If you did not know this, Patrick has been asking manufacturers to make an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor and 128GB of memory that he can put in racks. Framework announced today that they are doing almost exactly that. With a mITX form factor, the company is taking AMD’s newest chip and putting it into a package that costs (once optioned) just over $2000.
Framework Making a Mini PC with an AMD Ryzen AI Max and 128GB of Memory
The new Framework Desktop is a 4.5L mini PC that packs the AMD Ryzen AI Max line. There is an 8-core AMD Ryzen AI Max 385, or perhaps the more exciting AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395. That AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 has 16 cores, 32 threads, and a 40 CU RDNA 3.5 GPU (the 385 is a 32CU GPU.)
On all of the motherboards for the DIY folks or the desktops, you get LPDDR5x memory. 32GB comes on the 385 while the 395 has an option for 64GB or 128GB. On the storage side, there are two PCIe Gen4 M.2 slots.
That 128GB model is likely to sell well. With 40 CUs on the GPU, and 128GB of memory, the small machine is going to be a real competitor for an Apple Mac Studio in the local AI space. The company made this direct comparison as well as to the NVIDIA DIGITS. We should note that DIGITS has built-in high-speed networking while the Framework Desktop has 5GbE and WiFi 7, but not 25GbE or faster networking.
Final Words
We have been waiting for the PC industry to have an AI competitor to the Apple Mac Studio for some time, and it is finally coming. The Framework website has been slammed today, with a Cloudflare waiting queue just to log on. A major challenge right now is that getting enough memory for running local models tends to be very expensive, especially when paired with an even remotely recent GPU architecture. These shared memory desktops offer something extremely useful to those who cannot afford the largest GPUs.
Yes, we have one on order.
Framework’s pricing is insane.
I bet Minisforum will offer far better pricing, judging by their phenomenal BD790i with 16-core Ryzen 7945HX for less than $500
Where can I buy it?
I assume this is the early bird price, but it is nevertheless a nice package. I am hoping that as more models become available with this chip, the prices will drop to more manageable levels.
USB 4 can offer up to 40 Gbps is the best way to cluster these.
There looks to be a 4x PCIe port available that should be enough to take a 25GBE card.
$2000 lol. If I seriously wanted 128GB of ram in a rack I’m not buying a $2K mini-pc. Ever.
I don’t see a market for that form factor in a rack AT ALL.
But each to their own.