Framework will release a fourth round of iterative updates and upgrade options for its Framework Laptop 13, the company announced via a blog post yesterday. The upgrades include both motherboards and pre-built laptops that feature new Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra processors with Intel Arc dedicated GPUs; lower prices for the AMD Ryzen 7000 and 13th-gen Intel editions of the laptop; and a new display with a slightly higher 2880×1920 resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate.
The Core Ultra boards can come with one of three CPU options: an Ultra 5 125H with four P-cores, eight E-cores, and seven graphics cores; an Ultra 7 155H with six P-cores, eight E-cores, and eight graphics cores; or an Ultra 7 165H with the same number of cores but marginally higher clock speeds. Prices start at $899 for a pre-built or DIY model (before you add RAM, storage, an OS, or a USB-C charger), or $449 for a motherboard that can be used to upgrade an existing system.
All of the Core Ultra systems and boards ship in August as of this writing. Once this first batch sells out, a second batch will ship in Q3.
Those upgrading from an older Intel Framework board should take note: Like the Ryzen option, the Core Ultra CPUs also require an upgrade to DDR5 RAM since the processors don’t maintain compatibility with DDR4. Framework will charge you $40 for every 8GB of DDR5-5600 you buy, which is better than most PC OEMs but still above market rates—order your own RAM separately and you can save anywhere from $12 to $148, depending on the capacity.
The Core Ultra chips, like the Ryzen 7040-series chips, also include a neural processing unit (NPU) that can be used to accelerate some AI workloads. But both NPUs fall far short of the performance required for Recall and other locally accelerated AI features coming to Windows 11 24H2 later this year; Framework’s blog post doesn’t mention the NPU.
As for the new 13.5-inch, 2880×1920 display, it’s a decent resolution upgrade from the existing 2256×1504 display, and Framework says it will work a bit better with display scaling in Linux (Linux’s support for fractional scaling ratios like 125 percent or 150 percent is still generally labeled as “experimental,” though 200 percent display scaling usually works OK). It has a matte finish and a 120 Hz refresh rate, and it costs $130 more than the standard display or $269 when bought on its own to upgrade an existing laptop.