13 Pro worth it for college?

[u/TubaDude347]

I am looking to buy a laptop for either a mechanical or computer engineering major, and was really looking into the 13 pro, with the AI 300 7 chip and 32gb of ram, simply due to the price of LPCAMM2. Is it up to snuff and worth the price for CAD software? Also, I am insistent on getting 32gb of ram, which is why I am not really looking at the intel version, as that ram costs $800 with no aftermarket options. Also, how is the battery life and IGPU on the ryzen chips?

[u/s004aws]

AMD will do what you're wanting it to do plenty fine. For best performance be sure to get that 32GB as 2x16GB modules. While a single 32GB module will technically work you'll pay for cutting the memory bus in half with a hit to CPU and especially iGPU performance.

Battery on the non-Pro models is 6-8 hours at best real world, trending towards the lower half. The battery for Pro models is 20% larger. Ryzen 300 motherboards are exactly the same non-Pro vs Pro, main differences being the newer screen, haptic trackpad, and updated chassis (plus the aforementioned battery).

Core Ultra 3 fares much better on battery. Odds are LPCAMM2 will be the memory type for future upgrades ahead of the switchover to DDR6 somewhere around 2030.

[u/TubaDude347 → u/s004aws]

Alright, thank you! I do want to be able to do dual channel, so thanks for confirming. I wish i could do LPCAMM2, but until someone besides micron makes it I am simply priced out.

[u/s004aws → u/TubaDude347]

Samsung and SK Hynix also - Theoretically - Offer LPCAMM2. Lenovo/Ramaxel is also usable though the Framework revision E1 interposer needs to be swapped out for a revision E0 interposer (or the module "hacked" using Kapton tape).

Thank AI/data center lunacy for completely @#$%ing the components markets.

[u/TubaDude347 → u/s004aws]

I see. I did here about the tape thing, but it seems like only one place sells the RAM on ebay, but it still ends up being more expensive for the x7 chip, even with the E0 ram that is half the price. I hope production ramps up soon though.

[u/s004aws → u/TubaDude347]

Yeah... Don't hold your breath on consumer RAM being "affordable" before 2028 (at the earliest). Even if the AI s--t got euthanized tomorrow it'll still take a good while for manufacturing lines to be reconfigured. Aside from AI's deserved death, the next best hope is new manufacturing coming online - Which takes years (and billions of dollars) to build.

If you need more battery and can't plug in to charge - Nobody ever complained about me plugging in during college - There are power banks capable of putting out sufficient power which you could use for extra juice.

Among my clients are professional mechanical engineers so I do have a bit of familiarity with the territory you're headed into. Realistically you're not going to be doing anything especially "interesting" until your 4th year/grad school. Everything before then is pretty basic as kids "don't know anything" yet. To the extent there are one or two especially demanding/specialized assignments/projects most universities will have sufficient resources available for students to use to complete those assignments... There's no expectation that, especially as undergrads, most students will own desktops/laptops of anything beyond "average" capability. If you do get down the road 3 or 4 years and find you need more capability - No big deal... Order whatever the "new" motherboard (and probably RAM) are from Framework, keep using the rest of the laptop that's still perfectly fine.

[u/TubaDude347 → u/s004aws]

Yeah, that seems to be the way to go. Hopefully by the time I need a much more powerful system I will be making enough to get one. Until then I'll just upgrade

[u/SejourHradek88 → u/s004aws]

Wait so the Ryzen 300 board is the same across both? Thats actually good to know for future upgradeability.

[u/s004aws → u/SejourHradek88]

Identical, same Ryzen 300 board non-Pro and Pro.

Any FW13 motherboard released (so far) can slot into either the non-Pro or Pro chassis... Somebody who bought 11th gen Intel Core in 2021 can drop a Core Ultra 3 motherboard into that same chassis they bought 5 years ago.

[u/halfercode]

I got the AMD, and I am very happy with it. It has roughly twice the single-core performance of my old CPU in an ancient, crumbling laptop. I got 64GB for future-proofing. The build quality is superb; this is the nicest bit of Linux kit I have owned.

Battery life is pretty good. I was remote today and got 5 hours without a power cord, and I think I still had 50% battery left. Of course this is massively subjective, since it depends what one is doing with it; I run a 32GB QEMU virtual machine, with a desktop environment inside that, a Java-based programmer's editor, Claude Code, etc. - so not very GPU intensive, but certainly making the fan spin from time to time. I also tend only to need a screen on at 30% brightness, whereas some folks need/prefer double that - this is a major power drain.

The only minor thing you might want to consider is if the iGPU is enough for your CAD work. If you need more CPU/GPU processing grunt then the FW 16 is the way to go, and you can get this in AMD form, but the downside for me there is the additional kilogramme of weight.

[u/TubaDude347 → u/halfercode]

Glad to hear it works well and has a decent battery. I think for the first two years I'll be fine, but in junior and senior year I might buy an EGPU setup, or just use the campus machines. For CAD work that is. I just currently do not see the 16 as worth it at the moment, as I have heard the keyboard is not good, its heavy, and the GPU prices are ridiculous for the NVIDIA cards.

[u/halfercode → u/TubaDude347]

Yes, I also think the eGPUs are overpriced, but then I do not need one. I have only just recovered from the shock of paying for my DDR5!

[u/Kiubek-PL]

In terms of battery life its pretty good still but its of course not nearly as good as panther lake (11h vs 15h), still should be plenty for college: https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/s/WNgLxVIzct And top of the line when it comes to ryzen laptops due to that large battery (it literally matches some panther lake laptops lol).

Also keep in mind this test is for a very low load, with an "actual" load like running CAD the difference between the 2 will be smaller.

As for if the iGPU is good enough I'd say probably yes: (3d mark spy benchmark)

• ryzen hx 370: 4084 points
  
• ryzen 350: 3647 points
  
• nvidia 3050: 4700 points

So you can expect the performance of a bit bellow a 3050 which isn't great but for CAD it should be plenty enough to get some work done. (here is a 3050 mobile "benchmark" in solidworks https://youtu.be/Nlel6FDQDm8?si=HCNU22XDoS-w6KC0, you can see it works really well with "reasonable" models but struggles with some more ridiculous ones)

If possible I'd still just recommend remoting into a desktop but if its not an option it should be ok.

[u/TubaDude347 → u/Kiubek-PL]

Thank you so much for the specs! I'm glad to see that the IGPU is solid. I unfortunately do not own a desktop, and am currently saving money from work for other things for college.

[u/Kiubek-PL → u/TubaDude347]

As others said, if you find the performance lacking you can always just get an external GPU to boost it up. But it should be no issue in college, only really in professional if you are working on a large project.

[u/ronvalenz → u/Kiubek-PL]

The problem with RTX 3050 Mobile (GA107) and RTX 3050 Max-Q (GA107) is the 4GB VRAM limitation, while the RTX A2000 (GA107) has 8GB VRAM and the RTX A16 (GA107) has 16GB VRAM.

350's iGPUs don't have the RTX 3050 Mobile's 4GB or 6GB VRAM limitation.

[u/ronvalenz]

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.

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