Framework 13 With AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series “Strix Point” Makes For A Great Linux Laptop Review

Today the review embargo lifts on the Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen AI 300 “Strix Point” SoCs: wow, what an upgrade! I’ve spent the past week testing out the Framework 13 with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and it’s been terrific. Framework 13’s modularity continues to pay off and allows easily upgrading to the new Strix Point bearing motherboard with AMD Zen 5 CPU cores and the Radeon 890M (RDNA 3.5) integrated graphics. If you are on a fresh Linux distribution the support is in great shape and paired with great performance for delivering a great 2025 Linux laptop option.

Back in February Framework made several exciting announcements and among them were bringing the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series to Framework 13 in April. Today that embargo expires on being able to talk about the Ryzen AI 300 series with Framework 13. The new laptops and/or just upgrading the motherboard for an existing Framework Computer 13 have already been available for pre-order via Frame.work. There are options for the Ryzen AI 5 340, Ryzen AI 7 350, and Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. However, the first several batches are already sold-out and new orders will not ship until later in Q2, presumably in June with the prior batches noted for April and May.

Framework kindly sent over a review sample of their Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 for Linux testing at Phoronix. With already having been testing the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 since last summer, we have already been well versed on the performance potential of this 12-core Strix Point SoC. Impressively, the Framework 13 has been delivering even better performance than what I have been seeing out of the ASUS Zenbook S16 that I have been using up until now for the Strix Point Linux benchmarking.

The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 as a reminder features 12 Zen 5 cores made up of four Zen 5 cores and eight Zen 5C cores. With SMT there’s 24 total threads available. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has a 5.1GHz maximum boost clock or 3.3GHz maximum clock on the Zen 5C cores. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has a default TDP of 28 Watts with a cTDP from 15 to 54 Watts. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 features Radeon 890M “RDNA 3.5” integrated graphics for a nice experience and using the open-source AMD Linux graphics driver stack.

With Strix Point as with most new hardware you’ll want to be running as new of a Linux distribution as possible. Fedora 41 with all available package updates provides a nice experience. Or if you are setting up a new laptop anyhow, you might as well go for the likes of Ubuntu 25.04, Fedora Workstation 42, Manjaro 25.0, or other new 2025 Linux distribution releases.

With Linux 6.14 and Mesa 25.0 drivers should be a great experience for Framework 13 with the Ryzen AI 300 series. All of my testing over the past week of the Framework 13 with Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has been using Ubuntu 25.04. I’ll also have a follow-up article looking at the Framework 13 across multiple different Linux distributions in the next week or two.

Assembling the Ryzen AI 300 series laptop was quick and easy and similar to when setting the Framework 13 up for Intel Meteor Lake Swappable RAM and storage continue to be especially great aspects of Framework laptops. After putting together the new Framework 13 components, it was off to the races with Linux. Ubuntu 25.04 with the Framework 13 paired with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has been working out great for compatibility and performance. In my week so far of testing out the new mainboard there haven’t been any issues to report on around Ubuntu 25.04 usage with its Linux 6.14 kernel and Mesa 25.0 graphics drivers.