[aomix]

I’ve been agonizing over getting the Framework Desktop for weeks as a dev machine/local LLM box/home server. It checks a lot of boxes but the only reason to look at the Framework Desktop over something like a Minisforum MS-A2 is for the LLM and that seems super janky right now. So I guess I’ll wait a beat and see where we are later in the year.

[microtonal]

My main worry about all the Minisforum, Beelink, etc. PCs is: potential lack of UEFI firmware updates (does anyone have experience with how good they are with updates?) and potential backdoors in the UEFI firmware (either intentionally or unintentionally). A China-aligned/sponsored group has made an UEFI rootkit targetting ASUS/Gigabyte mainboards: https://www.spiceworks.com/it-security/vulnerability-managem... Why not require/compel certain companies to implement them directly?

[starkparker]

As a Framework 13 owner, their firmware update history isn't that great either.

[Shadowmist]

I bought 3 Minisforum machines for a Kubernetes cluster and they didn't make it 11 months. They weren't even powered on most of that time. They just completely freeze with a black screen, and randomly enough to where every time I think maybe I figured out a fix it just crashes again a day later.

[heavyset_go]

Even if there aren't backdoors, things like this[1] affecting AMD Zen CPUs, where microcode signing keys changed and thus the firmware needs to be updated to allow the new keys, would prevent machines from using new microcode updates.

[1] https://github.com/divestedcg/real-ucode?tab=readme-ov-file#...

[laweijfmvo]

probably doesn’t make sense as a home server unless you need the massive compute. i have a couple lenovo mini pcs (m75q, various generations, AMD) that I paid a total of $500 for on ebay. they’re so easy to find and handle most tasks swimmingly.

[Arn_Thor]

What kind of tasks do you use it for, if I may ask? Does it include local LLM/AI?

[beala]

Surely if running a local LLM is a goal, you're going to be disappointed by any small form factor desktop. Even an M4 Max is slow compared to a 5 year old rtx 3090, and the M4's only advantage is that it can run larger models, but very slowly [1].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1jn5uto/macbook...

[oblio]

How quiet is the Minisforum?

[porphyra]

I'm not sure, but you could always just buy the Minisforum BD790i X3D [1]. Then, you'd be able to choose your own fan and case, and you can make it arbitrarily quiet by selecting a good fan. Early BD790i boards had a bug where losing power causes it to reset all BIOS settings, but they fixed that in later batches. I wonder when they will come out with a 9955HX version. Another good thing about this board is that it has two PCIe 5 NVME SSD slots with active cooling, which is a lot better than most other mini ITX boards out there, including the Framework.

[1] https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-bd790i-x3d