I don't work for Framework, but my guess is that AMD doesn't make a chip with powerful enough IO controllers to operate the Framework. It's a shame, because I also like the Ryzen mobile chipset, but even the M1 wouldn't have enough IO bandwidth to drive 4x Thunderbolt 4 ports at full speed. Love them or hate them, this is part of the Intel 'package' that you're paying for.

Besides, now is a terrible time to start offering AMD laptops. You want them to drop a 6000-series laptop when the next-gen mobile Ryzen chips were announced less than a month ago? Have some patience!

> next-gen mobile Ryzen chips were announced less than a month ago

Technically the only mobile Ryzen chips announced so far are based on Zen 2 which is about to become two generations old. Expect "next-gen" mobile chip announcements in January.

(The recent Zen 4 announcements have been for desktop parts.)

5000 and 6000 mobile chips are Zen 3 with some skus that are Zen 2. The 6000 series mobile chips with Zen 3 and RDNA 2 are available today and are excellent.

Yes - to clarify, some mobile 7020 chips were recently announced, but they are Zen 2 based (as evidenced by the third digit.) I just wanted to be clear that no "next-gen" (i.e. Zen 4) mobile 7000 chips have been announced.

Well technically the Zen 4 mobile parts have been announced, as AMD officially published their 2023 mobile lineup a couple weeks ago: https://community.amd.com/t5/corporate/announcing-new-model-...

Here's the segmentation:

* Mendocino (Ryzen 7020 Series) - Everyday Computing

* Barcelo-R (Ryzen 7030 Series) - Mainstream Thin & Light

* Rembrandt-R (Ryzen 7035 Series) - Premium Thin & Light

* Phoenix Point (Ryzen 7040 Series) - Elite Ultrathin

* Dragon Range (Ryzen 7045 Series) - Extreme Gaming & Creator

But the product "launch" will, as you mention, likely take place at CES next year.

You're right, I missed that. Still, my point stands :p

One thing worth noting is that basically, even now (almost 10 months post announcement), almost no one has a 6000U laptop outs (a search on Amazon and Best Buy shows two 6800U laptop models total, one Asus and one Lenovo). Two niche vendors, XMG and Star Labs, have both publicly stated that they would have loved to have offered Ryzen 6000 laptops, but couldn't get any allotments. There are were also well documented chipset issues - even into the summer Lenovo and Asus talked about requiring firmware updates to enable their USB4 ports.

That being said, starting w/ Rembrandt, AMD now has full 40Gbps USB4 controllers built on-chip. I'm really looking forward to Ryzen 7040 because Phoenix looks great (Zen4 + RDNA3 on TSMC N4 - yes please) and hopefully USB4 support has matured enough on the AMD side that Framework is able to release something.

My understanding is that the I/O limitation is in the re-timers - currently the Framework uses 4X JHL8040R's (labeled as Burnside Bridge) directly connected to the iTBT: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Mainboard/blob/main/Ele... Apple used these for their first M1 MBAs as well: https://github.com/ThomasKaiser/Knowledge/blob/master/articl...

But both Apple and AMD are now using Kandou retimers:

* https://www.gizchina.com/2022/07/25/apple-completely-got-rid...

* https://kandou.com/matterhorn.html

* https://kandou.com/assets/downloads/product-briefs/KB8001-Pr...

Yes. This is why I don't really buy all this talk of Intel is "dead and finished" and will "fade away" in the next 5 year ... Even though Intel has an inferior product to AMD, they are really good at selling their product and don't mind indulging in unethical (or even illegal) market practices to do so. They still have a lot of money and they use it well to undercut their competitors. AMD shines in technical competence against both Intel and Apple, but is weaker than both when it comes to marketing and selling their product.

I think it is more complex than that. AMD uses TSMC foundaries to make their chips and has to compete with nVidia and Apple for capacity. Intel can guarentee their yields because they own their foundaries.

This is old news. AMD has since cancelled orders because of GPU sales falling off a cliff. They have enough for Framework, if Framework wants to jump on to make something