Friday, January 24th 2025
Intel Previews Sustainable Modular PC Design Concept
Intel's Platform Engineering and Client Segments groups are actively looking into ways of reducing computer e-waste, and (in parallel) enhance product repairability. The company's newly proposed "Modular PC Design" is set to take a "sustainable approach" across three key modularity levels: factory, field and user. Team Blue's blog post goes into great detail about revised laptop and mini-PC designs—with the "right-to-repair" movement serving as a major influence. Many "consumer activists and environmental groups" have advocated for improvements in personal computer design—Intel appears to be listening, but a firm release timeline has not been set.
Intel's proposed new standards will revolve around repairability and upgradability—as explained in their blog: "the right-to-repair emphasizes the importance of being able to fix and upgrade PCs on one's own. Improving repairability requires fundamental changes starting from the design methodology." Team Blue's Modular PC program—for laptops—breaks away from the tradition of utilizing an "all-in-one motherboard." A reference diagram shows off three internal modules: a motherboard package and two "universal" left and right I/O units. These separate boards can be: "utilized across various platforms or market segments leads to cost savings by streamlining the duration of the design cycle and minimizing the engineering investment required. The I/O boards for Premium Modular designs are engineered to be common between the fan-less Thin & Light system, which operates within a 10 W power envelope, and the premium fanned designs, which function within a 20 W (single fan) and 30 W (dual fan, Wi-Fi only SKU) power envelope." Framework recently celebrated its fifth year of operation—its modular laptop designs have seemingly "inspired" a few copycats.
Intel's proposed "Desktop Modular PC Architecture" focuses on compact form factor premium creator and entry-level workstation market segments. Many "traditional" mini-PC systems are inherently difficult to upgrade and/or repair, due to components being soldered onto logic boards. Again, Team Blue's proposed solution compartmentalizes the fundamentals into separate pieces: CPU module, GPU module, and Platform Controller Hub (PCH) module. Their blog boasts this concept: "elevating modularity to the next level by introducing subsystem-level replaceable modules, such as a Type-C connector on an FPC (Flexible Printed Circuit) and a Type-C connector on an M.2 PCB. These modules significantly reduce repair costs and simplify the repair process in the event of port or connector damage at the end-user level."
Sources:
Intel Community Blog, Tom's Hardware
Intel's proposed new standards will revolve around repairability and upgradability—as explained in their blog: "the right-to-repair emphasizes the importance of being able to fix and upgrade PCs on one's own. Improving repairability requires fundamental changes starting from the design methodology." Team Blue's Modular PC program—for laptops—breaks away from the tradition of utilizing an "all-in-one motherboard." A reference diagram shows off three internal modules: a motherboard package and two "universal" left and right I/O units. These separate boards can be: "utilized across various platforms or market segments leads to cost savings by streamlining the duration of the design cycle and minimizing the engineering investment required. The I/O boards for Premium Modular designs are engineered to be common between the fan-less Thin & Light system, which operates within a 10 W power envelope, and the premium fanned designs, which function within a 20 W (single fan) and 30 W (dual fan, Wi-Fi only SKU) power envelope." Framework recently celebrated its fifth year of operation—its modular laptop designs have seemingly "inspired" a few copycats.
20 Comments on Intel Previews Sustainable Modular PC Design Concept
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COM_Express
cdn.cs.1worldsync.com/a6/84/a6849cd1-ad7c-4286-8536-34d5178cb0a9.pdf
Also, why is there are person working on two delidded HDDs, theres nothing in there to service and if you doing data recovery, wheres the clean room?
Jetway has some motherboards you can add extra slots to, similar to the way BTX was designed.I was waiting for this comment.
A sustainable, modular PC concept. I've got one on my desk right?
^That 230W TDP dGPU assumption is cute :laugh:
community.intel.com/t5/Blogs/Tech-Innovation/Client/Modular-PC-Design-A-Sustainable-Approach-for-Enhanced/post/1657681
There is so much wrong when you look at that picture. Look at it for a longer time period and you will see it yourself. This show, a fake picture was taken, not with someone shown who repair stuff. I do not expect much from Intel. This is again negative in my viewpoint.
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From a technical standpoint. I had to buy a intel 3rd generation core mobile processor platform notebook. The ASUS G75VW notebook was the last with a socket DRAM, processor, graphic card and such.
Older notebooks had much higher build quality and were opened in a few minutes. Not the garbage sold now by HP, Lenovo, MSI. I can only talk about those devices I did some service on myself. Newer Laptops also die faster, e.g. my refurbished Lenovo T460 died after 11 months. Dead SATA "NVME" in a HP Laptop in less than 4 years with less usage.We had that already. It's an intel joke. Like always. Marketing without action. Marketing with false claims.
My main motivation to build a desktop computer was the lack of choices for repairs and components at the laptop side.
Sidenote: Keep on making such marketing. And selling me bogus Intel AX210 Wifi modules, AX200 bogus wifi modules. That will keep me away much longer from any intel product.
edit: Intel AX210 wlan crashed my box since middle of 2023. Since I disabled all power saving features on my ASUS Prime X670-P mainboard those crashes are gone. I think I made those changes around november 2024 in the uefi from my mainboard.