Lenovo Legion 2023 discussion

[Talon]

I've got the Pro 7 Gen 8 coming this week, hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday direct from Lenovo. After the Rakuten cash back, 5% off coupon and other work discount I managed to get mine for around $2500 out the door, tax, shipping and their 3 year premium warranty with next day on-site repair. 

 

Will update with my thoughts and testing. 

[Talon]

So far I am loving the new Legion 7i 23'. There are a few quirks here and there and I'm still learning how to tame the bast, but so far this thing check plenty of boxes for me. I really love that Lenovo included options in the BIOS to enable overclocking support and ability to disable Realtime undervolt protection. Something a few other brands are completely neglecting! Looking at you ASUS! 

 

Because these options are available, you can undervolt, overvolt, tune and tweak to your liking! No need for a custom BIOS, or "hack" of the bios to enable said features. I love it! Thankfully the cooling system they provide in this 16" beast is actually very good. 

 

 

Not even close to my max, just a relatively tuned for low voltage/power run. For 159w I am blown away by this perf. This was run with in regular priority, not real time run lol.

 

I just got the laptop this afternoon and have been getting things setup and trying to learn the laptop. I'll update if I find some glaring flaw in my testing. 

 

 

[Talon]

Thought I would add a stock CB23 run. This is out of box "Performance" mode, with fans on AUTO, flat on kitchen island temps. 

 

[IamTechknow]

Thanks for the deets @Talon! Despite Jarrod's review, it still has some nice bells and whistles. I did not expect Lenovo to include an BIOS option to enable undervolting (but probably in Legion laptops only) and that the CPU can reach it's power limit (without undervolting, according to the 0V offsets in the screencap.)

[saturnotaku]

MicroCenter just received its own version of the Pro 7i with RTX 4080. For $2899, you get 2 TB of storage as discrete 1 TB units instead of RAID-0 like in older models plus an upgrade to Windows 11 Pro.

 

Lenovo Legion Pro 16IRX8H 16" Gaming Laptop Computer - Onyx Grey; Intel Core i9 13th Gen 13900HX 1.6GHz Processor; - Micro Center

[jlp0209]

On 3/9/2023 at 6:12 AM, saturnotaku said:

MicroCenter just received its own version of the Pro 7i with RTX 4080. For $2899, you get 2 TB of storage as discrete 1 TB units instead of RAID-0 like in older models plus an upgrade to Windows 11 Pro.

 

Lenovo Legion Pro 16IRX8H 16" Gaming Laptop Computer - Onyx Grey; Intel Core i9 13th Gen 13900HX 1.6GHz Processor; - Micro Center

 

I've been tempted to pull the trigger but am holding off for a bit. I'd like to see that G-sync works properly with the internal display first and maybe how the 4090 stacks up as well. I hate returning items to Microcenter. It is my favorite shop and so many people abuse their return policies. I'd like them to stick around. 

[saturnotaku]

I caved and bought one of the MicroCenter models. This thing is fantastic - runs cool and stunningly quiet. The main thing I don't like is that all the display outputs are connected to the 4080. I wish the Thunderbolt port was connected to the iGPU, at least with Optimus enabled. Also, from a build quality perspective, while it's perfectly fine, it's more of a Legion 5 Pro+ as opposed to a true successor to the 7. That said, if the rumors of a Legion 9 are true, I would expect it to be significantly more expensive.

 

And of course, a week after I buy it at full retail, MC discounts it by $250 so I'll need to go back to the store and get a price adjustment.

[jlp0209]

37 minutes ago, saturnotaku said:

I caved and bought one of the MicroCenter models. This thing is fantastic - runs cool and stunningly quiet. The main thing I don't like is that all the display outputs are connected to the 4080. I wish the Thunderbolt port was connected to the iGPU, at least with Optimus enabled. Also, from a build quality perspective, while it's perfectly fine, it's more of a Legion 5 Pro+ as opposed to a true successor to the 7. That said, if the rumors of a Legion 9 are true, I would expect it to be significantly more expensive.

 

And of course, a week after I buy it at full retail, MC discounts it by $250 so I'll need to go back to the store and get a price adjustment.

 

Wow, it is on sale now for $2650. That's a fine price. Interested to hear about your experiences with it as you use it!

[saturnotaku]

The RTX 4090 is available as a CTO option on Lenovo's website now:

 

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=82WQCTO1WWUS1

[jlp0209]

Priced out the 4090 version on Lenovo's site, with a 6% bar association discount the total is $3378, then the 6% Rakuten cash back of $189 comes to a grand total of $3189.

 

The 4080 version at Microcenter with tax is $2921. Makes the 4090 version a no-brainer if I were to go through with it.

[jlp0209]

Well I bit the bullet and ordered the 4090 model. Rakuten has 10% cash back today. Under "item price" in the order details the total is $3050. On the actual order the subtotal prior to coupons is $3523. My actual grand total w/ tax is $3271 using a 6% off coupon in addition to GREETINGS10 for another $100 off.

 

I assume the 10% cash back is based on the "item price" of $3050 but am not sure? That would put the total price at $2971 which is alright by me. Delivers 1st week of April apparently, we'll see. 

[KING19]

Lenovo announced the new Legion Slims and their newest gaming laptop brand called LOQ which replaces the Ideapad and probably the Legion 5 series.

 

https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/legion-slim-series-laptops-power-agility-gamers-creators/

 

 

 

[Eban]

1 hour ago, KING19 said:

Lenovo announced the new Legion Slims and their newest gaming laptop brand called LOQ which replaces the Ideapad and probably the Legion 5 series.

 

https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/legion-slim-series-laptops-power-agility-gamers-creators/

 

 

 

 

Missing an I in that name.

 

 

Lo IQ 

 

 

 

Nar ... for the price it's good for kids or a really tight budget. 

Just the specs on newer systems make me shake my head at the crap big companies are rolling out the door. 16"? 4060? BGA? 

I hate to say it but my next PC will be desktop 

[KING19]

4 hours ago, Eban said:

 

Missing an I in that name.

 

 

Lo IQ 

 

 

 

Nar ... for the price it's good for kids or a really tight budget. 

Just the specs on newer systems make me shake my head at the crap big companies are rolling out the door. 16"? 4060? BGA? 

I hate to say it but my next PC will be desktop 

 

Yeah the mid range 40 series are pretty disappointing since they've been castrated. a RTX 4060 is near the performance of a RTX 3070Ti and RTX 3070. You can still get them cheaper than most 40 series laptops atm. Glad the Slim kept the same design of last year's model and the IQO has GSYNC and a 1080P webcam which is great for a budget gaming laptop, the small 60WH battery is a turn off, should of went with at least 80Wh battery.

[saturnotaku]

2 hours ago, KING19 said:

 

Yeah the mid range 40 series are pretty disappointing since they've been castrated. a RTX 4060 is near the performance of a RTX 3070Ti and RTX 3070. You can still get them cheaper than most 40 series laptops atm. Glad the Slim kept the same design of last year's model and the IQO has GSYNC and a 1080P webcam which is great for a budget gaming laptop, the small 60WH battery is a turn off, should of went with at least 80Wh battery.

 

The 4060 is only marginally faster than a mobile 3060 and not that close to a 3070/Ti.

[Eban]

For the price I might still buy one just to have an 'on the go' semi capable laptop (after tweaking the hell out of it).

 

But for playing games I would build a desktop with much better specs for same ca$h

[jlp0209]

On 3/25/2023 at 9:32 PM, Eban said:

For the price I might still buy one just to have an 'on the go' semi capable laptop (after tweaking the hell out of it).

 

But for playing games I would build a desktop with much better specs for same ca$h

The 4090 in this laptop will outperform my ATX size desktop that I sold late last year with 5 fans and Noctua CPU cooler, i9 9900K, 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra. Depending on the game it hangs with the desktop 3090 Ti and 4070 Ti. That's *insane* to me if it actually performs at this level. I'm still skeptical / will believe it when I see it. I have no intention of playing games at 4K, got this GPU because it slays 1440p and I won't need to tweak. It'll meet my needs for many years. I will never build a desktop again, there's just no need. 

[Eban]

6 hours ago, jlp0209 said:

The 4090 in this laptop will outperform my ATX size desktop that I sold late last year 

Where did it say 4090?

I got message that topend it would only go to a 4060, hence a "budget" gaming laptop.

 

While still faster than my Legion Y740 it cant compete with a desktop for price Vs performance.

[jlp0209]

6 hours ago, Eban said:

Where did it say 4090?

I got message that topend it would only go to a 4060, hence a "budget" gaming laptop.

 

While still faster than my Legion Y740 it cant compete with a desktop for price Vs performance.

You didn't mention any spec; I was replying to the 2nd part of your comment re: building a desktop / price to performance ratio, perhaps I took it out of context.

[saturnotaku]

Here's Jarrod's review. He tested the MicroCenter special so 4080, 32 GB RAM, and 2 TB storage. Some really impressive performance is on tap if you're maxing out the power limits and fans. It hangs with, and in some cases beats, the 4090-equipped Razer Blade 16.

 

 

[jlp0209]

Jarrod's review is pretty informative. Amazing re: sustained max power. I'm not as enthused about them using liquid metal rather than PTM 7950 on the CPU. Wonder what the reason is. If I see an all new "Coldfront 6.0" on the Legion 9 or whatever it'll be called, I'll be quite irritated. 

[jlp0209]

The beast arrived, did my usual dead pixel and screen check, no issues. Haven't even installed any apps or games yet, need to update everything and install my 2nd SSD. The only thing I can comment on is build quality. It is by no means bad and still miles better than anything Asus or MSI I've used. My Alienware fans get loud during the first boot up into Windows setup. I haven't heard the fans on this machine yet. 

[KING19]

On 3/25/2023 at 9:15 PM, saturnotaku said:

 

The 4060 is only marginally faster than a mobile 3060 and not that close to a 3070/Ti.

 

Yea true after watching Jarrod's video.... Like i said in another thread they're making DLSS3/Frame Generation as the selling points for the mid range GPUs.

 

 

[jlp0209]

The new Vantage settings and tweaks take a lot of getting used to, I am still tinkering. I disabled undervolt protection in the BIOS but can't run Intel XTU, settings are all grayed out. 

 

Thermals are incredible, I've tried F1 2022 and Cyberpunk 2077. The latest Nvidia driver has a bug (at least for me) where it won't draw full GPU power, it could've been something I did, but I'm now using the Lenovo supplied Nvidia driver and pulling proper GPU power. So far no game-breaking G-sync stutter which I was bracing for. 

 

I ran a couple TimeSpy tests using a custom thermal profile in Vantage. I set a GPU core OC of +200/+1000. Pretty nice result although I'd like to get more out of the CPU. Still a lot of testing and tweaking to do, but I'm impressed with the laptop so far. It beats my old 3080 Ti desktop handily. 

 

http://www.3dmark.com/spy/37142980

 

[saturnotaku]

The 53x.xx NVIDIA drivers seem to be problematic for RTX 4000 laptop GPUs across multiple OEMs. Windows Update supplied version 528.66 for me, and they've been working flawlessly so I'll be sticking with them for the foreseeable future.