Are custom built laptops worth it?

Since the earliest days of home computing, desktop PCs have been systems you could build on your own and upgrade when needed. Even the first Apple computer came as a motherboard kit without a case. Notebooks though have followed a different path, becoming locked-down, one-size-fits-all items with limited or no opportunity for upgradeability. With the Framework Laptop, we&#;ve turned that around, with a thin, light, high-performance notebook that you can customize and build yourself and upgrade whenever you&#;d like, all using the single screwdriver that comes in the box. In this post, we&#;ll walk through what is customizable, how to choose the right parts, and how to build your own laptop.

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Choosing your Framework Laptop

The first step is to choose between the Framework Laptop 13 and Framework Laptop 16. Framework Laptop 13 is an ultra-portable 13.5&#; notebook that is great for productivity use cases like school and office work. Framework Laptop 16 is an extremely powerful 16&#; notebook with optional high-performance discrete graphics, making it excellent for gaming, creativity, and workstation use cases too. Both are easy to set up, upgrade, and repair, and both are made from lightweight, durable materials (aluminum for Framework Laptop 13 and aluminum and magnesium for Framework Laptop 16). You can pick between them based on whether you prioritize portability, your use case demands a high-power GPU, or if you just have a general screen size preference.

After choosing between the two, the next decision is whether to pick up a pre-built Framework Laptop or a Framework Laptop DIY Edition. Pre-builts come ready to go out of the box with Windows preinstalled like any other notebook. The DIY Edition is what we&#;ll deep dive on here. It allows for much deeper customization and enables you to assemble it yourself on day one. That may sound daunting, but we&#;ve designed the experience to be really straightforward, even if you&#;ve never been inside a computer before. Configuring and ordering a Framework Laptop is simple. We have a step-by-step configurator that you can follow. Below, we&#;ll go into more detail on how to choose the right parts at every step.

Selecting your processor and graphics

Framework Laptop 13 comes in both Intel and AMD configurations, with the latest platforms available on each. 13th Gen Intel Core offers an excellent peripheral set with four Thunderbolt 4 ports. AMD Ryzen offers greater graphics performance on its integrated GPU. Both have fantastic CPU performance, whether your workload is single threaded or multithreaded. For each processor brand, we also have multiple performance options, with i5-P, i7-P, and i7-P on Intel and U and U on AMD. You can choose based on both your performance needs and your budget. For general productivity uses, a base configuration is usually sufficient, while you may want to move to a higher performance option if you&#;re doing programming, heavy multitasking, media editing, or gaming. Keep in mind that with a Framework Laptop, the Mainboard (the laptop&#;s motherboard module) is upgradeable too, meaning you can move to a newer, faster processor in the future if you need to.

Framework Laptop 16 comes with AMD CPUs, with Ryzen Series Ryzen 7 HS and Ryzen 9 HS options. In addition, Framework Laptop 16 has the Expansion Bay System that allows for upgradeable graphics. You can choose to either leverage the integrated graphics on the processor with the Expansion Bay Shell, or pick up a Radeon RX S Graphics Module if you plan to run recent games or creative applications.

Configuring your memory and storage

Next, you can choose your memory and storage. Since both of these are modular (more on this in the deep-dive blog posts for the Framework Laptop 13 and Framework Laptop 16), you can choose to bring your own compatible modules or pick the ones that we offer. You can also upgrade to greater capacity in the future if you ever need to. On Intel-powered Framework Laptops, you&#;ll need DDR4 memory in the form of SO-DIMM modules. With two slots, you can pick anywhere from 8GB to 64GB of DDR4. On AMD-powered Framework Laptops, you&#;ll use DDR5 SO-DIMMs. There are two slots there as well, letting you choose from 8GB to 64GB of DDR5. While it&#;s not officially supported on the processor, you can actually go up to 96GB on AMD too!

Heavier workloads like compiling, simulation, or just loading a colossal number of browser tabs benefit from more memory. Using two sticks instead of one also improves memory bandwidth, which especially helps for gaming use cases.

For storage, Framework Laptop 13 has a single M.2 -sized slot that you can place an SSD into. Framework Laptop 16 has both a primary M.2 slot and a secondary M.2 slot for additional storage. We offer Western Digital storage drives from 250GB up to 4TB, but you can also bring your own NVMe-based SSDs if you prefer. You can choose the storage capacity you need based on your typical uses. While 250GB to 500GB is enough for basic productivity and browsing uses, photo and video editing, professional applications, and games can drive up your needs into one or more terabytes.

Picking an Operating System

Framework Laptop DIY Editions ship without an OS installed. You can pick up Windows 11 Home or Pro while configuring your laptop, or you can choose to bring your own operating system. That could be your own license of Windows or your preferred Linux distribution. We have guides available for Ubuntu and Fedora, which are two of the most popular options.

Customizing your bezel and keyboard

Here is where the customization options on the Framework Laptop really start to be visible. Unlike any other laptop on the market, you can color customize your Framework Laptop using magnetically-attached bezels. We have a range of colors that you can choose from when configuring your DIY Edition.

The input system is also customizable. On Framework Laptop 13, you can select Input Covers with a range of keyboard languages and even clear or blank options. With Framework Laptop 16, the customization is even deeper. The input deck is a fully reconfigurable set of Input Modules, letting you choose keyboard languages, RGB keyboards, the choice of a numpad or macropad, a range of color-customizable spacer options, and a programmable LED Matrix. All of these are up to your own personal preference, and you can always pick up additional modules later in the Framework Marketplace.

Picking a power adapter

Unlike most laptops, you can choose whether you&#;d like to order a Framework Laptop with a power adapter or not. We offer 60W USB-C power adapters for Framework Laptop 13 and 180W USB-C power adapters for Framework Laptop 16. If you already have a high-wattage USB-C power adapter, you can choose to use that instead. We recommend using one with the same or higher wattage than the ones we offer.

Choosing Expansion Cards

Another unique feature of Framework Laptops is that all of the ports are customizable using Expansion Cards. You can choose the ports you want and which side of the system you&#;d like them on. We have USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, DisplayPort, MicroSD, Ethernet, Audio, 1TB, and 250GB Expansion Cards available, with more coming over time. The most popular configuration for Framework Laptop 13 is 2x USB-C, 1x USB-A, and 1x HDMI, but you can choose based on the peripherals and monitors you&#;ll be plugging in. You can also pick up Expansion Cards as needed in the future in the Framework Marketplace.

Building your own laptop

Once you receive your Framework Laptop, building it is easier than you might expect! We have simple step-by-step guides with images and short videos explaining everything you need to do. The only tool you&#;ll need is the Framework Screwdriver we include in the box. It takes just 10-20 minutes to put together and power on, followed by another 10-20 minutes to install your preferred operating system.

Upgrading your laptop

One of the key advantages of a customizable laptop that you can build yourself is that you can upgrade it yourself too! Every one of the modules we went through above can be swapped and upgraded to newer versions as we release them. We&#;ve released several generations of Mainboards already, enabling existing Framework Laptop owners to upgrade to the latest and greatest processors. With Framework Laptop 16, that extends to being able to upgrade graphics too!

All of this means you have the freedom and flexibility to update and improve your computer as needed and reduce e-waste too by having a machine that lasts longer.

Frequently asked questions

Is it cheaper to build my own laptop?

It&#;s often cheaper to build your own laptop than to buy a pre-assembled one. This is especially true if you have compatible memory or storage already or can find a great deal on some. Another factor is the operating system license. If you&#;re using a free Linux distribution or you already have a retail Windows license that you can use, that can turn into a meaningful cost savings.

Additionally, because the Framework Laptop is easy to upgrade and repair, you can save money over time by upgrading parts as needed instead of buying an entire new computer.

Why should I build my own laptop?

While we can point to a number of reasons like cost savings and deeper customization options, ultimately the most important reason is that it&#;s fun to build a laptop! You have the opportunity to make it truly your own.

How hard is it to build my own laptop?

It&#;s easy! A large number of Framework Laptop customers have never opened a computer before building their laptop and found the process to be straightforward and enjoyable. You can check out the step-by-step guides ahead of time to see what&#;s needed.

What if I need help building my laptop?

If you need help at any point, whether that is researching what to buy, picking parts, putting your system together, or using it, you can reach out to Framework Support for help. The Framework Community is also an amazing resource to connect with other Framework Laptop users who are happy to share ideas and feedback.

Need to know

• You could stand to save a lot of money by building your own PC
• Building your first PC has a steep learning curve
• Below $ or so, building your own PC isn't really worth it

You can often put together your own powerful PC and get more bang for your buck than a comparable-cost, off-the-shelf system, but should you?

If you're looking for a high-performance computer, laptops and desktop PCs (including all-in-ones) offer a big convenience factor &#; they're ready to go right out of the box, saving you time and set-up hassles. Additionally, any hardware problems can be sorted out via after-sales support or a warranty claim. The downside is they can cost more and your customisation options can be very limited.

On the other hand, a home-built PC can give you far more parts to choose from, and offer you a more powerful system for the same money. But troubleshooting and chasing up warranty claims over individual parts can be a pain.

So, is it worth the hassle and how much can you save?

We've taken a look at some laptops and all-in-ones designed for general and professional use to see how they fare against available build-it-yourself components.

On this page:

Image credit: Logitech.

Why should you build your own PC?

In a nutshell, a build-it-yourself PC can save you money in both the short and long term. This is because it can cost less to put together and less to upgrade components down the track, which keeps your system relevant for longer. It also offers far more customisation options.

Alternatively, if you're shopping for a ready-made desktop tower PC you can be limited in terms of future upgrades, and when your PC starts to feel sluggish and a bit old-hat a few years down the track there's little you can do about it. You might have no alternative but to buy a whole new machine.

You're in even worse shape with a laptop or all-in-one PCs &#; they don't usually let you switch out individual parts, except perhaps RAM (memory) and storage.

Build-it-yourself PCs have no such restrictions. When you buy and install every part yourself, you only need to replace or upgrade components as needed. 

Central processing unit (CPU) running slow? Buy a better one. Not enough RAM or storage space? Buy more or swap out your RAM and drive(s) for higher-capacity and higher-performance units. The same goes for graphics processing, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi standards, input/output (I/O) such as USB, thunderbolt, etc., and more.

It's not an everlasting progression, of course. Technology changes fast and even a custom-built PC will eventually run out of replacement-part options. 

Motherboards are designed to fit a handful of CPUs and a certain type of RAM. If you set your sights on a spiffy new CPU that doesn't fit your older motherboard, you'll need to replace both. If the new motherboard wasn't designed for your current RAM, you'll need to replace that, too. There are other potential clashes, but these tend to be the most common.

For a build-it-yourself PC, you also don't have to pay for things you don't need such as a webcam, microphone, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or touchscreen. If you find out you want to add one or more of these down the line, buy and install each component as needed.

What are the downsides of building your own PC?

Building your first PC has a steep learning curve, no matter how easy online tutorials might make it seem. Compatibility of parts is the biggest issue &#; you need to make sure all the individual bits and pieces will work happily together once assembled into your PC case.

Will the CPU fit into your motherboard? Or the RAM? Is the power supply powerful enough? What about cooling? Will the fans keep everything chill when you're maxing out your CPU, RAM, storage drives and graphics card?

Online tutorials &#; usually targeted at gaming PCs &#; often suggest building your first PC is easier than it is. That said, these tutorials will still be invaluable, as will websites such as PCPartPicker, which gives you a good leg-up with build guides to get you going. 

Just don't be too hard on yourself if you have more trouble than a how-to guide says you will.

Read more: How to buy a laptop that suits your needs

Another big hurdle is current global stock shortages of many PC parts, particularly graphics processing units (GPUs) and CPUs. This seriously limits the range of parts you can buy, and has raised the price of available stock.

Are you interested in learning more about laptop custom factory? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!

The pandemic-prompted work-from-home trend has also strained supply chains for things like monitors and webcams. You might end up with pricier or worse parts than you'd planned for. 

Then there's size. Self-built PCs are bulky, unless you're willing to put hours of research into compact designs, which we don't advise for first-timers. And even the most compact build-it-yourself desktop PCs are blocky compared to all-in-one PCs, let alone a laptop.

Not only that, but you need to match your case to your components. Generally speaking, the two most common sizes are mid tower and full tower. Mid tower will suit most basic needs, but if you have a large cooler, high-end motherboard, or plan on doing demanding tasks such as gaming that will cause heat, you might need something bigger.

Tower cases are generally bulky, but can still vary a lot in design. Pictured: The $29 Kolink KLA-003 (left) and $389 Corsair iCUE X RGB QL (right).

What parts do you need to build a PC?

The bare bones of a self-built PC are:

• CPU
• CPU cooling system (sometimes a budget one is included with the CPU)
• GPU
• RAM
• motherboard
• power supply
• case/tower.

Additional parts and costs

Aside from the basic PC parts, there are additional costs you might need to consider, which can depend on what you already have at hand.

Let's look at some (very) rough costs using in-stock hardware we could find online from Australian stores. Stock availability is fluid in the current climate, so your own search might vary considerably.

• Operating system (OS) &#; free or $225. Windows 10 Home Edition is $225. You keep this licence forever and can transfer it to a new PC if you upgrade. Once you've installed Windows 10 Home, Windows 11 Home is free if your PC is compatible. At the time of writing, you couldn't simply buy a Windows 11 licence. A free alternative is installing a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, Manjaro or others.
• Webcam and mic &#; $55&#;$130. In our webcam review, we found this was roughly the price range in which webcams competed with or surpassed those built into many laptops. The Microsoft LifeCam Studio ($130) performed equal best in our tests. But laptop and all-in-one webcams are often lacklustre, so you could go as low as $55 for the Xiaomi Mi IMILAB (CMSXJ22A, W88 S), for example, and still get decent results.
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth &#; various prices. Build-it-yourself motherboards don't tend to have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth receivers built in. Common solutions are a USB dongle or a PCI express card that installs directly into your motherboard. Pricing varies based on the quality of product (e.g. Wi-Fi 5 versus Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 4.1 versus Bluetooth 5.1, or reliability of signal receiving/broadcasting). Two examples include the ASUS PCE-AX PCIe Wireless and Bluetooth adapter ($89) and the D-Link DWA-X ($150) USB dongle, though the latter only provides Wi-Fi 6 and not Bluetooth. An ultra-budget example is the Simplecom NW632 WiFi 5 & Bluetooth 5.0 USB Wireless Adapter ($23.99).
• Speakers &#; starting at around $35. Cheap PC speakers aren't great, but they'll probably compare favourably to laptop and most all-in-one speakers. Some monitors also have speakers built in, but you might also get by with headphones you already have.

Below are some peripherals you might already own.

• Mouse and keyboard &#; various prices. You can get an entry-level wireless mouse and keyboard combo for about $40, both of which come with their own wireless USB dongle. These are fine for general productivity and casual use. But you can spend upwards of $200 per gadget if you want to go fancy. Keep in mind, if you buy a Bluetooth mouse or keyboard that doesn't come with a USB dongle, you'll need to add a Bluetooth receiver to your build-it-yourself shopping list.
• Monitor &#; various prices. If you don't already have a monitor, you might pick up a x (p) one for as low as $100 second-hand or a new one for $180, but you can easily spend upwards of $500 for a higher-resolution one.
• External storage drive &#; if you have a portable or external hard drive or solid-state drive, you can use it to supplement your PC's storage. This means you can buy a smaller, cheaper drive to run your OS from.

Read more: Dynabook Thunderbolt 4 dock review

Price comparison: building a PC vs buying one prebuilt

Let's look at some rough price comparisons between laptops, all-in-ones and theoretical build-it-yourself PCs we 'built' (but not really) using available parts from online retailers.

There's no one-to-one power equivalent between laptop and desktop hardware, so we've selected approximate components based on what we think people interested in certain products are after. We've also been heavily limited by stock availability in Australia.

We don't test all-in-one PCs or build-it-yourself parts. So, when comparing them, we've looked at their specifications and user data from UserBenchmark, where people submit test results of their own hardware for performance comparisons.

Note: The PC part market is in a state of flux thanks to part shortages and upcoming releases. The prices we've quoted were accurate at the time of writing, but will likely change over the coming months.

Microsoft Surface Book 3 (left) and the Lenovo Yoga AIO 7 27-inch R7-H (right).

Showdown one: high-end PCs

• Microsoft Surface Book 3 (SMN-): $
• Lenovo Yoga AIO 7 27-inch R7-H: $
• Our build: $

The Surface Book 3 is a powerful, high-end laptop aimed at professionals and one that scored well in our most recent laptop comparison review. It has great hardware for a laptop, but its CPU and GPU fall short when compared to desktop PC parts.

The Lenovo Yoga AIO 7 27-inch R7-H is aimed at a similar crowd, but should also have decent gaming and graphics performance from its NVIDIA RTX graphics processor (6GB version).

For a CPU, we chose the Intel Core i5 ($249) &#; a bit more powerful than the Lenovo all-in-one's AMD Ryzen 7 H and significantly better than the Surface Book's 'laptop-class' Intel Core i7-G7. 

Like the Yoga AIO, our GPU is a 6GB RTX &#; the 6GB version is one of the cheapest options for this card at $899.

Our 512GB solid state drive holds up against the similar drives in the other two PCs, but the Yoga AIO also has a 1TB hard drive. That said, you could add one to our build for about $60.

The monitor we chose is the 4K, 27-inch Dell SQS ($549). It should look good next to the 4K 27-inch screen of the Yoga AIO, and is larger than the 4K, 15-inch display of the Surface Book 3. But the Surface Book 3 does admittedly have touch input, which our build lacks.

We also need a webcam and mic for conference calls. The Logitech C615 Portable HD Webcam ($99) is a good choice.

Adding the rest of our general hardware and peripherals using decent and available options brings the total to $, which is $ below the Surface Book 3 and $523 cheaper than the Yoga AIO. 

If that still doesn't sound like a good trade-off, save $89 if you don't need Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, $99 if you don't need a webcam and mic, and you can scale back the CPU, storage drive speed, or monitor. Although you might struggle to find in-stock minor downgrades at the moment.

ASUS ZenBook Flip 13 UX363 (left) and the HP Pavilion 24-ka PC all-in-one (right).

Showdown two: mid-range PCs

• ASUS ZenBook Flip 13 UX363: $
• HP Pavilion 24-ka PC all-in-one: $
• Our build: $

The ASUS ZenBook Flip 13 UX363 is a good mid-range laptop. Now priced at $, it compared well to the Microsoft Surface Book 3 ($) in our laptop tests. Its CPU is powerful for a laptop in this price bracket, and its touchscreen flips around, letting you use it like a tablet.

The HP Pavilion 24-ka all-in-one PC has a more-powerful CPU than the ZenBook, and its 23.8-inch screen has touch input. All up, it appears to be a neatly-packaged PC that should handle productivity tasks efficiently.

Both devices have a p display, but their graphics processors are lacklustre to say the least, so don't expect much use beyond video.

Due to PC part availability, we couldn't make a cheaper one of similar hardware power. As such, our build is more powerful than both and costs about the same as the Zenbook. 

We chose an Intel Core i3 F ($129) CPU, which should easily outperform both competitors.

When looking for a GPU, we were extremely restricted by availability. We selected NVIDIA GTX -Ti ($389). This GPU is way out of the league of these two computers, but is middling at best when compared to the GPU market.

Because we had to spend more than necessary on the GPU, we went with the relatively affordable AOC 24B2XH 23.8-inch p monitor ($205), which isn't a touchscreen.

All-in-all, we came out with a seriously superior computer, thanks largely to the GPU. When GPU availabilities begin to stabilise, you should be able to save more. And once again you can ditch the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi ($89), speakers ($35), and webcam ($55) if you want.

Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (left) and the Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3i Gen 6 24-inch (right).

Showdown three: low-end PCs

• Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (CP713-3W-58KE): $
• Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3i Gen 6 24-inch: $
• Our build: $

At around $ and below, our shop-around showed building your own PC isn't really worth it. It's still easier to eventually upgrade individual PC parts, but you're sacrificing a lot of convenience for a meagre payoff at best.

Devices in this price bracket aren't for much more than word processing, general productivity, browsing, communication, and light video. 

You might get what you need from an Android tablet, Chromebook, Windows laptop, or Windows tablet, as well as an affordable all-in-one. All of these are far more compact, portable, efficient and often easier to use than a desktop tower PC.

It's difficult to make meaningful comparisons based on hardware alone when the competition is so diverse, but we still created our own budget build and (very) roughly compared it to two pre-built alternatives.

Our result is barely cheaper and not much more powerful &#; if at all. We've stuck with Windows as the OS, but you don't have to (the Acer Chromebook uses ChromeOS, after all). Going with a free Linux distro would save you $225.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3i is about as compact as desktops come. It's still far larger than a laptop or tablet, but at least it has a decent-sized display. Our bulky, cheap computer case is a comparative eye-sore next to the lot of them.

The Acer laptop's 13.5-inch, touchscreen display has a surprising resolution of x &#; at this price you'd expect p. Both the Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3i and our monitor are p with no touch input.

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Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.

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