Every PCIe 10G ethernet card I've seen has a heatsink on it, sometimes covering the entire card or even have little fans on the heatsink.
Expecting it to work full time in a laptop is a bit of a stretch of the heat dissipation budget.
Also, the laptop he is working has the AMD FP8 chipset - depending on how the ports are setup, he might only get 10G USB, if the ports are allocated to video instead.
To add perspective, an old-school 7805 voltage regulator dissipating just 1 watt is already impossibly hot to hold with bare hand (as me how I know). So 3-4 watts on a small module will make it noticeably hot.
I looked in to it and it seemed like 10gbit was much better over fiber. Ended up deciding that 2.5gbit is plenty. The 2.5 gear is significantly cheaper and runs cool.
I think most people do not have 10g UTP infrastructure they want to exploit, but many people do have 2 computers they'd like to connect together at high speed, and these people are far better served by just connecting those computers' Thunderbolt ports together. With nothing other than an admittedly pricey cable, you get 10, 20, or 40gbps links depending on the endpoints. That's the "something faster" that will work well for most people.
In a way, I kinda don't get the idea of an expansion card for ethernet, rather than just a dongle. Specifically, as in this case, where it sticks out from the side of the chassis.
If I'm on the go, I'll have to take it out of the chassis while it's in my bag so I don't damage it. In that case, it's easier to have a regular USB-C card in that port, and toss a dongle in my bag instead of the expansion card.
If I'm not on the go, I'm at a desk, and I'd still rather plug in a dongle than regularly swap an expansion card.
I'm not saying you'd never want the expansion card, but it feels pretty niche.
Those sucked so hard, were extremely finicky to plug in, and I was in constant terror of breaking it. Even the popout jack things were horrific in that respect.
I'm 1000% for wired connections where possible, but for laptops too thin to have one built inside of the frame the best choice is a proper docking station, ideally with a cable that isn't impossible to user replace.
A lot of people use their laptop as a desktop replacement and kinda leave it in one spot or only move it between two spots (home desk/office desk) rather than as an actually portable take anywhere use anywhere situation
In that case I'd rather just have one of those big usb hubs that has every port on it. Rather than an adapter designed that it only works on one laptop. Sure in theory you could plug them in to any but the design of it is such that you'd snap the connector if you plugged it in to a normal port.
While a regular usb-c ethernet adapter has a flexible cable between the laptop and the bulky rigid part.
Thunderbolt hubs are rather amazing now; in the past they'd either get super hot and have reliability issues, or had severe bandwidth limitations (especially if using larger displays).
The current crop has been great for my needs — a couple models have 10G Ethernet built in (CalDigit is the one I'm using now), and most now have more than one Thunderbolt port that allows a high speed storage device to be used as well (in addition to a 5K or 4K display or two!).
There’s nothing to “get”. The circuit doesn’t fit inside the slot for expansion cards. You could plug in a dongle instead, but then you’d have a big hole in your laptop with a cable sticking out. Or you could just get a wider laptop bag. They make them in multiple sizes, you know.
Er, no, then you'd use the regular USB-C expansion card and plug the dongle into that, and then the port becomes generally useful.
A wider bag doesn't solve it. The part that sticks out could still easily snag on something. I wouldn't want to take that risk, and I doubt many people would.
Technically all framework 13 laptops always have four things plugged into it because the ports are modular such that the user can choose which ports they want.
Unless you're crazy and leave the expansion ports unpopulated.
Expecting it to work full time in a laptop is a bit of a stretch of the heat dissipation budget.
Also, the laptop he is working has the AMD FP8 chipset - depending on how the ports are setup, he might only get 10G USB, if the ports are allocated to video instead.
If I'm on the go, I'll have to take it out of the chassis while it's in my bag so I don't damage it. In that case, it's easier to have a regular USB-C card in that port, and toss a dongle in my bag instead of the expansion card.
If I'm not on the go, I'm at a desk, and I'd still rather plug in a dongle than regularly swap an expansion card.
I'm not saying you'd never want the expansion card, but it feels pretty niche.
Anyway it is probably just there to demonstrate the possibilities to consumers. What if a lower profile standard for networking gets popularized?
I'm 1000% for wired connections where possible, but for laptops too thin to have one built inside of the frame the best choice is a proper docking station, ideally with a cable that isn't impossible to user replace.
While a regular usb-c ethernet adapter has a flexible cable between the laptop and the bulky rigid part.
The current crop has been great for my needs — a couple models have 10G Ethernet built in (CalDigit is the one I'm using now), and most now have more than one Thunderbolt port that allows a high speed storage device to be used as well (in addition to a 5K or 4K display or two!).
The economics/upgrade math just does not make sense.
A wider bag doesn't solve it. The part that sticks out could still easily snag on something. I wouldn't want to take that risk, and I doubt many people would.
I feel like you're arguing just to argue...
No, you wouldn't. You'd have one of these instead: https://frame.work/products/usb-c-expansion-card?v=FRACCQ000... (or the one matching a color you prefer and your particular model)
Unless you're crazy and leave the expansion ports unpopulated.