one piece of silicon, and they’re soldered to the motherboard. The RAM is also soldered down and not upgradeable once you’ve bought it, setting it apart from nearly every other board Framework sells.
It’d raise an eyebrow if it was a laptop but it’s a freakin’ desktop. Fuck you framework.
I get the frustration with a system being so locked down, but if 32gb is the minimum I don’t really see the problem. This pc will be outdated before you really need to upgrade the ram to play new games.
It’s not just about upgrading. It’s also about being able to repair your computer. RAM likes to go bad and on a normal PC, you can replace it easily. Buy a cheap stick, take out the old RAM, put in the new one and you’ll have a working computer again. Quick & easy and even your grandpa is able to run Memtest and do a quick switch. But if you solder down everything, the whole PC becomes electronic waste as most people won’t be able to solder RAM.
Seriously that’s really disappointing. It really seems like investors decides that they needed to “diversify” their offering and they need something with AI now …
Framework was on a good path imo but of course a repairable laptop only goes so far since people can repair it and don’t need to replace it every 2 years (or maybe just replace the motherboard) so if you want to grow you need to make more products …
Well tbh they still do have repairable laptops, even new ones and all that, and the “excuse” is that the only way to properly use that specific AMD CPU is with that specific RAM and the non.soldered bus wasn’t enough, but still… i’ll stick to old #ThinkPads, thank you.
It’d raise an eyebrow if it was a laptop but it’s a freakin’ desktop. Fuck you framework.
I get the frustration with a system being so locked down, but if 32gb is the minimum I don’t really see the problem. This pc will be outdated before you really need to upgrade the ram to play new games.
It’s not just about upgrading. It’s also about being able to repair your computer. RAM likes to go bad and on a normal PC, you can replace it easily. Buy a cheap stick, take out the old RAM, put in the new one and you’ll have a working computer again. Quick & easy and even your grandpa is able to run Memtest and do a quick switch. But if you solder down everything, the whole PC becomes electronic waste as most people won’t be able to solder RAM.
Yeah, it totally fucks repairability. But it sounds like this is not something this company normally does, and not something they could control.
They should at least offer a superior warranty to cover such scenarios.
Seriously that’s really disappointing. It really seems like investors decides that they needed to “diversify” their offering and they need something with AI now … Framework was on a good path imo but of course a repairable laptop only goes so far since people can repair it and don’t need to replace it every 2 years (or maybe just replace the motherboard) so if you want to grow you need to make more products …
Well tbh they still do have repairable laptops, even new ones and all that, and the “excuse” is that the only way to properly use that specific AMD CPU is with that specific RAM and the non.soldered bus wasn’t enough, but still… i’ll stick to old #ThinkPads, thank you.
I agree. We need less soldered RAM designs. I thought repairability was something they appreciated.
Honestly this is exactly the product I was waiting for minisforum to make. I think this is actually a pretty solid move.