Having established itself as the go-to name in modular and repairable laptop design, Framework has upsized its concept to the Framework Desktop (starts at $1,099; $2,605 as tested). This DIY desktop is highly configurable at checkout, allowing you to pick either a nearly barebones model to outfit yourself or a prebuilt custom order. Despite its impressively small size and lack of a discrete GPU, this machine is ready for productivity, AI workloads, and even some moderately serious gaming, thanks to its unusual Ryzen AI Max processor (also known as "Strix Halo" in chip circles) and up to 128GB of unified memory.
Personalization of style, accessories, and components is front and center in the Framework Desktop, compared with the strong emphasis on modularity in Framework’s laptops, which are unique. However, this is a fairly priced and fully capable small-form-factor (SFF) PC for early adopters, AI engineers, linux fans, and DIY heads. We have no exact comparison for this desktop on the market currently, and you can easily find beefier desktops for more than $2,500. Still, certain audiences will find plenty of appeal in this diminutive machine.
While still a relatively new company, Framework has made a name for itself through its signature modular laptop design. However, I think a desktop in this vein has more work to do to sell itself, regardless. Desktops are already modular, with upgradable parts by their nature, whereas laptops are usually replaced wholesale. The concept is a more natural fit (and a bit of a revolution) for the mobile market, whereas with desktops, Framework has entered a market where this is the norm.
That doesn’t mean Framework still can’t provide anything of value in this arena, and applying its particular formula has its benefits. Ordering your Framework Desktop is, in some ways, immediately different from other PC buys. This system is less about potentially upgrading parts in the future to prolong life and more about a super-compact machine ordered to your needs. We were sent the DIY Edition of the Framework Desktop, meaning a partially assembled system you need to assemble—just as I did earlier this year with the Framework Laptop 13. It’s only sold in the DIY version for now, but as I’ll walk through next, assembly is pretty simple.
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The DIY Edition includes a tower with the mainboard, CPU heatsink, power supply, top panel, and front panel already installed. That means you only have so much left to do in assembling the system yourself, primarily installing an M.2 storage drive, a CPU fan, and the side panel. The exact drive you receive depends on your order configuration (or you can provide your own drive), and the same goes for the CPU fan. (Any standard 120mm fan should work.)
Before going further, I have to note just how small this desktop is. I knew it was on the more compact side before I opened up the box—it’s a Mini-ITX system after all—but I was still surprised in person. It’s not much larger than the smallest tower-oriented mini PC boxes we sometimes see, and that's deeply appealing for what is functionally a full-fledged desktop (with obvious limitations on possible future parts). With the differently colored front tiles, I’d even go as far as to call this miniature PC “cute.” (Framework provided a batch of custom-icon tiles to meddle with that you'll see installed here; the standard front tiles are a patchwork of plain colors. More about them in a bit.) Specifically, the chassis measures 8.9 by 3.8 by 8.1 inches (HWD), taking up extremely little desk space.
The Framework Desktop includes two open bays for the port “expansion cards” on the bottom of its front face, which you can fill with cards of your choice that give your PC different front-panel ports. (These expansion cards connect to USB-C headers inside for various uses, like USB-A, USB-C, or HDMI.) The rest of the connectivity is located on the rear and attached to the mainboard inside. Around the back, you’ll find two USB Type-A ports, two USB4 (Type-C) ports, dual DisplayPort connections, an HDMI port, and Ethernet and audio jacks.
On the whole, Framework doesn’t push the repairability and modularity aspect of this system as much as with the laptops. This makes sense given the nature of desktops, but it isn’t quite the same sales pitch the company became known for. The modularity and customization really come into play more with configuring your order and the ability to buy a nearer-to-barebones kit and bring your own parts and operating system to the party. We’ll see what Framework’s own upgrade path for its desktop product looks like down the line, since it sells processor upgrade kits for its laptops.
As for the build, I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow—Framework’s assembly guide covers the steps—but I was able to put the PC together in about 25 minutes. Removing the top panel is easy (and toolless), and inside, it’s mostly a matter of flipping the case on its side, removing and replacing screws for the M.2 SSD, placing the CPU fan mount, screwing it in, and connecting it to the board. Snapping on the side and front panels is a breeze.
Beyond these required parts, you can order those optional expansion cards and aesthetic tiles for the front panel. Both of these take just seconds to install or swap. The expansion cards snap into the system’s empty bays with USB Type-C connections (with different ports on the other end facing the user), and tiles pop in and out of the front panel’s grid.
From there, I needed to install an operating system and sets of drivers. You can order the system with Windows 11 Home, Windows 11 Pro, or no operating system. The latter option is ideal if you already have a Windows license or plan to run linux. Following Framework’s instructions, I prepared a flash drive with the necessities—the Windows Creation Tool (a free download from Microsoft to install Windows using a license), a Framework Desktop driver bundle for Ryzen systems, and a Wi-Fi driver.
I encountered a couple of hiccups in the process, though I’m chalking them up to some one-off errors that had more to do with corrupted downloads or installers than with the product. I had to download a second, fresh Windows creation tool installation after the same files failed on the first attempt, and the same went for the driver bundle—both worked on the second attempt, so something must have gone awry in the original download or transfer to my USB drive. I only include this because it points to the possibility of some troubleshooting with the DIY Edition, versus a plug-and-play system from Framework or any manufacturer.
The Framework Desktop, at least at launch with this first edition, comes with AMD’s Ryzen AI Max 300 mobile processor series. This platform works in laptops or desktops (fitting for a small system like this), and is built on AMD’s latest architecture ("Zen 5") with RDNA 3.5 graphics and a dedicated XDNA 2 AI engine. The most interesting aspect of this platform, especially with our high-end model, is the unified memory: The system can allocate up to 96GB of its 128GB of RAM toward graphics workloads, supporting the chip’s 40 graphics cores.
As you’ll see in the performance section, this works to meaningful effect, not just moderate performance gains resembling integrated graphics. I first tested one of these Ryzen AI Max chips in the Asus ROG Flow Z13 gaming tablet, another instance of getting more performance than expected from a compact form factor.
This technology empowers AI workloads, too; this Ryzen AI Max chip can process up to 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS), which allows it to run large models like Llama 4 and Mistral Large (plus other related tasks) on-device without an expensive, full-size graphics card.
In that way, this machine fits into a burgeoning category of surprisingly small, personal AI boxes. Most of these are powered by a push from Nvidia, but here, AMD’s unified memory serves a similar purpose. Without extensive testing, I’ll refrain from making more sweeping claims about AI efficacy from this box for larger and onerous models, as the speed for the price may be lacking for hard-core users.
Before adding any components or extras to the order, the entry-level Framework Desktop costs $1,099. That includes the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 processor and 32GB of memory, but you still need to add a storage drive, CPU fan, operating system, and power cable to your order (or bring your own of each) to have a functioning desktop. Most of these add-ons are cheap enough—$69 for the smallest available 500GB SSD, $22 for the base fan, and $5 for the cable. However, a Windows Home license will cost you $139 from Framework.
As mentioned, you could grab a Windows key from another source or opt for linux. You can also add a load of extras to your order, including aesthetic swappable tiles for the front panel, expansion card ports, more storage, an RGB or Noctua cooling fan instead of the basic model, and a transparent side panel. Upgrading the unit to the next performance tier up—a Max+ 395 chip with 64GB of memory—costs $500 more, while it’s $900 to jump from the base model to the top Max+ 395 chip with 128GB of memory.
That brings us to our review test unit, which costs $2,605 as configured. At its core, it’s the top-end system with the Max+ 395 Strix Halo processor and 128GB of memory, the basic CPU fan, a 2TB SSD, and Windows 11 Pro. Some extras factor into this cost: Five expansion cards ($55 total, for four USB-C ports and one USB-A port), the clear side panel ($40 extra), and a wide array of front-panel tiles.
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I have 36 of these front tiles for this unit, which is more than most users might usually buy, but seeing a wide array for a review kit makes sense. They come in packs of seven and singles. (We received black, orange, green, and gray as well as solo tiles of the Framework logo, AMD logo, Tux the linux mascot, two blank black tiles, and picture tiles named “Happy Earth,” “Touch Grass,” and “Rainbow Heart.”) The black packs are $10, the color packs are $15, and the singles are $3 or $5, which adds up to $91 total for our assortment. You can see an arrangement of these tiles installed on our unit, and while they’re far from essential, they go a long way in making this desktop feel more fun and personalized.
To gauge the effectiveness of this tiny tower, we put it through our usual benchmark suite and compared the results against the following desktops…
Since this is an unusual product, the field of competitors is quite varied, but they represent different aspects of the Framework Desktop’s intended use cases. I’ll say up front that you’ll find plenty more powerful and full-size desktops with the latest parts that would blow away this system’s performance, but we’re looking at comparable alternatives in either price or size.
Apple’s Mac Studio with M4 Max ($3,699 as tested) is the premium mini PC alternative, small but fully capable of demanding productivity tasks. The Asus ROG NUC 970 ($1,799 as tested) is a gaming-centric small-form-factor desktop that shows the laptop-grade graphics performance you’d typically get on a device around this size as a comparison. The Dell XPS Desktop (8960, 2024) ($2,549.99) is a general-use, do-everything desktop with a full-size graphics card; you can see the delta to even a last-generation GPU compared with this unified memory solution. Finally, the small but mighty Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra SFF Workstation ($2,549.25 as tested) is a professional workhorse in a similar size to the Framework Desktop.
Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, tests a system in productivity apps such as web browsing, word processing, and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput. (Note that the Mac Studio is absent from this comparison, as it cannot run these two Windows-based tests.)
Three more tests we use are CPU-centric or processor-intensive: Maxon's Cinebench 2024 renders a complex scene using the company's Cinema 4D engine; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the freeware video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution. Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image editing prowess with various automated operations in Adobe Photoshop 25.
The Framework Desktop more than held its own on these productivity tests. Only the Mac Studio was consistently faster, and given the price discrepancy and that machine’s media powerhouse focus, that’s not a bad place to be. General productivity is a breeze on this desktop, and it can comfortably chew through media editing workloads.
We challenge each desktop's graphics with several simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K) use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. Steel Nomad and its Steel Nomad Light variant focus on common game-development APIs, like Metal and DirectX 12, to measure GPUs' geometry and particle rendering performance. Finally, Solar Bay measures ray-tracing performance, rendering increasingly intense ray-traced assets at 1440p.
Our real-world gaming testing comes from the in-game benchmarks of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and F1 2024. These three games—all benchmarked at full HD (1080p) and 2K (1440p)—represent competitive shooter, open-world, and simulation games, respectively. (Given that this machine is capable of gaming, but hardly meant for extreme enthusiast use, we skipped the 4K testing.) Each game runs at high detail or the highest available settings: Extreme for Call of Duty, Overdrive for Cyberpunk, and Ultra High for F1 24. (Note that the Mac Studio could not run the gaming tests, and the Lenovo workstation, because of what it is, wasn’t tested for gaming when we had it on hand.)
Because the Call of Duty test can produce triple-digit frame rates even on low-end PCs, running it at maximum detail settings delivers sensible results to evaluate high-frame-rate performance. Our Cyberpunk 2077 test, meanwhile, is included to push the PC to the limit; we run it on the all-out Ray Tracing Overdrive preset. Finally, F1 2024 is run on maximum visual settings with temporal anti-aliasing active and no DLSS or FSR assistance.
The literal elephant in the room was the big Dell XPS Tower and its weighty RTX 4080 Super, which dominated these tests relative to the rest of this group. While the unified memory does make more VRAM available for required uses (and will be better suited to other workloads), this was a sobering comparison for raw graphics power and gaming. The Framework Desktop traded blows with the mobile-class RTX 4070 GPU in the NUC, which gives a better frame of reference for what to expect, while it was not quite up to snuff with Apple’s solution in the tests we could compare it with. (Of course, the Framework can run all Windows applications.)
Outside of direct comparisons, these results show the unified memory working as advertised, and given the lack of a discrete GPU, it even looks impressive. It’s not just bluster to say this solution can power heavy graphics workloads—far more than you’d expect from traditional integrated graphics.
The same applies to gaming, with some obvious ceilings. The frame rates in F1 2024 and especially Call of Duty exceeded my expectations. You can legitimately use this little box as a gaming system for AAA (within reason) and competitive titles, even at 1440p. Cyberpunk 2077 at its maximum settings (which, crucially, includes some famously demanding ray tracing) is a bridge too far for this system, but that game at that setting brings many "true" gaming desktops to their knees, too.
I was curious exactly at which settings Cyberpunk becomes playable for the Framework Desktop, and it’s again surprising news. On the Ultra preset (maximum visual quality and effects, but with no ray tracing), it achieved 85fps at 1080p and 52fps at 1440p. It even managed 70fps on the "ray tracing low" visual preset at 1080p. You can definitely find a sweet spot of performance and fidelity to fit your preferences, and most games are way less demanding than maxed-out Cyberpunk.
We begin our specialized tests with an automated testing extension (the handy PugetBench for Creators) in Adobe Premiere Pro. This benchmark performs real-world video editing tasks like live playback, file export, and high-res encoding with different codecs, processing and decoding different types of source media, and applying GPU-accelerated special effects.
Next, we redeploy PugetBench for Creators to test DaVinci Resolve Studio 18 video-editing performance on systems suitable for that challenging app. These automated tasks and features let us gauge real-world media creation speeds.
Last is Blender, an open-source 3D content creation suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We record the time for Blender 4.2 to render three distinct scenes to measure CPU and GPU rendering performance.
Of this comparison group of systems, we had run only the Mac Studio and the ThinkStation through these workstation-centric tests when we had them, but they make for tough competition. And yet, the Framework Desktop again did well for itself here. The Mac Studio was the clear winner across the three tests, but the Framework stayed close, especially on Premiere Pro. You'll easily find more potent workstations if crunching huge media workloads is your priority, but on this scale of systems, the Framework Desktop is quite capable.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Framework Desktop
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
While the modular aspect of the Framework Desktop is a smaller portion of its value proposition compared with the company’s laptops, you’ll find a lot of appeal in this little box. The Ryzen AI chip and 128GB of unified memory deliver robust processing performance and graphics power for a wide variety of scenarios, from media editing, AI tasks, gaming, and general productivity. This system punches above its weight, and despite all of the engineering to work in a small form factor, even our top-end model is a fine deal in terms of price, if anything.
We wouldn’t recommend this desktop as the solution for everyone without a second thought (especially not this top-end model, with more power than most users need, and smaller than most need), but it is actually a more fully capable replacement for a traditional desktop than you might think. Among enthusiast users who love SFF systems, we can more wholeheartedly recommend this system for specific use cases and AI early adopters. You may be better off with a traditional tower and a full-size graphics card for about the same price, depending on your needs, but this is an extremely capable little box for its niche audience.
