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- cross-posted to:
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I don’t understand why anyone would buy this when you can build a PC that’s 2-3x as capable for the same price, that’s actually repairable and upgradable.
- 128GB unified RAM
- 16 cores / 32 threads
- small form factor (4.5L)
- similar/lower power consumption than my current daily driver despite much more powerful hardware (a lot of my parts are 10 or more years old…)
- officially supports Linux
- <$2K USD (not counting NVME and peripherals)
That combo was interesting enough to me to order one to mess around with. I could build a more powerful (but probably more energy hungry…) computer in a traditional desktop form factor. I don’t think I could build a better SFF computer myself though, and I’m really curious to see just how far I can push the integrated GPU in this thing…
You can build a pc with a minisforum BD795i SE (also an integrated CPU, but not LPDDR RAM, its a standard desktop mobo but small, itx, and you can’t remove the 7945hx CPU)) and an AMD 9070, for under $1500, (thats including everything in the pc) and that’ll do basically everything you could possibly want at 1440p.
I have a wish list on newegg that is just barely above $1500 (at least pretax), including also a decently good 32", curved 1440p monitor.
These kinds of uh, high grade laptop cpu but on an other wise standard, but small pc mobo, that can be the size of a large lunch box… these are pretty common in China, but fairly few in the West seem to have caught on.
PC part picker still doesnt even list these mobos in the right way, you can’t plan a build with them, because wtf its a mobo and a cpu at the ssme time? That breaks how our website works!
For gaming, yes.
But the Framework Desktop seems to be made for a different usecase:
128GB of unified RAM
Unified means both CPU and GPU have access to it. Why would you need so much RAM and why would you care if the GPU has direct access?
Neural Networks. You can fit a pretty serious LLM into 128GB of RAM, and if GPU has direct access, still run inference at reasonable performance.
I love my 9070XT, but you can’t run anything approaching what Claude or ChatGPT gives you in just 16GB of VRAM
the Framework Desktop seems to be made for a different usecase
They specifically advertise it as a gaming device. The author of this article is using it as a gaming device.
You can fit a pretty serious LLM
LLMs are fucking stupid and no one should use them.
You are absolutely right. Baffles me why they’d put 128GB of RAM in there and use an SoC arhitecture where RAM is shared with GPU, to the detriment of upgradability, if not for AI.
Any gamer would prefer upgradable RAM and upgradable GPU, especially from Framework.
How else would you explain this decision to compromise their brand values and overspend on RAM, if not AI?
… I mean… 128 gb of shared ram could be used that way…
But… you really think this is a common enough use case to design a pc around?
Like… how many people want to game, vs… run / train a local LLM?
Is this what Framework is doing, making LLM development boxes?
Not… trying to make an affordable, general use oriented, ‘buy once and then upgrade with parts/modules as you prefer’?
Except for the small form factor I bought a second hand PC with those specs for £300. I think the only reasons to buy it are you really want small form factor, or you want to play with local AI and don’t want to use a Mac (which is still better value for money on that front).
Not to downplay the small form factor - I do think that is cool. Just… Not £1k cool.
A long Hdmi cord got me there way easier I think.
My pre-order from February just arrived, so I’ve been poking at it a bit this weekend. I tried putting Linux Mint on it first. It booted but had issues (e.g. ethernet wasn’t detected – although WiFi worked fine); seems like the 6.8 kernel is too old. I’ve got Fedora on it instead now, and that seems to be working better so far.
Fedora is the new Ubuntu.
cachyos has kernels specifically for these AMD chips, if Fedora gives you problems or if you wanna try an Arch distro, I’ve been enjoying cachyos on my ryzen 395 laptop
