Framework CEO Nirav Patel said he would deliver “the holy grail for gamers” with the Framework Laptop 16. In 2023, he suggested it’d be the first consumer notebook to fulfil the promise of modular, upgradable graphics cards like a desktop PC. We at The Verge were skeptical, because the last time we heard someone tell that story, it ended in lawsuits and forced arbitration.
But today, some eighteen months after shipping the Framework Laptop 16, the company has done what no laptop maker has done in modern memory, if ever: it’s created a newer, faster discrete graphics card you can easily swap into its existing laptop.
In 2024, that laptop originally shipped with a optional AMD Radeon RX 7700S, with AMD’s support, using a clever expansion bay system designed to be futureproof. (More details here on how it works.) Now, Nvidia is on board too, letting you purchase a mobile Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 8GB that you can physically swap in as little as two minutes.
That’s right: you can even swap between AMD and Nvidia. Framework says it doesn’t have final benchmarks, but says you’ll see a 30 to 40 percent uplift from AMD’s 7700S to Nvidia’s 5070, and it’ll come with a revised cooling solution that features fans with a new blade design and Honeywell PTM7950 thermal interface material.
Like the 7700S, the new 5070 will have 100 watts of sustained power and cooling to work with; not as much as beefier gaming laptops, but more than thinner machines typically get.
Image: Framework
In the end, it wasn’t that hard to convince Nvidia to sign on, Framework CEO Nirav Patel tells The Verge. “They saw the success of the company, and it was clear we were an up and coming startup worth working with,” he says. Framework began working with Nvidia in early 2024, he recalls, not long after the Framework 16 began to ship. “We were able to clear that hurdle just through the success of the product,” he says, though he won’t share any sales numbers with me.
Then why did he dodge my questions for so long about whether there’d truly be GPU upgrades waiting for the first generation of Laptop 16 buyers? “If we find some massive roadblock and just can’t get it to work […] we want to make sure it’s done and it’s working,” he tells me.
But he says they didn’t actually hit any massive roadblocks — even though the Nvidia RTX 5070 isn’t the only upgrade awaiting buyers today.
In addition to the new GPU option, the second-generation Framework Laptop 16 will ship with a new mainboard featuring AMD’s AI 300 / Strix Point processors, offering up to a 12-core/24-thread Ryzen HX 370 with Radeon 890M graphics in a chip that can comfortably run at a “sustained” 45W TDP. The new mainboard also now supports display outputs on four of its six expansion card slots, up from three, so you won’t need to think as hard about which ports support which capabilities, and a new mux lets the laptop drive its internal display more directly from the discrete GPU for lower latency.
It’ll also come with the better second-gen webcam that came to the Framework Laptop 13 last year, a more rigid top cover, AMD’s newer RZ717 Wi-Fi 7 module, and Framework may become the very first laptop maker to ship a 240W USB-C PD power adapter so a fully loaded Framework Laptop 16 will no longer slowly drain its battery as you play, something that could occasionally happen with the previous 180W charger.
Four of the laptop’s USB-C ports support 240W power input, or five if you count the new and improved USB-C port on the back of the RTX 5070 GPU, which not only supports DisplayPort output but also 240W input and USB 2.0 for a mouse or keyboard. Just note the Laptop 16 maxes out at four simultaneous displays, including the internal screen, so you can’t get five or six screens at a time. (Were you truly hoping?)
And like the Framework Laptop 13, you won’t need to buy these upgrades as a complete package: Framework will sell most if not all of them individually for the existing Framework Laptop 16. For now, Framework is opening preorders for the new laptop starting at $1,499 (memory, storage, and OS cost extra), the 240W power adapter for $109, the new mobile RTX 5070 for a pricey $699, and the new Ryzen AI 300 mainboards starting at $749. A full pre-built laptop with the new GPU, 16GB/512GB and six USB-C ports costs $2,499 and goes up from there.
Like previous products, Framework will ship them in batches, with the first set arriving in November. It’s taking preorders now.
Framework will also sell also a revamped version of the Radeon RX 7700S graphics module for $449 with the same new fans and Honeywell thermal interface too, and it will reduce the price of the original RX 7700S module to $399, down from $499 originally.
The new cooling might be the part I’m most interested in, as my biggest complaints about the original were heat and noise when using the graphics module (whose fans also cool the laptop’s CPU). Patel won’t promise that my issues have been fixed, only that it’s “something users are going to have go try,” but he says both acoustic performance and thermals should be better than the original for many reasons. It’s not just the graphic module improvements, but also a revised heatspreader and Honeywell thermal interface material on the CPU, which may itself run more efficiently than AMD’s previous generation of parts. I guess I’ll find out!
Note that Framework isn’t announcing any physical changes to the Framework Laptop 16’s unique “input modules” this year. It will be shipping a firmware update to keep every Laptop 16 from waking up if keys are pressed when the lid is closed, but there are no new modules or colorful spacers being announced today, though the keyboards themselves now offer versions with the Microsoft Copilot logo, or with no Windows logo at all “for all the Linux users out there.” You can also still buy Framework’s clear RGB keyboard, macropad, and LED matrix panels if you want to look flashy.
Speaking of Linux, Patel tells me his company will officially be supporting Bazzite on the Framework Laptop 16, the SteamOS-like distro that we recently installed on the Framework Desktop to great effect. Framework will publish its own guides, and he says the Nvidia RTX 5070 should work there too. With the latest kernel and drivers, he says Nvidia gamers “should be able to play anything on Steam on Linux and have it work well.”
There’s no getting around the fact that this is a pricey laptop, with graphics cards that cost more money for less performance than the equivalent desktop parts — even if you opt for the RTX 5070, you’re probably looking at playing the latest games at high settings at the laptop’s native 2560 x 1440p resolution, and lower settings if you opt for 4K, Patel suggests to me.
But with Framework, you’re paying for the promise of a laptop you can upgrade again and again, year after year, instead of buying a brand-new machine each time. The company did it with its 13-inch laptop, and it seems it might genuinely do it with its 16-inch laptop, too. It’s never been done before.
Just don’t expect Patel to get any looser-lipped about which future GPU upgrades might be available, or when. “If AMD announces something, obviously we’d want to talk to them,” he says. “We have a good relationship with Nvidia; obviously, when the future comes, we’ll be able to show you what we have.”
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