Framework Desktop official with AMD Strix Halo CPUs, affordable price tag and plenty of customization options

[Redaktion]

Framework has shown off its first-ever desktop. The Framework Desktop features one of AMD's most powerful chips released this year and comes with a fully functional motherboard with a decent selection of I/O.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-Desktop-official-with-AMD-Strix-Halo-CPUs-affordable-price-tag-and-plenty-of-customization-options.967568.0.html

[Kirill Ignatev]

This is really nice, this is what I wanted! And not just me, apparently, since there is a 7 minute virtual line just to open Framework's website!

[A]

Disappointing, the whole point of the framework brand is repairability, yet they pull soldered ram nonsense?

There are plenty of cheaper and smaller minipcs with strix halo coming that will be far lower price. And who knows, maybe one of them will have proper LPCAMM2 ram

[ArsLoginName]

I don't think the soldered RAM is Framework's fault. Seems like it might be a requirement for Strix Halo and its de-facto memory bus & subsystem since they (AMD) changed the packaging of these processors.

[Curt Gordon]

Disappointing, the whole point of the framework brand is repairability, yet they pull soldered ram nonsense?

There are plenty of cheaper and smaller minipcs with strix halo coming that will be far lower price. And who knows, maybe one of them will have proper LPCAMM2 ram

It is disappointing, but according to comments from Framework official accounts, the issue is bandwidth.  LPCAMM2 modules are 128 bit each, so you'd need two modules to reach the 256 bit bus width Framework is using here.  Apparently they worked with AMD on this, and AMD's simulations indicated that the bandwidth would be significantly reduced due to how they'd need to route the signals through the motherboard to reach the two LPCAMM2 modules.

Since the big draw of this desktop is huge VRAM for AI on GPU(>100GB VRAM), you really need all the memory bandwidth you can get. Typical CPU memory bandwidth won't cut it here.

On the bright side, they kept the RAM upgrades reasonably priced, unlike Apple's price gouging for upgrades.

It feels like we're right on the verge of a big industry move to lpcamm2, but some things just aren't yet possible.
Fingers crossed the next revision supports LPCAMM2 modules.

[Le quads]

Disappointing, the whole point of the framework brand is repairability, yet they pull soldered ram nonsense?

There are plenty of cheaper and smaller minipcs with strix halo coming that will be far lower price. And who knows, maybe one of them will have proper LPCAMM2 ram

I dont see this being an issue w/ Framework tho.... this is because of the nature of the Strix Halo, by design of unified memory which allows it to bump up its performance. Its the same technology that allows Apple's M chips to get its efficiency gains. If they let you use LPCAMM2 it would need to be a different CPU  which im sure will be saved for a different product.