Meet the Company Shaking Up the Desktop Computer Game

It’s making highly customizable, upgradable desktop PCs, easy and accessible to the masses.

Hands installing a computer component inside a black PC case on a blue grid mat.

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Published December 28, 2025

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Unfamiliar with Framework? The American tech company has been selling modular laptops that are highly customizable, upgradable and repairable for the last several years, catering to the DIY crowd.

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And now it has brought that same ethos to desktop PCs for the first time with Framework Desktop.

Compact black computer case with a handle and colorful square patterns on the side, placed on a desk next to a keyboard and a hand using a vertical mouse. — The Framework Desktop is the modular laptop maker’s first desktop PC.

You can think of it as sort of like a modular Mac Mini. When ordered, the compact 4.5-liter tower comes preinstalled with the mainboard, CPU heatsink and power supply, but, depending on the kit you buy, you have to assemble the storage drive, CPU fan, side panels and various other elements.

Worried about a tedious build? Don’t. There’s no soldering or thermal paste involved. It just requires a screwdriver (included) and connecting the various components together. The entire build process should take less than thirty minutes.

Hands assembling a small black computer with a visible cooling fan and colorful keycaps scattered nearby. — The Framework Desktop comes preinstalled with the mainboard, CPU heatsink and power supply, but you have to assemble everything else.

But that’s not where the fun ends. As expected, the Framework Desktop is modular, customizable and upgradable. You can order extras such as expansion card ports or additional storage, a transparent side panel or an RGB-lit fan.

The real star is the front panel, which features a customizable 21-tile grid, allowing you to snap in individual tiles—some with colors, some with designs—and give the desktop PC its own style. (Thanks to an open API, you can 3D print your own custom tiles, too.)

Four people at a gaming setup with multiple monitors, one holding a bowl of colorful cereal and another handing over a bag of chips. — The 4.5-liter desktop PC runs on AMD’s powerful chips and promises to be a serious gaming machine.

As a desktop PC, the Framework Desktop is a little beast. It runs on AMD’s most powerful APU and offers up to 128GB of unified memory, making it a serious PC for productivity, media editing or gaming.

Of course, it’s not going to be anywhere near the most powerful or most customizable desktop PC on the market. Framework knows this. But for anyone interested in a first-time PC build, the Framework Desktop is a perfect entry point into that rabbit hole.

Hand holding a small black square module with a gear icon next to a black rectangular device with colorful modular tiles.

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Framework Desktop

Specs

Operating System	Linux or Windows (costs extra)
Processor	AMD Ryzen AI Max processors
Rear Ports	HDMI (1x), DisplayPort (2x), USB-C (2x), USB-A (2x), 3.5 headphone, Ethernet