The most obvious question is “Why?”
Framework builds modular, repairable laptops that anyone can take apart and put back together again. It’s a big deal in an era where laptops are regularly sold as a single unit that, should one part break, goes in the trash. Since every part of a Framework machine can be swapped out, you can keep one going for as long as your patience, and the supply of spare parts, allows. Desktops, however, are already modular and repairable — company founder Nirav Patel said “desktop PC ethos was one of the core inspirations for the Framework laptop to begin with.” So, if desktops are already modular and repairable, why do we need one from Framework?
When the Desktop was announced, Patel said the genesis of the product came from seeing a preview of AMD’s Ryzen AI Max. It’s an APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) — AMD’s term for a chip combining a CPU, GPU and NPU in a single package, much like Apple Silicon — with plenty of hyped-up claims about its performance. Those claims were so compelling that Patel added the Desktop to the company’s roadmap just to harness that potential power. The big selling point for this chip is the sheer volume of RAM you can employ (up to 128GB) and the massive memory bandwidth (up to 265GB/s) it can take advantage of. AMD described it as a “workstation-level” chip that’ll work in a regular ‘ol PC, with the base model priced at $1,099.
But there’s a devil’s bargain in opting for such a powerful chip, since to get it means Framework has had to give up a lot of its founding principles. As someone probably once wrote, for what shall it profit a computer manufacturer if it shall gain searing power but lose its own soul?
Hardware
The major issue with the Ryzen AI Max is its inflexibility since it’s made as a single package. Much like Apple Silicon products, you’ll need to pick your chip spec in the knowledge that you don’t get to change things later. Consequently, you’ll be ordering the Framework Desktop in one of three unchangeable flavors:
Ryzen AI Max 385 with 32GB RAM, Radeon 8050S GPU
Ryzen AI Max+ 395 with 64GB RAM, Radeon 8060S GPU (the model I’m testing).
Ryzen AI Max+ 395 with 128GB RAM, Radeon 8060S GPU
With every other Framework machine, the mainboard has the CPU and fan soldered in place, but that’s it. Every other component can more or less be removed and reinstalled on the replacement mainboard. Here, if that APU goes or if your needs do evolve, then you’re losing pretty much everything (including the heatsink) since it’s all soldered to the mainboard. We'll get into pricing considerations later, but replacement mainboards from Framework run between $799 and $1,699. Otherwise, the only things you can recover here are the Wi-Fi module, SSD (there’s space for two), power supply and case.
Speaking of which, the Framework Desktop is a Mini-ITX desktop in a 4.5L case, complete with optional carrying handle. It’s less understated than the cases you’d have seen at a LAN party circa 2006, but that’s not the point. While the box itself is a stark black, you can add a big chunk of personality to it with the front panel, which has space for 21 plastic tiles. These tiles come in a variety of colors (including black, green, orange and lavender) for you to mosaic to your heart’s content. You can also pick up single tiles with specific images printed on, including the Framework, AMD and Linux logos, plus this fetching pride heart. Naturally, if you’re crafty, you can also make your own.
Below the front panel and irritatingly small power button, you’ll find two of Framework’s trademark expansion card slots. These are USB-C ducts into which you can slot any of the company’s expansion cards, letting you pick and choose what I/O you have up front. But the flexibility, so necessary on a laptop, is less of an issue here since this is a Mini-ITX mainboard. Lean over to the back and you’ll find two USB-C, two DisplayPorts, two USB-A sockets as well as dedicated connections for HDMI, Ethernet and 3.5mm audio.
Installation
Framework is only selling its desktop in a “DIY Edition,” but that’s less of a big deal than you might initially expect. Whereas the company’s DIY laptops require you to put every component in the chassis, on the Desktop there’s very little to do at all. Everything bar the SSD is already in place, and all you need to do to add that is remove the heatsink and slot your drive into the M.2 slot. After that, you just need to attach the beefy 120mm fan to the equally beefy heatsink, pop the cowl on top and screw in the four screws. Framework’s wonderful iFixit-style guides claimed getting the hardware together would take between 30 and 45 minutes. I hit stop on the watch after 15 minutes and 15 seconds, and can’t imagine many folks will take much more time than that to put everything together. From there, you just need to install your operating system of choice and you’re ready to go.
In use
Daniel Cooper for Engadget
With the Desktop, Framework is targeting two groups: gamers, and developers eager to use AMD’s Ryzen AI Max. The pitch to the former group could easily be boiled down to ‘this is a fast PC you don’t need to do much to build.’ That’s an easy enough metric to judge it by, since we can just run some games on it and see how well it performs. I’ll admit that I am not an AI developer, and so can’t speak as authoritatively on the latter or how effective it would be at running large models if you — as the company expects — buy several mainboards to run in a cluster.
I basically ran every title in my admittedly limited game library with the settings dialed up to max, and it didn’t break a sweat. AMD claims the Radeon 8060S GPU inside my machine goes toe-to-toe with an RTX 4070 laptop GPU. This is a ten pound hammer for the one ounce nail that is Fortnite, but even demanding titles like Hardspace: Shipbreaker breezed through. My gut tells me, however, that people wouldn’t be eyeing this up as a primary gaming machine. That’s not where this unit’s power lies, really, but in the more work-y tasks that better suit the APU.
As I said, I’m not an AI developer but I did mess around with LM Studio, which I tested with a chatbot running Google’s Gemma 3 27B model. Performance was a little slower than you may see on a web-based AI client, but not enough for it to be an issue. LM Studio, too, suggested that running this was only taking around a third of the Desktop’s CPU power, so there’s probably plenty more headroom there to run bigger and more demanding models.
I am, however, on surer footing with big workstation tasks, like video editing and exporting, and I was impressed with the results here. For this, I took a 39GB HD video file with a runtime of 2 hours, made a few minor trims, and then compressed and exported it as an MP4 file. Crunching the file down to 6GB took just one hour and 12 minutes, a staggering speed boost for a job that could take half a day to export on lesser hardware. It’s worth remembering, too, that I’m testing the middle-tier version of the Desktop with 64GB RAM.
When announcing the Desktop, Patel said the machine would run quietly even at peak power. He described it as “silent while sitting on your desktop under normal loads, and even under gaming, it’s impressively quiet.” If you’re familiar with Framework’s track record and products so far, that quote will have instantly provoked scoffing. The company does many things well, but it wildly overpromises on how quiet and cool its machines run.
Framework trumpeted how much better its cooling was on its recently-released Ryzen AI 300 mainboard for the Laptop 13, which was noisy and lap roasting. Here, you’ve got a beefy APU expected to run for sustained periods of time at 120W and up to 140W in boost. I half expected to be able to use this thing as a space heater but, mercifully, the company does seem to have made good on its promises. The 120mm fan barely got noisy at all, and I can only recall it becoming noticeable when running heavier AI models in LM Studio and when I started exporting the video file.
Pricing
The starting price for the base model Desktop with the Max 385 and 32GB of RAM is $1,099. For that, you’ll get the case, power supply and mainboard, which includes its own Wi-Fi module. What the company is listing as optional extras, however, includes the SSD, CPU fan, OS and even the power lead. So, if you were looking to buy the base model as an essentially off the shelf purchase, including decorative tiles and two front-facing expansion cards, the price rises to $1,386. If you want to opt for the mid-tier option (the 395 with 64GB RAM) add $500 to the base model price. If you want to go for the high end 395 with 128GB RAM, then you’ll be adding $900 to the base price, bringing the total for an off-the-shelf model to around $2,286.
Because of the distinct nature of the Ryzen AI Max, an apples-to-apples comparison isn’t going to be perfect. But, if you were looking to spend around two grand on a high-performance PC, you could snag something like Lenovo’s Legion Tower 5 with AMD. $2,200 buys you a Ryzen 7 with 16GB DDR5 RAM, a 1TB SSD and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4070 Ti with 12GB RAM. Alternatively, that figure could get you an ASUS ROG G700 with a Ryzen 7, Radeon RX 9070 XT Prime (with 16GB VRAM), 16GB RAM and a 2TB SSD. The real differentiator is how much you would value the faster memory bandwidth and speed the AI Max offers over its discrete rivals.
Framework will also sell users the Desktop’s mainboard on its own, with the base model priced at $799. Certainly, if you’ve got boxes full of spare parts and the necessary Mini-ITX case, you could save a chunk of change that way. This will also be the most cost effective way for power users to run clusters of boards for bigger projects. Pre-orders are open, but the company won’t start shipping boards on their own until it’s fulfilled all of its system orders.
Wrap-up
In my time with the Framework Desktop, I’ve flip-flopped a few times on if this product is a hit or a miss. Framework was open about the fact this was something akin to a side project, outside its regular remit to build modular laptops, based on a particularly exciting chip. So while I think the all-in-one approach is a backward step compared to regular PCs, I get the rationale for doing so here.
Where I think Framework whiffed was to pitch this as a machine to make “PC gaming more accessible” by reducing “the mental and physical load” associated with building your own. Nightmares about thermal paste aside, I don’t think that’s a real issue for would-be gamers as they could easily pick up a pre-built system for similar cash. And I suspect most gamers would much rather use a PC with a standalone graphics card rather than slum it with an integrated GPU.
Because even mentioning gaming, really, does the machine a massive disservice, pulling the focus from its real strength. Which is the ease at which this machine handled productivity tasks, like running AI models and crunching video. The effortlessness at which it handled that brought to mind products like the Mac Studio, a creative powerhouse in its own tiny package. It’s this that Framework should have led with, especially since it’ll do all of those tasks and play games on the side.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this product to people who are just looking to buy a powerful PC or a gaming PC. It’s a tool for a specific group of users capable of taking advantage of the AI Max’s benefits that you’d otherwise need a workstation for. So while its review score is justifiably high when the Framework Desktop is judged on its own merits, that doesn’t mean you need to own one.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/framework-desktop-2025-review-powerful-but-perhaps-not-for-everyone-150011909.html?src=rss