Framework’s first desktop is a strange—but unique—mini ITX gaming PC
Ryzen AI Max and its gigantic integrated GPU power this Xbox Series S-sized PC.
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I really hope this won't be too expensive. If it's reasonably affordable i might just get one for my living room.
they already announced pricing for them.
1099 for the base ai max model with 32gb(?), 1999 for fully maxed with the top sku.
With a cheeky comparison to Apple's nearly $5k offering.
$1k for the base isn't horrible IMO, especially if you compare it to something like the mac mini starting at $600 and ballooning over $1k to increase to 32GB of "unified memory" and 1tb of storage.
I get why people are mad about the non-upgradable memory but tbh I think this is the direction the industry is going to go as a whole. They can't get the memory to be stable and performant while also being removable. It's a downside of this specific processor and if people want that they should just build a PC
i actually think its not the worst priced framework product ironically. Prebuilt 1k pcs tend to be something like a high end cpu + 4060 desktop anyways, so specs wise, its relatively speaking, reasonable. take for example cyberpower pcs build here, which is of the few oems iirc Gamers Nexus thinks doesn't charge as much of a SI tax on assembly. it's acutally not incredibly far off performance wise. I'd argue its the most value Framework product per dollar ironically.
Prebuilt 1k pcs tend to be something like a high end cpu + 4060 desktop anyways
That value proposition evaporates when you factor in repairability and upgradability of those prebuilts.
and if you actually want a PC for gaming on, a discrete gpu (eg: 7900xt) is going to be at least 3x faster at throwing polygons around than the 8060S. This thing is definitely better for AI workloads than gaming.
And the “base” of this is physically more like a cut down M4 Pro than a regular M4.
Bummer
