[fyrn_]

This config is GPU-less so it has the thermal / power budget to handle it. It's kind of meant as developer machine.

As far as I can tell the trend was first started by the Mechrevo code 01. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-4000-mechrevo-la... Which actually got a decent amount of press have some initial Twitter hype. Several other Clevo based brands followed like Tuxedo and XMG. Not sure that Clevo actually intended it as a dev focused config originally, but they definitely leaned into it with later revisions after they saw the enthusiasm.

Not for everyone, personally the Framework 16 appeals a lot more to me (I've preorded), but when I was in college the pure CPU maximization probably would have won me over.

[lhl]

The Mechrevo Code 01 was a Tong Fang ODM chassis. XMG/Tuxedo (sister companies) have varying laptop models from both Tong Fang (Uniwill now?) and Clevo.

Historically, a lot of devs using Linux laptops have preferred iGPU models both to maximize useful perf/watt (dGPUs models tended to drain power much faster even when idle) and b/c most dGPU laptops are Nvidia-based and the driver issues used to be terrible. I wonder if that calculus will be changing now w/ local LLM code-helpers and other AI apps benefit greatly from stronger GPUs.