alt Hacker NewsI’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.
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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.
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...
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?