Just got my 13 with the 7840 and I’m realizing that even the integrated GPU is more powerful than the one in my old PC, which has an i7 4790k and a GTX 970.
Is there any reason I shouldn’t just sell that relic and just run the Framework docked at home? I lose a little desk space, but I’m failing to see why I should keep using this desktop.
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No reason why it can’t be your only PC, but if something dies in your laptop, you would be SOL until you fix it
Do it!
The benefits of having both is that you don’t sacrifice performance for portability. You have the best of both worlds. However, that desktop could probably benefit from an upgrade.
As someone who remembers having a gaming Desktop since I was 10, I think it’s mostly pride that’s keeping me from ditching my setup fully.
FW 13 does make for a nice main computr.
I would still want access to another PC to help create USB install media, setup/clown drives as needed should your FW 14 go down or for initial setup.
Using your 13 for gaming might damage your hardware in the long run.
I used my r7 7840u for gaming several times and it was always above 85°C, sometimes even over 90°C. Although mobile APUs are designed to withstand more heat than desktop CPUs, I wouldn’t risk damaging my hardware.
I have the same problem as you with my old desktop gaming rig beeing as fast as my Framework 13 but the temperatures really concerns me.
My solution would be an eGPU dock like the GPD G1 or the OneXGPU, so my APU wouldn’t run too hot.
Anyone here with experience on these two?I use an EGPU and I love it (when it actually works)
I use my FW as my whole setup as well. I have a tower PC but I’m only using that for heavy tasks. That’s because I need to work on the go and don’t want to move files all the time.
You can re-purpose the desktop for many more use cases than even a Framework laptop. Look at the r/HomeServer subreddit for more examples. Some include using it still as a gaming system with even a $200 GPU upgrade (like an RX 6600), a media server with some inexpensive hard drives, a home server running backups or services such as pi-hole, or just as a system to experiment with. I have a desktop with a Ryzen 5 3400G and 2 PCIe x16 slots that I would use to experiment with PCIe passthrough. That experience would have been far more difficult with a laptop due to the proprietary configurations used for laptop motherboards, and the difficulty in managing screen outputs even on a laptop with two GPUs.
My point is that even if the Framework laptop is faster in certain workloads for you, this can easily be alleviated with an upgrade to some of the desktop’s components. Even without an upgrade, there are many possibilities for you to still use your desktop which, honestly, still has decent components for a variety of use cases. I’d love to use that system as an emulation PC.
The 780M GPU is ~25% slower than your gtx970: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/4818vs2954/Radeon-780M-vs-GeForce-GTX-970
However the 4790k has 30% slower single core and half the cores: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/5322vs2275/AMD-Ryzen-7-7840U-vs-Intel-i7-4790K
Yeah, I looked a bit harder and realized that what I said about the GPU isn’t true. Thank you!
If you want a desktop, get a FW16 and wait for the 7800M or better module to be released or buy the 7700M module and make your FW13 into a keyboard or tablet or some other project. There is so much you can do with Framework boards.
Only get/keep a desktop if you are doing insanely heavy CPU and GPU workloads and every second counts.
I do
I am not a heavy gamer but I am a programmer.
- having a second machine (even an old one) can be nice for redundancy
- the desktop can have more internal storage
- desktops don’t (usually) get dropped, lost, or stolen, since they mostly stay in one place
- desktops normally support more external monitors than laptops
- you can use the desktop as a backup target for your laptop (and vice-versa)
- desktops have PCIe slots, which are useful for more than just GPUs
That said, if your needs are limited, it’s probably fine. But a high-end laptop is usually more expensive and less performant than a high-end desktop plus a basic laptop.
These are all very concise and well-explained reasons to keep your desktop.
You, u/T900Kassem, can also use the old desktop as a media server with the GTX 970 for H264 transcoding (not sure about H265, Intel Arc would be a good upgrade for that), or as a home theater PC for playing games or replacing an array of consoles with emulators. Those systems are also fun to mess around and tinker with using expansion cards. For example, I’m using a cleaned up 2009 Mac Pro with a spare GTX 745 I had lying around to experiment with virtual machines and PCIe passthrough.
No, you are not missing much. Just make sure to get a thunderbolt/USB4 dock to get more ports than the framework could provide
As someone whose Framework has been down for 2+ weeks because of a defective fan, slow support, and currently traveling outside the region where I bought the computer (massive issues with getting a replacement part from Framework)… keep a backup machine :D
If you want to save space, sell off the PC and use the money to buy a used laptop that can get you through Framework downtime. My 5-year-old ThinkPad has been a massive lifesaver!