But it’s the only way to keep pushing bandwidth forward, especially for graphics/iGPU, and keep pushing power down. Socketed memory inherently is much slower and less efficient, same reason consoles don’t come with ram sticks.
AMD’s solution is a package with cache instead, to try and reduce the amount of data they have to push around. But that adds a bunch of cost and still isn’t as efficient - but it lets you keep scaling socketed memory a little farther. Can’t help but feel like the days are numbered though, there isn’t an infinite amount of runway left for socketed memory.
And if we re-address the "999 for a laptop with 8 gbs of ram in 2024" comment above, it is worth noting that the Framework 13 also starts with 8GB of RAM at $1049.
Maybe look at some high-end Lenovo or Dell laptops.
I'll pick the second to the top tier models, since that's what the Air is for Apple:
Dell Latitude 5440 - i5-1345U, 8 GB DDR4, 256 GB PCIe NVMe - $1,099.00
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/latitude-5440-l...
ThinkPad X13 Gen 4 - i5-1335U, 8 GB LPDDR5, 256 GB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe, $959.40 after coupon
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bun...
Prices for premium laptops... are premium, and the strip-down models start with modest specs.