[InTheArena]

I ordered a framework desktop and got it "by accident" - in that I forgot that I had put down a deposit on a fully maxed out Ai MAX395+. After a few days of using it, I decided to keep it, and given how incredibly expensive 8tb NVMe drives and DDR5-8000 has beocme since then (even if you could get DDR-8000 on desktop form factor) - I don't regret that decision at all. It's a great little box - and AI is getting closer to colser to being a good experience.

That said, I have run into a set of frustrations with it: 1) The PCIEx is completely useless on the board. Forget about room for the slot - it's not exposed, there isn't enough exposure inside of the case. This is a real miss - It seems perfect for a occulink port or another USB4 port. 2) USB4 + PCIe tunneling was a mess. Seems to be working better now. 3) There are some real thermal envelopes that are resulting in similar systems with the exact same architecture running 10% faster then this box. That's a big bummer - apparently it's tunable in their bios, but framework really limits the bios settings. 4) Randomly right now, the latest kernel on Ubuntu seems to freeze on boot. No idea why - I can move to the older .5 kernel, and it;s working.

All that said, for what it offers - Framework offers a lot. I really honestly believe that either Mac or Framework is the way to go if you need significant compute power on the desktop.

[summa_tech]

I feel ya on the PCIe slot. And the on-board NICs are sub-par Realtek garbage, unacceptable both on features and quality. However, you can fit a small SFP+ card inside if you (a) cut out a correctly shaped hole in your case, and (b) turn the fan on at 40% instead of letting it turn off. The card will sit at a small angle but work fine, and with some 3D printing I even got a mounting bracket in to keep it stable. A lower profile connector, like USB 4, might fit outright.

[InTheArena]

Yeah, I was thinking of running a Occulink connector to the side of the case, the problem is that this would need a riser, and I don't think that occulink - even with a redriver, would do well with two additional physical connectors.

On the 5GB realtek - i think their 5G is far better then their 1g or 2.5g devices where.