Framework CEO Nirav Patel said he would deliver “the holy grail for gamers” with the Framework Laptop 16. In 2023, he suggested it’d be the first consumer notebook to fulfil the promise of modular, upgradable graphics cards like a desktop PC. We at The Verge were skeptical, because the last time we heard someone tell that story, it ended in lawsuits and forced arbitration.
But today, some eighteen months after shipping the Framework Laptop 16, the company has done what no laptop maker has done in modern memory, if ever: it’s created a newer, faster discrete graphics card you can easily swap into its existing laptop.
In 2024, that laptop o …