Which Framework 13 Model should I get?

[Elliot Heasley]

I am going into engineering school (electrical engineering at Iowa State University) this fall and would like to know which Framework model I should purchase. Money will not be a problem, so technically I could even get the Framework 16, but I would prefer to have something a little more mild, because I want longer battery life. I'm specifically looking at whether buying RAM and SSD separately is better or not. I'd also like to know what the battery life difference is with something like a Ryzen 5 9000 series F13 vs a Ryzen 9 9000 series F13. I also plan to run Ubuntu Linux whenever possible, although I understand that may not be doable in engineering school. As a side note, I'm also bringing my desktop to college. (i5-13600K, Arc B580, 32GB DDR5)

[OddOod]

Given that you'll have a full fat desktop, I'd go for the R5 just for the better battery life. How long the battery lasts is an impossible question to answer absolutely, but the lower TDP CPU should yield better life on average. 
If you find the R5 lacks the oomph to properly run your fatty CAD files that's really an indication that you should be doing it on a desktop rather than meaning you need a stronger laptop. Setting up remoting into your desktop shouldn't be too difficult (assuming IT admins aren't being jerks, though they tend to be pretty cool people if you chat them up)

PS, RIP VEISHEA But do come on down for the CyHawk games, they're a blast!

[Elliot Heasley]

2 hours ago, OddOod said:

Given that you'll have a full fat desktop, I'd go for the R5 just for the better battery life. How long the battery lasts is an impossible question to answer absolutely, but the lower TDP CPU should yield better life on average. 
If you find the R5 lacks the oomph to properly run your fatty CAD files that's really an indication that you should be doing it on a desktop rather than meaning you need a stronger laptop. Setting up remoting into your desktop shouldn't be too difficult (assuming IT admins aren't being jerks, though they tend to be pretty cool people if you chat them up)

PS, RIP VEISHEA But do come on down for the CyHawk games, they're a blast!

Looking at some info from Technical City on the R5, R7, and R9 models available from Framework, they seem to be decently comparable to the i5-13600K, but what confuses me is that they are ALL rated for a TDP of 28W. I know TDPs are confusing (my i5-13600K has had it's fair share of insane power usage) but is there any real difference in power usage with these specs being so similar power wise?

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Ryzen-AI-5-340

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Ryzen-AI-7-350

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Ryzen-AI-9-HX-370

[OddOod]

On 4/15/2025 at 11:03 AM, Elliot Heasley said:

Looking at some info from Technical City on the R5, R7, and R9 models available from Framework, they seem to be decently comparable to the i5-13600K, but what confuses me is that they are ALL rated for a TDP of 28W. I know TDPs are confusing (my i5-13600K has had it's fair share of insane power usage) but is there any real difference in power usage with these specs being so similar power wise?

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Ryzen-AI-5-340

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Ryzen-AI-7-350

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Ryzen-AI-9-HX-370

That's.... wild. It looks like all three have a "configurable TDP" from 15-54W. I imagine they will all throttle to similar lows in the 15ish watt range at idle, but windows is absolutely going to wake it up with some frequency which will lead to lower battery life for the higher end chips. 
That being said, you'll be at uni (not UNI) so you should pretty much never be far from wall power 

[Elliot Heasley]

On 4/17/2025 at 9:13 AM, OddOod said:

That's.... wild. It looks like all three have a "configurable TDP" from 15-54W. I imagine they will all throttle to similar lows in the 15ish watt range at idle, but windows is absolutely going to wake it up with some frequency which will lead to lower battery life for the higher end chips. 
That being said, you'll be at uni (not UNI) so you should pretty much never be far from wall power 

I'll probably end up going with the R9 just for the portable video editing potential, but now I'm wondering if I could manually adjust the TDP and/or core count in the F13 BIOS to manually tune based on what I'm doing for the day.

[OddOod]

On 4/20/2025 at 10:05 PM, Elliot Heasley said:

I'm wondering if I could manually adjust the TDP and/or core count in the F13 BIOS to manually tune based on what I'm doing for the day.

Probably