Join for quick access. Enter your email below and we'll send confirmation plus sign you up to our newsletter.
By submitting your information, you confirm you are aged 16 or over,
have read our
Privacy Policy
and agree to the
Terms & Conditions. Geographical rules apply.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
Framework's Laptop 13 Pro DIY Edition now costs less than before, but a CPU price hike might be coming — Cheaper PCIe 5.0 drives from Adata upgrade customers from 500GB to 1TB for free
In an act of defiance, Framework, the modular manufacturer behind laptops and desktops, has actually reduced prices on one of its products. The DIY edition of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro will now come with cheaper PCIe 5.0 SSDs. If you already placed a pre-order with the 500GB drive, it will be upgraded to the new 1TB option automatically, while a new 2TB option is also available in the configurator now.
In response to Apple’s price increases today, we’ve lowered the price of some Framework Laptop 13 Pro configurations. We were able to source and qualify Gen 5 SSDs from ADATA that are both faster and cheaper, and now offer them on DIY Edition! https://t.co/HfS1l5wL1tJune 25, 2026
In the more comprehensive update posted on its website, Framework outlined that it has switched specifically to Adata's Mars 970 Plus SSDs that cost substantially less than what the company used previously — that model was never revealed publicly. The Mars 970 Plus is a proper Gen5 drive with read speeds up to 11,000 MB/s, and it's powered by the excellent Silicon Motion SM2508 controller that we've praised before.
Despite being cheaper to source, Framework says the Mars 970 Plus offers "better performance, efficiency, and long-term reliability." PCIe 5.0 drives are generally avoided in even high-end laptops today because they can be incredibly thermally demanding and require more power. Therefore, manufacturers simply opt for cutting-edge PCIe 4.0 drives instead, which are also available in a much wider variety of sizes.
A 500GB PCIe 5.0 drive sounds like it should be cheaper than a 1TB option, but because of interleaving, having an SSD with fewer channels actually means the controller isn't fully saturated to perform at its top speed. So, OEMs don't produce 500GB PCIe 5.0 drives at scale; almost every option you'll see on the market starts at 1TB. That's likely why Framework was paying more for that compared to its new 1TB inventory.
Unfortunately, we're in the middle of the component crisis, so we have to take the good with the bad. And the bad news is that Framework thinks another CPU price hike is on the horizon. It's not confirmed just yet, but when a vendor says it's receiving "signals," it's more than likely to come to fruition. The company is suggesting placing pre-orders now since it will have to update the overall prices of the Laptop 13 Pro once changes come into effect.
Also note: We were able to source a reasonable sized batch of these SSDs, but are still working on supply for further Gen 5 SSDs. If you want to be sure you can get these at this price, you should get your pre-order in now.June 25, 2026
The Laptop 13 Pro was originally supposed to start shipping this month, but because of the unprecedented situation we're in, it was delayed to July. All orders for this laptop are, therefore, pre-orders, and that's how the company is able to easily upgrade customers from 500GB drives to 1TB on the DIY edition. The prebuilt edition of the laptop still features PCIe 4.0 drives from Western Digital / SanDisk, and storage can't be manually configured for these.
Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
