There are #Framework13 models now with #AMD CPUs! This is getting interesting for many reasons! 👀
1. The AMD Ryzen AI CPUs come with a #NPU based on #XDNA from the #Xilinx acquisition. In practice #AMDXDNA only made it into Linux 6.14 (e.g. in the very recent Fedora 42) and there is no end user support as of today making the NPU dead hardware as of today and probably most of 2025.
2. The AMD Ryzen CPUs come with AVX512 and that's working end to end unlike whatever the f #Intel is doing there.
What it means: If you plan on getting a #Framework machine there's currently no point in going for the AMD Ryzen AI CPU options. Unless you want to bet on AMD doing a 180° and suddenly understanding software.
The AMD CPUs are still pretty solid and a good choice, unbelievable that you can get your hands on AVX512 this way — but def. not for the NPU on Linux.
@eliasp Curious why you went with the AMD Ryzen AI option then?
Simply because it's newer? The NPU will be pretty much dead weight then if you're on Linux. There's an option for the AMD Ryzen 7040 series and it's even cheaper and still quite nice e.g. also comes with AVX512.
Even for the LLM use cases what I find online is the NPU not being that mind blowing anyways.
AMD is such a weird company sometimes.
@djh as much as I love what AMD is doing, not everything is great:
1. Their weird USB port usage restrictions (see image and https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/expansion-card-functionality-on-framework-laptop-13-amd-ryzen-7040-series-SkrVx7gAh
2. Their OSS GPU drivers are not nearly as good as the Intel ones. Either use mesa (which is unofficial but works OKish) or use ROCM (OSS and official but harder to install)
@crepererum The expansion port assignment I've seen. It's a bit annoying but tbh not a deal breaker for me especially once configured.
So far no problems with the GPU but let me try it some more weeks as a daily driver to see how it goes. I can see folks online reporting issues; let's see.
They're really a hardware company still struggling with software it looks like unfortunately.
@crepererum for the record the Fedora 42 default install on this one is using the AMDGPU open source driver by default. As usual the Arch wiki delivers 😍
Daniel
Elias Probst
crepererum
cheezychippy