this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2025
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Isn't the framework desktop the weirdest device ever?
Framework, the "repairability and modularity" company making a desktop computer that's less repairable and modular than any old HP office PC?
Soldred RAM and their own proprietary interal USB dongles instead of regular PCI-e for port and storage expansion.
And theen they add weird fake modularity by letting you pay €10for some weird plastic stickers without which the PC looks like half-assembled.
The LTT ~~video~~ ad even starts with this weird flex of "You only need this one screwdriver to assemble it". I can't remember a single time I've ever had to use anything else than "only one screwdriver" to assemble a desktop. And that includes a tiny HP mini PC (which had not only expandable RAM but also a socketed CPU on a smaller form factor).
To me it just sounds like a device dreamt up by some MBA who has never in their life assembled a desktop PC before.
To be fair, Framework's limited by the AMD platform here, which requires soldered RAM for electrical reasons. SODIMM sticks are not going to cut it (it already caps DDR5 speeds and baloons voltages), and apparently even LPCAMM wasn't stable in testing.
The platform is also physically limited to 4X PCIE 4.0 x4; that's simply all the chip has. They expose one x4 port internally, and the rest are eaten up by NVMe, ethernet and such. They may even be splitting some of its internal USB4 up, which would explain the weird adapters.
If you don't need the fast RAM/CPU/iGPU though, you aren't wrong; it's not super modular and doesn't make a lot of sense. For the price, most would be better served with a standard laptop CPU + dGPU, like most mini PCs have... but if that's the case, you can buy a Framework laptop.
Tbh, where's the point of them choosing a by-design non-modular platform for a form factor where modularity is the basic paradigm?
Because AMD Strix Halo is awesome. For the price+power, one simply can't get its performance from any other platform, not even close, and they made it as modular as physically possible.
Hence, it's selling well.
Making the RAM swappable was also their intent, it just didn't physically work in the time/budget they had to develop it; and they were upfront about this.