this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
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[–] [email protected] 151 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

"To enable the massive 256GB/s memory bandwidth that Ryzen AI Max delivers, the LPDDR5x is soldered," writes Framework CEO Nirav Patel in a post about today's announcements. "We spent months working with AMD to explore ways around this but ultimately determined that it wasn’t technically feasible to land modular memory at high throughput with the 256-bit memory bus. Because the memory is non-upgradeable, we’re being deliberate in making memory pricing more reasonable than you might find with other brands."

😒🍎

Edit: to be clear, I was only trying to point out that "we’re being deliberate in making memory pricing more reasonable than you might find with other brands" is clearly targeting the Mac Mini, because Apple likes to price-gouge on RAM upgrades. ("Unamused face looking at Apple," get it? Maybe I emoji'd wrong.) My comment is not meant to be an opinion about the soldered RAM.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

To be fair it starts with 32GB of RAM, which should be enough for most people. I know it's a bit ironic that Framework have a non-upgradeable part, but I can't see myself buying a 128GB machine and hoping to raise it any time in the future.

If you really need an upgradeable machine you wouldn't be buying a mini-PC anyways, seems like they're trying to capture a different market entirely.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My biggest gripe about non replaceable components is the chance that they'll fail. I've had pretty much every component die on me at some point. If it's replaceable it's fine because you just get a new component, but if it isn't you now have an expensive brick.

I will admit that I haven't had anything fail recently like in the past, I have a feeling the capacitor plague of the early 2000s influenced my opinion on replaceable parts.

I also don't fall in the category of people that need soldered components in order to meet their demands, I'm happy with raspberry pis and used business PCs.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 2 points 1 day ago

You can get an MS-A1 barebones from minisforum right now for like 215 - BYO cpu, ddr5, and m2. But it’s got oculink on the back (the pcie dock is 100, but not mandatory if you’re not going to use it). I think it’s supposed to be on sale for another couple days.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (2 children)

According to the CEO in the LTT video about this thing it was a design choice made by AMD because otherwise they cannot get the ram speed they advertise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

There's camm2, the new standard for high speed removable memory. Asus already has released a motherboard that uses it and it matches the 8000 mts of the Framework which won't be out until 3Q this year.

Framework chose non upgradable because it was easier/cheaper. That's fine except Framework's entire marketing has been built around upgradeable hardware.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Which is fine, but there was no obligation for Framework to use that chip either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

That chip is one-of-a-kind. Most people and I are getting that PC just because of that chip and the price (the price is very reasonable). Without it that PC is not worth it at all.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

In the same video it's pointed out that this product wouldn't exist at all without the AMD chip. It's literally built around it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Suppose the counter is that the market is chock full of modular options to build a system without framework.

In the laptop space, it's their unique hook in a market that is otherwise devoid of modularity. In the desktop space, even the mini itx space, framework doesn't really need to be serving that modularity requirement since it is so well served already. It might make it so I'm likely to ignore it completely, but I'm not going to be super bothered when I have so many other options

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 days ago

seems like they're trying to capture a different market entirely.

Yes that's the problem.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Well, more specifically: why didn’t they try to go for LPCAMM?

[–] enumerator4829 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Because you’d get like half the memory bandwidth to a product where performance is most likely bandwidth limited. Signal integrity is a bitch.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 1 points 23 hours ago

I thought LPCAMM was designed specifically to address the bandwidth and connectivity issues that crop up around high-bandwidth + low-voltage RAM?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

From what I understand, they did try, but AMD couldn't get it to work because of signal integrity issues.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Yeah hugely disappointed by this tbh. They should have made a gaming capable steam machine in cooperation with valve instead :)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago

Yeah.

But that's AMD's fault, as they gimped the GPU so much on the lower end. There should be a "cheap" 8-core, 1-CCD part with close to the full 40 CUs... But there is not.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is an AI chip designed primarily for running AI workflows. The fact that it can game is secondary

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yeah exactly, its worthless... Even the big players already admit to the AI hype being over. This is the worst possible thing to launch for them, its like they have no idea who their customers are.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

The AI hype being over doesn’t mean no one is working on AI anymore. LLMs and other trained models are here to stay whether you like it or not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I mean, it's not. You can do aí workflows with this wonderful chip.

If you wanna game, go buy nvidia

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

They still could; this seems aimed at the AI/ML research space TBH

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Would 256GB/s be too slow for large llms?