Framework's First Desktop Is an Xbox-Sized Mini Gaming PC
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The original Framework Laptop's sales pitch was that it wanted to bring some of the modularity and repairability of the desktop PC ecosystem to a functional, thin, and light laptop. For nearly half a decade, the company has made good on that promise with multiple motherboard upgrades and other tweaks for the original 13-inch Framework Laptop; with the Framework Laptop 16 and Laptop 12, the company has tried to bring the same ethos to gaming/workstation laptops and budget PCs for students.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast.
One of Framework's announcements this week was for the company's first desktop PC. Unsurprisingly dubbed the Framework Desktop, it's aimed less at the general-purpose PC crowd and more at people who want the smallest, most powerful desktop they can build and will pay extra money to get it. Preorders for this system start now, and Framework says it should ship in Q3 of 2025.
Here was my first question: What does a company trying to build a more desktop-like laptop have to bring to the desktop ecosystem, where things are already standardized, upgradeable, and repairable?
The answer, at least for the Framework Desktop announced today: a gaming PC that takes advantage of many PC standards and offers a unique combination of small size and high performance, but which is otherwise substantially less modular and upgradeable than a mini PC you can already buy or build for yourself. Tiny but Fast This mini ITX board is based on existing PC standards—note the M.2 slot, the regular USB-C front headers, and the four-lane PCIe slot—but also comes with a soldered-down CPU and GPU and soldered-down, non-upgradeable RAM. Framework
The Framework Desktop is powered by an AMD Ryzen AI Max processor, a Radeon 8060S integrated GPU, and between 32 GB and 128 GB of soldered-in RAM. Over at Ars, we reviewed a more thermally constrained version of these chips in the Asus ROG Flow Z13 tablet—despite technically being an 'integrated' GPU built into the same silicon as the CPU, the number of compute units (up to 40, based on AMD's RDNA 3.5 architecture) plus the high-speed bank of soldered-in RAM gives it performance similar to a midrange dedicated laptop GPU.
In Framework's first-party case, the PC starts at $1,099, which gets you a Ryzen AI Max 385 (that's an 8-core CPU and 32 GPU cores) and 32 GB of RAM. A fully loaded 128 GB with a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 configuration (16 CPU cores, 40 GPU cores) will run you $1,999. There's also an in-between build with the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip and 64 GB of RAM for $1,599. If you just want the mini ITX board to put in a case of your choosing, that starts at $799.
None of these are impulse buys, exactly, but they're priced a bit better than a gaming-focused mini PC like the Asus ROG NUC, which starts at nearly $1,300 as of this writing and comes with half as much RAM. It's also priced well compared to what you can get out of a DIY mini ITX PC based on integrated graphics—the Ryzen 7 8700G, an AM5 ITX motherboard, and 32 GB of DDR5 can all be had for around $500 collectively before you add a case, power supply, or SSD, but for considerably slower performance.
The volume of the Framework Desktop's first-party case is just 4.5 liters—for reference, the SSUPD Meshroom S is 14.9 liters, a fairly middle-of-the-road volume for an ITX case that can fit a full-size GPU. An Xbox Series X is about 6.9 liters, and the Xbox Series S is 4.4 liters. Apple's Mac Studio is about 3.7 liters. The Framework Desktop isn't breaking records, but it's definitely tiny. Despite the non-upgradeability of the main components, Framework has tried to stick to existing standards where it can by using a flex ATX power supply, ATX headers on the motherboard, regular 120 mm fans that can be changed out, and of course the mini ITX form factor itself. Framework
So the pitch for the system is easy: You get a reasonably powerful 1440p-capable gaming and workstation PC inside a case the size of a small game console. 'If the Series S could run Windows, I'd buy it in a second' is a thought that has occurred to me, so I can see the appeal, even though it costs at least three times as much.
But it does feel like a strange fit for Framework, given that it's so much less upgradeable than most PCs. The CPU and GPU are one piece of silicon, and they're soldered to the motherboard. The RAM is also soldered down and not upgradeable once you've bought it, setting it apart from nearly every other board Framework sells.
'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 this week'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.'
Patel notes that Framework 'leveraged all of the key PC standards everywhere we could.' That starts with a mini ITX board that uses standard ATX headers so it can fit into any PC case. The system's 400-W power supply is based on the established Flex ATX standard, and its 120-mm fans (made in cooperation with Cooler Master and Noctua) can be swapped out for any other fan of the same size. A front panel with customizable, 3D-printable square swatches adds a touch of personality and customization. Framework
The system also retains some modularity, with swappable black or translucent side panels, an optional carrying handle, 21 customizable tiles on the front (which can be either bought or 3D-printed), and two slots on the front for the same expansion cards used for Framework Laptops. The system also includes a PCI Express slot with four lanes of bandwidth and two M.2 2280 slots for SSDs. Rear I/O includes two USB4 ports, two DisplayPorts, an HDMI port, and a 5-gigabit Ethernet port.
Framework says the Desktop will work with not just Windows 11 and the typical Ubuntu and Fedora Linux distributions but also with more gaming-focused Linux distributions like Playtron OS and the SteamOS-based Bazzite. (We don't know whether the Framework Desktop will be supported by actual SteamOS when Valve starts distributing it on third-party PCs, but the desktop seems like a near-ideal way to resurrect the dead Steam Machine idea).
So while the non-upgradeable nature of key system components make this machine seem distinctively un-Framework-like, it is Framework-like in that it attempts to identify and address an underserved market niche with something as standards-based as possible. To those looking to put together a more fully modular system with a user-replaceable CPU, GPU, and memory, I'm sure the Framework team would be the first to point you toward the wider PC ecosystem.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
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