Framework Desktop review: Modular design and ferocious AMD performance

In a world where many folk will baulk at even installing their operating system on a PC, asking them to also undertake some physical assembly may seem a foolhardy idea. The small amount of basic work you need to undertake with a screwdriver should, however, not deter you from buying the new Framework Desktop PC.

Framework is not a new player in the PC market, though its previous products have been laptops rather than desktops. While the new Framework Desktop is quite a different beast, you can still use the same slide-in modular expansion cards that feature on its current laptop models.

You can order your Framework PC with either Windows 10 Home or Pro, or as a barebones system without an operating system. Either way, you will need to install your OS, as the Windows option simply means you get an activation code from Framework.

We loaded our review machine with Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 11 Pro in a dual-boot setup, even though Framework recommends Fedora and Bazzite as officially supported Linux distros.

It also recommends Arch, NixOS, and Bluefin as community-supported distros, but the fact that Ubuntu loaded and worked with no issues suggests most versions of Linux will run without any problem.

Framework Desktop: Design

Once you've unboxed the various components that make up the Framework PC package, you are left with a 4.5L metal PC tower, which already includes the motherboard, heat sync, power supply, and all the other essential gubbins, as well as the bits you need to install yourself and a Torx screwdriver.

These include a fan (from a choice of three), one or two M.2 2280 SSDs, assuming you've specified them, clip-on plastic side panels for the tower, and various decorative plastic tiles to clip into the magnetic front panel.

You also receive any modular expansion ports you've ordered, which slide into the two docking bays at the bottom of the tower. They are the same as the ones you'll find on Framework's laptops. In our case, this was a selection of USB-C and USB-A expansion cards.

The assembly part of the process involves installing the SSD and the fan, then the side panel, the two expansion ports, and the decorative tiles. Framework reckons this all takes 10 minutes, but we timed ourselves and got it done in under 8. It took longer to unbox all the parts and clear the mess away.

If you want a get a better taste of what is required in the assembly process, Framework provides a selection of foolproof guides to putting the tower together and installing your software.

While assembling the unit, it became clear that Framework hasn't skimped on the quality. Everything went together smoothly and securely, all the clips and screws felt well-made, and the result felt reassuringly stiff and sturdy.

Adding a second SSD takes even less time: all you need to do is slide out the plastic panel that covers the main board and screw it into place. The Framework can take SSDs up to 8TB in capacity, making it a great choice if you want to store very large quantities of data.

Framework offers a wide choice of expansion cards for the two slots at the bottom of the unit. You can choose from 10Gbps USB-C or USB-A I/O ports, MicroSD or SD card readers, 2.5Gbit Ethernet, and 3.5mm audio jacks and storage cards with either 256GB or 1TB capacity. The cards vary in price from £9 for the USB-C/A cards up to £39 for the Ethernet card and £45/£125 for the storage modules.

The two expansion slots on the front of the tower are in addition to a wide selection of fixed ports at the back, namely two USB-C 4 and two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, two DisplayPort 2.1 and one HDMI 2.1 video outputs, 5Gbit Ethernet, and 3.5mm audio jacks.

All together, that makes the Framework Desktop one of the best-connected small-form PC we've ever seen here at ITPro. Wireless communications are handled by a Realtek RZ717 card supporting the latest Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 standards.

The slots for the expansion cards are at the very bottom of the case, and this is the only small problem with the design because it puts the ports only a few millimetres above the surface the Framework is resting on, which isn't ideal for ease of access, especially for bulky USB thumb drives.

If you have to pick the box up to use the expansion ports, you'll thank the optional screw-on carry handle that fixes to the top of the tower. It's not strictly necessary, given that the Framework PC only weighs 3.1Kg, but it does make grabbing it easier.

The magnetic front panel can be decorated with 21 plastic tiles. These are available in packs of 7 coloured tiles for £15, so you have to spend £45 just to fill all the spaces. For £5 each, you can buy individual tiles with various decorations such as the AMD, Tux, Framework, and Linux Mint logos. Of course, nothing is stopping you from making your own tiles if you have a 3D printer to hand.

Given that the unit looks half-finished without a full set of tiles to fill the front panel, and the £45 cost for something purely cosmetic, perhaps Framework could have considered also including a simple plastic cover for the front?

Framework Desktop: Specs and Performance

The Framework Desktop is the first PC we've encountered running on AMD's new Halo Strix Max CPUs. You can have your Framework Desktop with either an 8-core AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 and 32GB of RAM or the 16-core Max+ 395 CPU with 64GB or 128GB (the RAM is integrated, so there's no option to add more post-purchase), along with a 32-core Radeon 8050S or 40-core 8060S GPU. Our test unit came with the basic 385 CPU, but even that proved to be surprisingly powerful.

In ITPro's in-house 4K multi-media benchmark, the Framework scored a blistering 510 points, while the PCMark10 test score came in at 8,856. If you want a small-form PC with meaningfully higher levels of performance, you'll need to spend twice as much or more on something like a M4 Max Mac Studio.

To put the Framework's performance into context, the new Core Ultra 288V-powered MSI NUC AI+ 2MG scored 301 points in the 4K test, while the Core Ultra 9 285H-powered Geekom IT15 managed 361.

In the PCMark10 benchmark, the NUC AI+ 2MG scored 6,857 and the Geekom box 7,450 points. The result is clear: when it comes to demanding workloads, the new Framework Desktop is in a league of its own at this price point.

Graphics performance was, if anything, even more impressive, with the SPECviewperf 3dsmax 3D modelling test running at 118fps, which is close to five times as fast as the 25fps you'll get from one of Intel's latest Arc integrated GPUs.

The Framework Desktop is not being pitched as a gaming platform, but it seemed churlish not to test its gaming chops. The Cyberpunk 2077 benchtest ran at 73fps at FullHD in the Ray Tracing: Medium preset. That's very impressive.

In more general terms, the Ryzen AI Max 385 chipset delivers GPU performance that is roughly comparable to an Nvidia 4060/4070 GPU with an 80-100 watt TGP. That's an order of magnitude more powerful than any iGPU we've come across, including the likes of AMD's 890M and Intel's Arc 140T.

Perhaps even more impressive than the outright performance is the lack of fuss with which the Framework Desktop can handle even the most demanding tasks. During our standard stress test, when we ran the CPU and GPU flat out, the system was still running at 100% utilization after three hours, and the fan noise was very subdued.

The 1TB Western Digital Black SSD in our review unit proved to be a strong performer, recording average sequential read and write speeds of 5,020 MB/s and 3,240MB/s, respectively.

Framework Desktop: Is it worth it?

The system we were sent to test with a single Western Digital Black 1TB SSD, the basic fan, and two expansion cards, but no Windows licence will set you back £1,226. A Windows activation licence will cost a further £120 for Home or £220 for Pro if bought from Framework, but many of you reading this may already have access to a corporate or educational Windows licence.

With or without a Windows licence, the Framework Desktop certainly offers a serious amount of performance for the asking price. Indeed, it's hard to argue with the basic offer of a small form PC with power enough to run even the most demanding graphics jobs quickly and demanding 3D games for under £1,500.

The modular expansion ports are perhaps not as important in the Desktop as they are in Framework's laptops because even without them, the Desktop still has a good selection of ports, but they are still a useful feature.

We'll leave it to the reader to decide if the decorative tiles are essential parts of the Framework Desktop concept or more of an aesthetic (and expensive) indulgence, but given the price, performance, and quality of the overall package, we like that the Framework Desktop doesn't look like just another boring black boxy small-form PC.

Framework Desktop Specifications