Cheap Tiger Lake motherboards from FrameWork
The company behind the modular and upgradable laptop is now offering cheaper mainboards.
According to the blog post, FrameWork discovered a significant number of completed or partially completed mainboards when closing the Compal factory in China. The company decided to process these boards and potentially update their firmware to make them available to consumers.
These mainboards come with an Intel Tiger Lake-based Core i5-1135G7 processor and are currently being offered at a reduced price of $199, which is half of their original price. It’s important to note that these CPUs are not utilizing the latest architecture; however, they are built on the relatively recent 10nm SuperFin Intel node technology, which has only recently been succeeded by Intel 7 (10nm Enhanced SuperFin).
11th Gen Intel Core Mainboard now starting at $199
When closing out the Compal factory in China that we originally used for subassembly manufacturing at the start of Framework Laptop (11th Gen Intel Core) production, we learned that there were a substantial number of finished and partially finished Mainboards left. We recently processed these through our factory in Taiwan to test them and update firmware. To get them out into the world faster and ensure they don’t go to waste, we’re dropping the price substantially. The i5-1135G7 Mainboard variant now comes in at $199 USD, which is less than half of the original price, giving it one of the best price-to-performance ratios on the market for single board computers. With the Cooler Master Mainboard Case, open source 3D printable case files, and a huge range of interesting community projects, there are a ton of great ways to use these.
— FrameWork
The CPU in question boasts 4 CPU cores and 8 threads, with no P-Cores or E-Cores present. This architecture exclusively relies on a single type of core known as Willow Cove. Additionally, it features a newer Gen12 Xe graphics architecture, which is the same as what’s found in the current 12th, 13th, and 14th Gen CPU series, offering 80 Execution Units.
Framework enjoys strong support from community projects that enable users to integrate older mainboards into custom chassis setups, thereby extending the lifespan of their replaced hardware. In other words, users have the opportunity to construct their own low-power Mini-PCs or home servers at a relatively affordable cost.
Source: FrameWork
