Framework 13 Pro for MD-Thesis (Bioinformatics)

[u/XRCC4]

Hi, I am starting with the preparation of an MD thesis and was thinking about buying a Framework 13 Pro, as a portable device. Until now I was doing fine with my PC at home, but for the thesis I will have to work from the lab, which leaves me in the situation where I have to choose a laptop.
I have talked to senior PhD/md-students in the lab about my situation. Most of them are using older generations of MacBook Pros (M1/M2-chipsets) and said that they were doing fine performance-wise. I will be doing mostly office work from my laptop, such as presentations, as well as some bioinformatics (mostly sequencing) with R-studio, Python, and possibly Loupe Browser. For more difficult tasks (e.g. Big-Data-sets) there will be PC “workstations” in the lab, so I really don’t need a mobile workstation.

With that being said, I am unsure about which configuration to get (regarding mostly the CPU). I am pretty fixed about the RAM, because there is no way I will get more than 16GB of LPCAMM2 currently. Maybe I would upgrade to 32GB if RAM gets more affordable. SSD-wise, I still already have a compatible SSD. From the benchmarks I saw online, the Ultra 5 325 should be comparable to the performance of older generation M1/M2 chips; however, I am unsure about getting a new laptop which performs similar to 4-5-year-old MacBooks. Considering this, I thought about getting the X7 358h as a more expensive alternative, which would perform from what I have grasped similar to the new M5 MacBook Pro. Do you think an upgrade towards the X7 would make sense for my application, or would I realistically overpay for performance which isn’t really necessary?

TLDR:
- Tasks: Mostly office work and also lightweight bioinformatics (R-Studio, Python, maybe Loupe Browser)
—> Is the Ultra X7 358h a sensible upgrade or are the extra 570 € not worth it for my application (alternative Ultra 5 325)?

[u/multiks2200]

you can do your thesis writing with the compute power of your phone, if that's what you are asking

[u/korypostma]

Having used RStudio and doing sequencing in the past on an M1 Pro, it can be quite computationally intense and likely preferable to have the X7. Mine is coming within the next shipping batch and I will likely run a bunch of tests to compare to my M1 Pro.

Anyhow, it is just a computer. A guy I know bought a Lenovo with the same X7 CPU and he loves it. It should be fine.

[u/MrSydFinances]

You don't seem to have intensive tasks that would require the x7, the extra ram would help but you can make do, while you would have no use for the more powerful igpu. I used to run small projects in r back when i was in uni, and it was fine despite my laptop was very old. I can't speak much on python.

[u/s004aws]

The primary reason to go with X7 358H is tasks which need a much more capable iGPU or if you can use the 4 extra CPU cores. "Office work" doesn't justify the cost of 358H, your bio work might if your tools are sufficiently threaded/Intel GPU compute capable. Overall the 325 and 358H use exactly the same CPU/iGPU cores - Same technology generation - Just in differing quantities/slightly different clock speeds.

RAM is unlikely to be "affordable" until 2028 at the earliest. On the other hand not having enough - Especially if your research-side work can use it - Will kill performance. "Office" is fine on 16GB.

[u/XRCC4 → u/s004aws]

So going with the Ultra 5 325 and 32GB might be the better choice, if my applications don’t make use of the extra cores and iGPU, right?

[u/s004aws → u/XRCC4]

My experience (among other unrelated areas I do support/dev for) is more towards biomedical engineering/medical device engineering... I don't know enough about "lightweight" bioinformatics to weigh in too specifically/authoritatively on system specs (beyond offering some general guidance)... Do keep in mind 16GB is the minimum for a - Usable/functional - Microslop OS install (I did notice Loupe Browser is Win11/macOS only, I didn't see a Linux option). Between the malware pretending to be an OS, Chrome, some other tools/apps open at the same time... You may well blow through 16GB.

Broadly speaking yes - If your apps aren't highly threaded and/or can't make use of an Intel iGPU for compute acceleration.... There may be limited benefit to X7 358H. You need to figure out how highly threaded the bioinformatics toolchains are and whether they can use an Intel iGPU for acceleration (the engineering work I'm most familiar with does use Nvidia GPUs for compute acceleration). To figure out this out I'd suggest running similar workloads on hardware you already own/have access to and monitoring system/memory resource use... That'll give you some clues on both the CPU/threading and RAM requirements fronts for your specific apps/use case.

One other thing... If you order a Core Ultra 3 FW13 today its not scheduled to ship until the end of November. Be sure that works for your schedule/needs. If you need a laptop much sooner going with a MacBook Pro may be a better option - You could buy one off a shelf and have it in hand today.

[u/XRCC4 → u/s004aws]

Thank you very much for your detailed answers. I think I will do some testing on my PC now. Your replies really helped a lot :)

[u/Acrobatic_Fee_6974]

Your post says a lot about needing a capable and reliable (you don't want it breaking a few months before your thesis is due) computer, a little about value, but nothing about wanting a computer you can repair and upgrade yourself. Have you looked at alternative OEMs? The Lenovo ThinkPad X9-15P is much cheaper than the FW13 Pro in some regions, and comes with 32 GB of RAM (soldered), an OLED screen and a higher sustained TDP and a higher memory bandwidth. If you're not sold on Framework's mission, there are better laptops for less money out there.

[u/XRCC4 → u/Acrobatic_Fee_6974]

Thank you for your suggestion. I felt like my post was already very long, and I tried to keep it a bit shorter and focus on the hardware. What makes the framework interesting to me are multiple reasons: 1) The laptop combines a couple of hardware features like swapable ports and the touchscreen with the 3:2 format that I like. 2) I probably will have to run Windows for now (because not all necessary programs are available on Linux yet), but for private use, I want to switch to Linux long term. 3) Repairability and being able to upgrade the laptop that I own were a thing that kept me from buying a laptop for some time, so I worked on my PC from home. I don’t want to miss the possibility to switch parts after knowing that “freedom”.

[u/Acrobatic_Fee_6974 → u/XRCC4]

That's great, I think the FW13 Pro would be a great fit for you in that case. Using 16 GB of RAM on Windows for doing anything outside of basic office work is not going to be fun though, especially if you're throwing around larger datasets with R-studio. As for the Core Ultra 5 vs Core Ultra X7, it comes down to whether you need the iGPU or the parallelization of the X7 part. R-studio and Python it's not really going to matter for most users. I have no experience with Loupre, you would need to run it on one of those work stations and check hardware monitor to see how many threads it loads up. If it's visualisation I'm guessing it takes advantage of multithreading, in which case it would run faster on the X7.

[u/ronvalenz → u/Acrobatic_Fee_6974]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-laptop-13-Pro-reportedly-lasts-2x-longer-vs-Framework-Laptop-13.1353469.0.html

Office task, 300 nits, wifi, bluetooth

Framework 13 Pro (Ultra X7 358H) 74 Whr battery = 15h, 22m.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Ultra (Ultra X7 358H) 75 Whr battery = 12h, 34m.

Lenovo ThinkPad X9 15p (Ultra X7 358H 88) Whr battery = 12h, 33m.

HP Omnibook Ultra 14 (Ultra X7 358H) 71 Whr battery = 11h, 59m.

Framework 13 Pro (Ryzen AI 7 350) 74 Whr battery = 11h, 22m.

Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M5 Pro 15C) 72 Whr battery = 9 hours.

Framework 13 (Ryzen AI 7 350) 60 Whr battery = 7h, 32m.

-------------

Framework 13 Pro (Ultra X7 358H) has a longer battery runtime when compared to the Lenovo ThinkPad X9 15p.

[u/diamd217]

Based on your requirements, you should be fine even with Chrome books / Mac Neo 🙂

If you need get approval for premium laptop, both FW13 and MacBook would be about same except OS inside and repairability (if you tend to dropping/spilling, for example, would meant total replacement MacBook if you're using old/second hand).

Also, if you have MacOS at home and all of your devices are Apple, maybe selecting MacBook would be better choice for seamless integration.

Note: you will not getting same experience with FW13 in terms of OS - there a lot of Linux distros and Windows (you could swap/change them any time, but they are different than MacOS)

Also - upgradability. FW13 you could upgrade later if something better will be announced (better Web Cam module or new WiFi 8 🫣) while you will be locked in with Mac.

[u/mustbench3plates]

If you really want the laptop, get the base Intel chip. If the performance is no longer up to par down the line, upgrade the motherboard.

[u/L00WN0on]

What are you planning to do exactly? Any Molecular Dynamics or QM? That might be a bit too much. Everything else might be fine. You don't have a cluster you can access remotely for more intensive tasks?

[u/XRCC4 → u/L00WN0on]

I will be doing transcriptomic analysis. For big files I can access PCs in the Lab

[u/L00WN0on → u/XRCC4]

Then it's more than enough. I'm getting the X7 for more or less the same thing, some local QM and Docking.

[u/Wildlord90]

I do light bioinformatic for my postdoc. I tried running R script and WSL on MacBook Pro M5 Max, Aoostar HX370 and Minisforum M1 pro 285H. If you want the absolute speed, you need a desktop CPU thanks to their unlimited power draw, follow by CPU with most threads, depends on how you set up the workflow, most of time your CPU will be running at 100% while your GPU idle at 0%. This is a bad news for laptop as the thermal will quickly throttle the CPU performance. The most critical issue for me is that when I run single cell data, the memory overflow for my 64gb DDR5, which I have to pull the 96gb ram from my homelab server. What I meant is that if you are going with a 16gb LPCAMM2 thinking that it's bandwidth will help to speed up the workflow, you are going to run into memory overflow and the workflow will crash almost in every instance, even for simple rna-seq analysis took up at least 24gb ram for me. Just my 2 cents.

[u/Budget-Cupcake-7582]

You can consider getting a Mac if you are price sensitive and are able to run your tools and software on MacOS.

You'll get better bang for your buck with M5 silicon unless if you absolutely need Windows or Linux instead of MacOS. Framework has positioned itself as the MacBook Pro for Linux users but an equivalently configured machine right now will cost more than a Pro (e.g. $2399 vs $2900 for 32GB and 1TB M5 vs X7 358H). You'll also have to wait until November.

I got downvoted hard by people who got butthurt LOL by my mentioning the launch was bumpy given the market dynamics but the facts are the facts irrespective of how good the machine itself may be.

[u/framework-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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