> In some ways, the Framework Desktop is a curious machine. Desktop PCs are already very user-repairable! So why is Framework even bringing their talents to this domain? In the laptop realm, they're basically alone with that concept, but in the desktop space, it's rather crowded already. Yet it somehow still makes sense.
And even more curious, Framework Desktop is deliberately less repairable than their laptops. They soldered on the RAM. Which makes it a very strange entry for a brand marketing itself as the DIY dream manufacturer. They threw away their user-repairable mantra when they made the Desktop, it's less user repairable than most other desktops you could go out and buy today.
The RAM is soldered on all Halo Strix platforms because physics is getting in the way. With pluggable DIMMs the memory bandwidth would be halved, at best.
He is still right. It is a desktop PC that is less repairable than all other desktop PCs, from a brand that is known to champion repairability. They had a reason for it, but could've chosen to not create more throwaway things.
I have been continuously baffled by the people that think that soldered on RAM is somehow "throwaway". My last desktop build is eight years old and I have never upgraded the ram. Never will. My next build will have an entirely new motherboard, ram, and GPU, and the last set will end up at the ewaste recycler, because who could I find that wants that old hardware?
Soldered RAM, CPU, and GPU, that give space benefits and performance benefits is exactly what I want, and results in no more ewaste at all. In fact less ewaste, because if I had a smaller form factor I could justify keeping the older computer around for longer. The size of the thing is a bigger cause of waste for me than the ability to upgrade RAM.
Not everybody upgrades RAM, and those people deserve computers too. Framework's brand appears to be offering something that other suppliers are not, rather than expand ability. That's a much better brand and niche overall.
> the last set will end up at the ewaste recycler, because who could I find that wants that old hardware?
You might be surprised. Living in a large city, everything I have put for sale has found a new owner. Old and seemingly useless computer hardware, HDMI cables that don't support 4K, worn-out cutlery, hairdryer that's missing parts, non-functional amplifier, the list goes on. If the price is right (=very low), someone has always showed up in person to carry these away. And I'm always very upfront about any deficiencies so that they know what they're getting.
I'd say a common profile for the new owner is young people who have just moved and are on a shoestring budget.
>I have been continuously baffled by the people that think that soldered on RAM is somehow "throwaway"
One of the primary objections to soldered RAM was/is the cost to purchase. As the likes of Apple priced Ram upgrade at a hefty premium to retail prices.
Also, that they often simply don’t sell what you want with enough memory, or pair memory upgrades with other upgrades you don’t need (e.g. more powerful CPU or GPU beyond your needs), or occasionally that you actively don’t want (e.g. iGPU → dGPU may be that). With socketed RAM you can buy the model you want that just lacks RAM, and upgrade that.
My current laptop (ASUS GA503QM) had 8GB soldered and 8GB socketed. I didn’t want to go for the 16+16 model because it was way more expensive due to shifting from a decent GPU to a top-of-the-line GPU, and a more-expensive-but-barely-faster CPU. (I would have preferred it with no dedicated GPU—it would have been a couple of hundred USD cheaper, a little lighter, probably more reliable, less fiddly, and have supported two external displays under Linux (which I’ve never managed, even with nvidia drivers); but at the time no one was selling a high-DPI laptop with a Ryzen 5800H or similar without dedicated graphics.) So after some time I got a 32GB stick and now I have 40GB of RAM. And I gave my sister the 8GB stick to replace a 4GB stick in her laptop, and that improved it significantly for her.
I can see that objection too, and it seems far more reasonable than assuming that soldered RAM automatically means a reduced lifespan machine.
But are Framework's RAM prices unreasonable? $400 for 64GB more of LPDDR5x seems OK. I haven't seen anybody object to Framework's RAM on those grounds.
With modular RAM, someone can buy old boards and RAM and use it for high-RAM applications down the line.
The workloads that people care most about today that need high RAM capacity are workloads that also need very high memory bandwidth. Old server hardware from eBay doesn't do a good job of satisfying the bandwidth side of things.
I will take your old builds, because my current PC is from a dumpster and was made in 2013. I can't afford to buy hardware.
> Not everybody upgrades RAM, and those people deserve computers too.
No. It's end of the line with consumerism and we either start repairing and recycling or we die. Framework catered to people who agree with that, and this product is not in line.
I have no idea why you would not upgrade your memory, I have done so in all PCs I ever owned and all laptops, and it's a very common (and cheap) upgrade. It reduces waste because people can then use their system longer, which means less garbage over the lifetime of a person. And as was already commented, it is not only about upgrades, but also about repairs. Ram breaks rather often.
I have had the system for eight years and at no point would upgrading RAM have increased performance.
Upgrading the RAM would have created more waste than properly sizing the RAM to COU proportion from the beginning.
It is very odd to encounter someone who has such a narrow view of computing that they cannot imagine someone not upgrading their RAM.
I have not once, literally not once have RAM break either. I have been part of the management of clusters of hundreds of compute nodes, that would occasionally each have their failures, but not once was RAM the cause of failure. I'm fairly shocked to hear that anybody's RAM has failed, honestly, unless it's been overlocked or something else.
I'm with you on this one. I've had.. 6? PCs. Basically every time I thought that they were falling behind performance wise, I realized that they generally had stopped selling RAM for them and even if I only wanted to upgrade the RAM, it wasn't enough anymore. The CPU was also falling behind and a new one needed a new socket and motherboard.
> It is very odd to encounter someone who has such a narrow view of computing that they cannot imagine someone not upgrading their RAM.
Uncalled for and means the end of the discussion after this reaction. Ofc I can imagine that, it's just usually a dumb decision.
That you did not have to upgrade the ram means one of two things: You either had completely linear workloads, so unlike me did not switch to a compiled programming language or experimented with local LLMs etc. Or you bought a lot of ram in the beginning, so 8 years ago with a hefty premium.
Changes nothing about the fundamental disagreement with the existence of such machines. Especially from a company that knows better. I do not expect ethical behaviour from a bottom of the barrel company like Apple, but it was completely reasonable to expect better from framework.
The 128GB version wouldn't be throwaway, since that's the maximum the platform as a whole supports anyway- more memory than that would require a new mainboard and CPU at the same time.
Not for upgrade reasons but what if you have a fault in one of the dimms or etc? Now you can't just drop in a replacement without changing everything.
How often have you had a memory chip fail? I ask because I only have had it happen once in my lifetime that I can recall and it was for a very dumb reason.
I wonder why so few people ask Apple products of such questions -- "what if my SSD goes bad, does it mean my computer is now completely useless?"
I would also ask this! But part of the framework brand was selling a laptop where the answer to that question was being able to replace it on your own. So it's just kind of a contrast for their desktop to be less repairable than their laptop.
Personally I think it's bad that apple products are so poorly repairable and so expensive to upgrade.
Worse, Apple also still claims to care about the environment. While not allowing the iMac to be used as external screen, cutting its useful lifetime by at least a decade.
it's basically the same as asking what happens when your M4 Apple has a fault. It's soldered based on the desire to use the ram as part of the GPU.
Without that, it's really not a interesting solution.
demanding replaceable ram means also not wanting the benefits of the integrated memory
That applies to all computers when you buy the fully specced versions on day 1. A maxxed out iPad isn’t throwaway, but framework represents a higher standard of upgradability.
the platform should support more memory
The only part I’ve ever had not fail on a PC or Laptop is RAM.
RAM failure is actually pretty common on non-JEDEC profiles, I've seen it happen a lot on gaming PCs. Very uncommon on "regular" computers that aren't pushing the clock and timings, though.
Oh yeah I never push the limits of my systems like that. At least for PC gamers replacing RAM is easy and they’ll probably upgrade it eventually anyway.
I wonder if there were similar complaints when cache moved from motherboards to soldered on the cpu package.
The difference in performance between DRAM and flash memory is far greater than SRAM and DRAM. The total RAM of a system is a hard limit on the type of programs you can practically run because swapping is slow.
The old motherboard cache was socketed SRAM and it was replaced with soldered SRAM just as the socketed DRAM was replaced with soldered DRAM.
L2 CPU cache used to be on the motherboard and user expandable.
Why is that? Why would soldering the connections vs plugging them in affect how much data per second they transfer?
Sockets have resistance and crosstalk, which affects signal integrity.
Wait, your telling me, I should have been desoldering the sockets off my motherboard, and directly soldering my RAM to the leads this entire time?
Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM) tries to be a middle-term solution for that, by reducing how crappy your average RAM socket is to latency and signal integrity issues. But, at this point, I can see CAMM delivered memory being reduced to a sort of slower, "CXL.mem" device.
Seriously though,
Would desoldering the sockets help?
Why are the sockets bad?
As stated previously, the sockets reduce signal integrity, which doesn't necessarily make them "bad," but is why Framework wasn't able to used socketed ram to maximize the potential of this CPU.
This sort-of-interview of Nirav Patel (ceo of framework) explains in a bit more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lErGZZgUbY
Basically, they need to use LPDDR5X memory, which isn't available in socketed form, because of signal integrity reasons.
Which means you won't see an improvement if you solder your ram directly, I think mostly because your home soldering job will suffer signal integrity issues, but also because your RAM isn't LPCAMM and isn't spread across a 256 bit bus.
They "why" hasn't been answered. I understand the previous statements very clearly. It makes intuitive sense to me, but I want to know more.
Like physics PhD-level more.
I believe the reason is, at the frequencies these CPUs are talking to RAM, the reflection coefficient[1] starts playing a big role. This means any change in impedance in the wire cause reflections of the signal.
This is also the reasoning why you can't just have a dumb female to female HDMI coupling and expect video to work. All of such devices are active and read the stream on the input and relay them on the output.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_coefficient
See also RF insertion loss and how that's dealt with, PCIe retimers, etc.
Above certain frequencies, you start running into major issues with signal integrity, and fixing them is very difficult without any extra circuitry.
Only if you were pushing data through so fast that the bits got corrupted before. That's literally why AMD told Framework they won't support any other configuration than soldered RAM, in this case.
Yes. (That isn't actually possible because the pinouts are different but soldered RAM is faster.)
You might be able to dial in a higher memory overclock.
mind the gap
That's fine, but not what I was commenting on so your comment is mostly irrelevant.
I was commenting on a brand based on repairability selling a product that's deliberately not repairable. It's a curious choice to throw away the branding that brought them to where they are, and hopefully not the start of a trend for their other devices.
The only non repairable part is RAM due to technical constraints. The rest is as repairable as any other desktop, if not more so (e.g. power supply). Why are you accusing them of "throwing away the branding" and holding such a purist view, when they are doing their best and just making compromises in order to release a decent product.
Why not make a platform with a greater number of channels
Sure, you could. The design would do something like:
We need a bigger memory controller.
To get more traces to the memory controller We need more pins on the CPU.
Now need a bigger CPU package to accommodate the pins.
Now we need a motherboard with more traces, which requires more layers, which requires a more expensive motherboard.
We need a bigger motherboard to accommodate the 6 or 8 dimm sockets.
The additional traces, longer traces, more layers on the motherboard, and related makes the signalling harder, likely needs ECC or even registered ECC.
We need a more expensive CPU, more expensive motherboard, more power, more cooling, and a larger system. Congratulations you've reinvented threadripper (4 channel), siena (6 channel), Threadripper pro (8 channel), or epyc (12 channel). All larger, more expensive more than 2x the power, and is likely to be in a $5-$15k workstation/server not a $2k framework desktop the size of a liter of milk or so.
> We need a more expensive CPU, more expensive motherboard, more power, more cooling, and a larger system. Congratulations you've reinvented threadripper (4 channel), siena (6 channel), Threadripper pro (8 channel), or epyc (12 channel).
This is the real story not the conspiracy-tinged market segmentation one. Which is silly because at levels where high-end consumer/enthusiast Ryzen (say, 9950 X3D) and lowest-end Threadripper/EPYC (most likely a previous-gen chip) just happen to truly overlap in performance, the former will generally cost you more!
Well sort of. Apple makes a competitive mac mini and macbook air with a 128 bit memory interface, decent design, solid build, nice materials, etc starting at $1k. PC laptops can match nearly any aspect, but rarely match the quality of the build, keyboard, trackpad, display, aluminum chassis, etc.
However Apple will let you upgrade to the pro (double the bandwidth), max (4x the bandwidth), and ultra (8x the bandwidth). The m4 max is still efficient, gives decent battery life in a thin light laptop. Even the ultra is pretty quiet/cool even in a tiny mac studio MUCH smaller than any thread ripper pro build I've seen.
Does mystify me that x86 has a hard time matching even a mac mini pro on bandwidth, let alone the models with 2x or 4x the memory bandwidth.
> Does mystify me that x86 has a hard time matching even a mac mini pro on bandwidth, let alone the models with 2x or 4x the memory bandwidth.
The market dynamics are pretty clear. Having that much memory bandwidth only makes sense if you're going to provide an integrated GPU that can use that bandwidth; CPU-based laptop/desktop workloads that bandwidth-hungry are too rare. The PC market has long been relying on discrete GPUs for any high-performance GPU configuration, and the GPU market leader is the one that doesn't make x86 CPUs.
Intel's consumer CPU product line is a confusing mess, but at the silicon level it comes down to one or two designs for laptops (a low-power and a mid-power design) that are both adequately served by a 128-bit memory bus, and one or two desktop designs with only a token iGPU. The rest of the complexity comes from binning on clock speeds and core counts, and sometimes putting the desktop CPU in a BGA package for high-power laptops.
For Intel to make a part following the Strix Halo and Apple strategy, Intel would need to add a third major category of consumer CPU silicon, using far more than twice the total die size of any of their existing consumer CPUs, to go after a niche that's pretty small and very hard for Intel to break into given the poor quality of their current GPU IP. Intel doesn't have the cash to burn pursuing something like this.
It's a bit surprising AMD actually went for it, but they were in a better position than Intel to make a part like Strix Halo from both a CPU and GPU IP perspective. But they still ended up not including their latest GPU architecture, and only went for a 256-bit bus rather than 512-bit.
Yes, but that platform has in-package memory? Which is a higher degree of integration than even "soldered". That's the kind of platform Strix Halo is most comparable to.
(I suppose that you could devise a platform with support for mixing both "fast" in-package and "slow" DIMM-socketed memory, which could become interesting for all sorts of high-end RAM-hungry workloads, not just AI. No idea how that would impact the overall tradeoffs though, might just be infeasible.
...Also if persistent memory (phase-change or MRAM) can solve the well-known endurance issues with flash, maybe that ultimately becomes the preferred substrate for "slow" bulk RAM? Not sure about that either.)
Risk cannabalising sales from their other products?
For example Nvidia seek to ban consumer GPU use in datacenters as they to sell datacentre GPUs.
If they made consumer platforms that can take 1tb of ram etc, then people may choose to not buy EYPC.
Afterall many cloud providers already offer Ryzen VPS's.
my thoughts exactly
That's a question for AMD and TCMC. They only have so much space on the silica. More memory channels means less of something else. This is not a "framework platform" issue, it's the specification of that CPU.
Well they chose to use this hardware platform. It all sounds like market segmentation to me, now that AMD is on top.
To be clear, AMD is giving you 2x the bandwidth of competing chips and you're complaining that it isn't 4x.
My complaints are the maximum RAM of the system and the modularity of the RAM.
With an increased number of channels, you could have a greater amount of RAM at a lower frequency but at the same bandwidth. So you would at least be able to run some of these much larger AI models.
This isn't ram. this is unified memory. It's shared between GPU and CPU. Soldered VRAM for GPUs have been the norm for probably 20 years because of the latency and reliability required, so why is this any different?
The only way to achieve what you're after is to do any of;
- Give up on unified memory and switch to a traditional platform (which there are thousands of alternatives for)
- Cripple the GPU for games and some productivity software by raising latency beyond the norm.
- Change to a server-class chip for 5x the price.
This is an amazing chip giving server-class specs in a cheap mobile platform, that fill a special nieche in the market for for both productivity and local AI at a very competitive price. What you're arguing for makes no sense.
I don't think that would fit in a laptop which was the original market for this chip.
According to the Framework CEO on the Linus Tech Tips video about this thing [1], they tried and AMD assigned an engineer on getting modular memory to work and decided it's not possible.
Unless there's another company out there shipping this CPU with replaceable memory, I'll believe them. Even with LPCAMM, physics just doesn't work out.
Of course, there are plenty of slower desktops you can buy where all the memory can be swapped out. If you want a repairable desktop like that, you're not stuck with Framework in the same way you would be with laptops. You'll probably struggle to get the same memory bandwidth to make full use of AMD's chips, though.
[1]: https://youtu.be/-lErGZZgUbY?feature=shared&t=446
there isn't. This thing was designed the same way apple designed their unified memory. This thing is meant to work hand in hand with it's iGPU.
> They soldered on the RAM. Which makes it a very strange entry for a brand marketing itself as the DIY dream
This was also my first thought when discovering this new model, but I think it was a pragmatic design decision.
The questions you should ask yourself are:
- which upgradable memory module format could be used with the same speed and bandwidth as the soldered in solution,
- if this solution exists, how much would it cost
- what's the maximum supported amount of ram for this CPU
>which upgradable memory module format could be used with the same speed and bandwidth as the soldered in solution
CAMM perhaps? The modular memory is important, because they are selling them to two different markets: gamers that want a small powerful desktop, and people running LLMs at home. The modularity of the RAM allows you to convert the former into the latter at a later date, so it seems pretty critical to me.
For this reason alone, I am going to buy a used epyc server instead of one of these desktop things. I will be able to equip it with a greater amount of RAM as I see fit and run a greater range of models (albeit at lower speed). The ability to run larger models slowly at a later date is more important than the ability for me to run smaller models faster now. So I am an example of a consumer who does not like framework's tradeoff.
You would think that they would at least offer some type of service where they take it into the factory and refit it with new ram chips. Perhaps they could just buy used low-ram boards at a later date and use them to make refurbished high-ram boards.
Another solution is to make it so that it supports both soldered and unsoldered ram (but at a lower frequency). Gaming is frequency-limited but does not require much ram, but a lot of workloads like AI are bandwidth limited. Hell, if you're going to have some high-frequency RAM irreplacibly soldered to the motherboard, it might as well be a chiplet!
You should do what better fit your usecase.
I don't know how large is framework's market, nor how deep their pockets are, which condition their ability to produce 2 different models.
It's clear that a modular design is preferable, hopefully once a standard emerges they will use it in their next devices. Perhaps framework will help in that process, but I don't know if they can afford to put up with the initial costs, particularly in a market they don't have a strong foothold yet.
The price jump from 64 GB to 128 GB is $400. $400 does not get you "some type of service where they take it into the factory and refit it with new ram chips".
The CEO mentioned in an LTT video that they worked with AMD to try to make CAMM memory work and hit some technical problems.
> They threw away their user-repairable mantra when they made the Desktop
You forget the value proposition of Framework products is not only they allow you to bring your own hardware but they also promise to provide you with replacement parts and upgrades directly from the vendor.
In this case they could not make the RAM replaceable (it’s a limitation of the platform) but you can expect an upgrade board in about 2 years that’s actually going to be easy to install for much less cost than buying a new desktop computer.
That's less of a thing here since this is "just" an ITX motherboard, a case, and a power supply. With the laptops replacing the board saves a bunch of other parts but here the board is basically the only part that matters.
Even on regular AMD 7000 and 9000 series the DDR5 memory controller is very sensitive and hard to get a stable system with fast RAM on many motherboards when all 4 modules are present. At today's RAM speeds, I definitely think a stable soldered system is increasingly a better trade-off.
Indeed. I have an AMD 9950X and an Asus X870E* motherboard. I can barely get the system to boot with one 32G DIMM let alone 2 or 4, and 48G DIMMS are even worse for some reason. I have tried 3 different "matched" sets. Sometimes I have to reset the system 3 times or more before it will boot; it hangs or crashes on DDR timing BIOS codes. I have given up and just use a single 32G despite how useless 32G is in a high end desktop today. Real joke. Huge waste of money. I will buy prebiilt systems in the future. In the meantime if I need a lot of RAM I use an Intel 14900K desktop or my new HP G1a Zbook.
* ASUS X870E ROG CROSSHAIR HERO AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard
Yes, AM5 DDR5 support has been similarly painful to me on four systems (7950X and 9950X). Try forcing the memory speed down to 3600MHz (ouch) when you want to install lots of memory and stay on modules specified on the motherboard's QVL.
I'd probably go Framework Desktop next if I won't need peripherals.
Dunno, nice, quiet, small machine, using standard parts (power supply, motherboard, etc).
If you want the high memory bandwidth get the strix halo, if not get any normal PC. Sure apple has the bandwidth as well, and also soldered memory as well.
If you want dimms and you want the memory bandwidth get a threadripper (4 channel), siena (6 channel), thread ripper pro (8 channel), or Epyc (12 channel). But be prepared to double your power (at least), quadruple your space, double your cost, and still not have a decent GPU.
Nice is subjective. Fractal cases he compares to looks nicer to me.
Quiet? A real PC with bigger fans = more airflow = quieter
Smaller - yes, this is the tradeoff
GPU is always best separate, that is true since the ages.
"double the power" oh no from 100W to 200W wowwww
"quadruple your space" - not a problem
> And even more curious
It's easy to find out the reason for this. And the article's benchmarks confirm the validity of this reason. Why comment from a place of ignorance, unless you're asking a question?
Your comment is unnecessarily hostile.
There are plenty of components to choose from which do not need soldered-on RAM. Giving up modularity to gain access to higher memory bandwidth is certainly a trafeoff many are willing to make, but to take that tradeoff as a company known for modularity is, as the parent comment put it, curious.
Every single description of the Framework desktop that I've seen has addressed this issue. To comment as though it's some sort of mystery is disingenuous at best. My comment was precisely as friendly as the commenter deserved.
And as I said, if you read the article, you'll see that the tradeoff in question has paid off very well.
You completely missed the point of my original comment, I'll take a second stab at it:
1. Framework branded themselves as the company for DIY computer repairability and maintainability in the laptop space.
2. They've now released a desktop that is less repairable than their laptops, and much less repairable than most desktops you can buy today.
That's what I consider a curious move.
The hardware choice may provide a good reason to solder on the RAM, but I wasn't commenting on that and have no idea how anyone could read my comment and have that be their takeaway.
I was commenting on a brand throwing away the thing it's marketed itself for. In exchange for repairability, you now get shiny baubles like custom tiles for the case.
> brand throwing away the thing it's marketed itself for
I don't see what you see. It's a single product, not a realignment of their business model. They saw an opportunity and brought to market a product that will likely sell out, which tells us that customers are happy to make the trade-off of modularity and repairability for what the Strix Halo brings to the table. I think your interpretation of their mission is a bit uncharitable, maybe naive, and leaves the company little room to be a company.
I disagree, the framework name has been intertwined with repairability since the inception. That is their USP and has been their marketing angle from day 1, not only that but the fact they are supposedly championing repairability due to their 'ethos' as a company.
Fair enough that a company might bring out products which differ from their core market, but in this instance I have to agree that releasing a desktop PC with soldered on RAM very much goes against the place they have positioned themselves in the market.
Perhaps a better solution would be to start releasing a newly branded product line of not so repairable machines, but keeping the name 'Framwork' for their main offerings.
Gotta chase that AI bubble at any cost