The main problem with Framework 13 thermals is that if you just put it on top of a bed or sofa, the cloth blocks the bottom ventilation holes and the PC roasts itself with zero airflow. It's fine placed on top of a table, just not on a soft surface. I wish they would fix this glaring issue. Most normies are just going to place their laptops on the couch or bed without thinking about it.
Macbooks have a better design here. They are safe to put on top of sofas and beds. No ventilation holes on the bottom.
Search this thread for the “oh but it’s so expensive, I could just buy a new laptop from any other manufacturer every 3 years and it would be cheaper” posts - those are the normies.
Does anyone know whether the AMD chips are more performant? I like AMD more as a company, especially since I like healthy competition. I'd prefer an AMD chip if it's as efficient and performant as the Intel ones.
Absolutely don’t buy the AMD 300 series chips in the current Framework 13” lineup. Panther Lake is what you want. It’s a large leapfrog over what AMD has been offering for this product category.
You’ll get far better battery life for all use cases as well as performance that matches or beats AMD. Also, if you select the X7 you’re getting the best integrated graphics on the market that isn’t made by Apple - basically on par with the M5, and far better than the top option from Framework (HX370) while sipping battery by comparison.
I’m sure AMD will come back soon with a good answer to Panther Lake, but as of right now, it’s not what you want.
Don’t worry about AMD needing your charity, they aren’t going anywhere, they’re a more valuable company than Intel, and they’ll compete in this segment in the future. It’s just not the right buy right now.
Another piece of correction to myself…I was reviewing benchmarks and I was a bit too excited about the CPU performance specifically.
Something like a Ryzen AI HX370 and even the 350 does perform better than the 8 core X7 Intel chip, along with a number of other options.
But on the graphics side, the Intel is really fantastic.
And of course we are talking about a thin and light laptop where you’re going to appreciate stellar battery life a lot more than exceptional performance for the most part.
As a slight piece of pedantry to myself, when I said “best integrated graphics on the market besides Apple” I excluded AMD strix halo since you basically can’t get it in a laptop anyway, and the one or two models you can get it in don’t make a whole lot of purchase sense.
My bet (I don't think there is any confirmation of it) is that the AMD board is still the one released last year. The main difference I see is that the new Intel board uses LPCAMM2 memory whereas the AMD board relies on usual socketed memory that has higher latency and is more memory hungry.
Looking at Intel's specs, it seems my current CPU has a base of 28W, boost up to 64W. The high end part Framework is selling for the 13 Pro has a base of 25W, boost to 80W.
So seems basically the same on the low end, with the new part boosting quite a bit higher. Presumably you get more perf per watt on the new CPU, but still.
I don't know what CPU you currently have but don't sleep on performance increases. If this new chip can do the same amount of work for less cycles, that's less time spent making heat.
