Having a laptop vs desktop dilemma

[saturnotaku]

I've been using a Legion Pro 7i with RTX 4080 more or less since the system launched. It's been a constant work/travel and play companion. However, I've been thinking about getting rid of it in favor of a thinner, lighter, less-powerful machine while keeping my current gaming desktop, which is a Ryzen 9 5950X with RTX 4070 GPU. It's not that I'm unsatisfied with the Pro 7i, but I'm thinking it's too much laptop when the desktop performs very similarly while being much quieter. I've also had more than one close call with potentially catastrophic accidental damage to the Lenovo. Such an incident would be covered under warranty, but it would still be a burden. There are also some quality of life issues I don't like about it, including the fact that all the video outputs are wired to the discrete GPU. 

 

If I were to sell the Legion, I would go with something like the Asus TUF A16 Advantage Edition that's currently on sale for $800. A Legion Slim 5 is out of the question as for some reason Lenovo has the fan curve programmed to start them when the CPU hits 40C. What temperature does the laptop idle at when connected to an external monitor - 40C, so the fans are turning on and off constantly. Very annoying. The TUF's build quality and screen are like the Slim 5, not outstanding but serviceable, but it's noticeably thinner and lighter than the Pro 7i. Also, the Type-C port that allows for charging also supports video out through the iGPU, so I can use the laptop at work with a single cable.

 

The other option will be for me to sell the desktop and keep the Pro 7i as more or less my sole personal computer. I would be fine with this because it's been performing very well aside from the small QoL problems that I'll just have to deal with over the long term. 

 

So far, Reddit is saying I should keep the Legion and sell the desktop, but I'd like to know what you all think about this.

[Custom90gt]

Sadly I don't know if we can tell you exactly what to do.  If you like the laptop and need a portable gaming setup then keep the laptop. If you like tinkering/performance and don't mind gaming in one dedicated area then keep the desktop.  For me having a desktop and a easy to use (read thin and light) laptop makes sense, but that's just me.

[saturnotaku]

46 minutes ago, Custom90gt said:

Sadly I don't know if we can tell you exactly what to do.  If you like the laptop and need a portable gaming setup then keep the laptop. If you like tinkering/performance and don't mind gaming in one dedicated area then keep the desktop.  For me having a desktop and a easy to use (read thin and light) laptop makes sense, but that's just me.

 

The thing is I do like the Pro 7i, a lot as a matter of fact. The performance is roughly equivalent to that of my desktop, which is really impressive. However, being the desktop replacement that it is, the Legion is quite bulky. The chassis is about at the absolute limit for what I want to carry in a backpack, and when you add the 330W power brick, it's just crossing over the line into being a burden. The TUF is about 1.5 pounds lighter, which is not an insignificant difference, as would be the battery life since I'd likely see at least double what the Legion provides.

 

As I also said, I really dislike that all the video outputs are wired to the dedicated graphics. This means I pretty much can't use it at my office as this creates needless heat and fan noise in a scenario where I'm not going to utilize the machine's full power. Speaking of full power, there are the fans to consider. I totally understand that a powerful machine like the Pro 7i is going to get noisy under load, and that's something I would just have to live with if I were to keep it. However, when the desktop is operating under similar conditions, it is significantly quieter because I spent a lot of time tuning the fan curves to get the acoustics where I wanted.

 

In re-watching Jarrod's review of the A16 Advantage, he got almost 90 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider using the laptop's silent mode. That I want to say is close to double what he got with a Pro 7i in its quiet mode. Plus with some tweaking of the CPU and GPU power limits, it may even be possible to game on the TUF with a USB-C charger. I've seen a video of someone do exactly this with the Zephyrus G14 Advantage.

 

I did reserve the A16 before it went off sale today, so I'm thinking I'll try it out for a while and see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, then I'll probably just keep the Legion.

[win32asmguy]

I am curious, do you use a KVM at your home desk to be able to easily switch between your desktop and laptop?

 

The A16 looks like a nice inexpensive replacement to complement your desktop. Its great that it has the iGPU video output, definitely an upgrade over the Legion Pro 7i. The WUXGA 165hz display is great. I am already using that panel in my Legion Pro 7i to boost battery life and allow use of 100% scaling. I would want the 7940HS over the 7735HS as its a bit closer to the 13900HX performance level. Although I do not even see that model for sale by Asus in the US yet, and the higher pricing puts it more into the territory of the Framework 16..

[saturnotaku]

15 hours ago, win32asmguy said:

I am curious, do you use a KVM at your home desk to be able to easily switch between your desktop and laptop?

 

The A16 looks like a nice inexpensive replacement to complement your desktop. Its great that it has the iGPU video output, definitely an upgrade over the Legion Pro 7i. The WUXGA 165hz display is great. I am already using that panel in my Legion Pro 7i to boost battery life and allow use of 100% scaling. I would want the 7940HS over the 7735HS as its a bit closer to the 13900HX performance level. Although I do not even see that model for sale by Asus in the US yet, and the higher pricing puts it more into the territory of the Framework 16..

 

To answer your first question, there aren't any scenarios in my work or gaming flow that require switching back and forth between desktop and laptop. However, the monitor where I have my desktop (Gigabyte M28U) has a built-in KVM switch that would facilitate such a need.

 

The Ryzen 7 7735HS is essentially a 6800H with slightly higher turbo boost frequency. Zen 4 with the 7700S dGPU would have been nice, but it's not available in the US. Even if it were it would have been significantly more expensive. There are TUF models with a 7940HS and RTX 4000 GPU, however even on sale they are commanding a 50 percent price premium over what I'm paying for the Advantage Edition. I like DLSS and frame generation but not that much especially since I'm wanting to keep this experiment to $1000 or less. Since the Advantage laptop is from Best Buy, I have TotalTech so a 2-year Geek Squad warranty with accidental damage is included. The 7940HS/RTX 4000 models are from MicroCenter, and the same extended coverage would run me an additional $340. Should I end up keeping the TUF, I'll be taking a reasonable hit on the Legion's resale value (though not as bad if I were to wait until new models come out) so I want to minimize that as much as possible on the other end.

 

[seanwee]

On 8/21/2023 at 9:25 PM, saturnotaku said:

 

The thing is I do like the Pro 7i, a lot as a matter of fact. The performance is roughly equivalent to that of my desktop, which is really impressive. However, being the desktop replacement that it is, the Legion is quite bulky. The chassis is about at the absolute limit for what I want to carry in a backpack, and when you add the 330W power brick, it's just crossing over the line into being a burden. The TUF is about 1.5 pounds lighter, which is not an insignificant difference, as would be the battery life since I'd likely see at least double what the Legion provides.

 

As I also said, I really dislike that all the video outputs are wired to the dedicated graphics. This means I pretty much can't use it at my office as this creates needless heat and fan noise in a scenario where I'm not going to utilize the machine's full power. Speaking of full power, there are the fans to consider. I totally understand that a powerful machine like the Pro 7i is going to get noisy under load, and that's something I would just have to live with if I were to keep it. However, when the desktop is operating under similar conditions, it is significantly quieter because I spent a lot of time tuning the fan curves to get the acoustics where I wanted.

 

In re-watching Jarrod's review of the A16 Advantage, he got almost 90 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider using the laptop's silent mode. That I want to say is close to double what he got with a Pro 7i in its quiet mode. Plus with some tweaking of the CPU and GPU power limits, it may even be possible to game on the TUF with a USB-C charger. I've seen a video of someone do exactly this with the Zephyrus G14 Advantage.

 

I did reserve the A16 before it went off sale today, so I'm thinking I'll try it out for a while and see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, then I'll probably just keep the Legion.

If budget permits, get the Zephyrus G14 4090 and flash the 4090 150w vbios from the Zephyrus M16.

 

It'll give you the same performance as the lenovo but in a much lighter and more compact package.

 

That is of course if you don't mind the 14 inch screen.

[saturnotaku]

1 hour ago, seanwee said:

If budget permits, get the Zephyrus G14 4090 and flash the 4090 150w vbios from the Zephyrus M16.

 

It'll give you the same performance as the lenovo but in a much lighter and more compact package.

 

That is of course if you don't mind the 14 inch screen.

 

Can't stand white laptops so no G14 for me. Also said that I want to keep this to under $1000 to minimize the financial loss I would incur by selling the Pro 7i.

 

Finally got around to picking up the A16 Advantage Edition, and Asus has once again failed me. The first one blue screened before it got to the Windows desktop. Exchanged it for the last new-in-box example I could find at a Best Buy that wasn't more than an hour's drive. It got past the opening hurdle, but when connected to an external monitor, the dumb thing idles at 60 degrees. I know that's not dangerous, but my Pro 7i is 20 degrees cooler in the exact same configuration, cooling pad and all while not being absurdly louder. Also, Jarrod got the USB-C configuration wrong in his video. The port that allows for power delivery is connected to the dGPU, not integrated, which more or less defeated the entire reason I wanted this specific model.

 

This whole ordeal must be the laptop gods' way of telling me to hold onto the Pro 7i. 

[jaybee83]

main point to analyse here is what kinda balance you have between laptop and desktop usage. are you on the move a lot and how often do u actually use the desktop? is it laptop for work only but then high perf gaming and productivity on the desktop? if the latter, keep the desktop, if the former focus on a high perf. laptop. 

[kojack]

I am in the get a lightweight laptop for travel and keep the desktop for heavy lifting.  That's what I have personally.  My dell 2 in 1 is my travel buddy. It can do anything I need while being lightweight, decently powerful ( can edit 4k video etc but rendering is slow) if need be, but take the same project and pop it into my workstation in my office it just skips right on through. 

 

I am looking at apple lately too, I am thinking I am going to move to Apple (keeping my current dell stuff as well) and try a macbook air M3 for travel, and a mini M3 for desktop. I am just waiting to see what M3 brings before shelling out the coin for it all. 

[seanwee]

14 minutes ago, kojack said:

I am in the get a lightweight laptop for travel and keep the desktop for heavy lifting.  That's what I have personally.  My dell 2 in 1 is my travel buddy. It can do anything I need while being lightweight, decently powerful ( can edit 4k video etc but rendering is slow) if need be, but take the same project and pop it into my workstation in my office it just skips right on through. 

 

I am looking at apple lately too, I am thinking I am going to move to Apple (keeping my current dell stuff as well) and try a macbook air M3 for travel, and a mini M3 for desktop. I am just waiting to see what M3 brings before shelling out the coin for it all. 

Same but now it's just sub 1kg ultrabook + strix scar 17 since the scar is just faster than my desktop (5700x + 3080ti) all around.

 

 

[cylix]

Yeah same, Desktop at home and for traveling a tablet or Ultrabook, had a Android tablet that i changed for a Z13 Flow because i needed Windows for work.

[kojack]

14 minutes ago, cylix said:

Yeah same, Desktop at home and for traveling a tablet or Ultrabook, had a Android tablet that i changed for a Z13 Flow because i needed Windows for work.

Tablets are another matter all together.  I take both my Samsung a7 lite and ipad 10th gen with me. ha ha...Depending where and what we are doing.

[saturnotaku]

After the TUF A16 debacle, I went back to the Lenovo well. Started with a base model Legion Slim 5 with Ryzen 5 7640HS and RTX 4050. Sent it back after the fans would turn off and on with the laptop at idle for no reason. Jarrod had the same thing happen with his Ryzen 7-powered Slim 5 so I'm guessing it's probably a firmware issue. Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I swapped it for basically the same laptop but with an i5 13500H CPU instead. This one is much better in terms of fan acoustics and behavior. One of the Type-C video outputs is connected to the iGPU so I can use it at my office without fear of offending co-workers with fan noise; it's not the port that does USB-PD, but I can live with it. If things continue to go smoothly, I'll likely be putting my Pro 7i up for sale.

[kojack]

On 8/28/2023 at 7:27 AM, seanwee said:

Same but now it's just sub 1kg ultrabook + strix scar 17 since the scar is just faster than my desktop (5700x + 3080ti) all around.

 

 

I am looking at getting an eGPU case with another 2070 super installed to take to hotel rooms with us when we are working on location. That way I can skip through video encoding faster.  Just wondering now if I can use the egpu through a usb c dock with other items like drives etc attached and working at the same time. 

[saturnotaku]

So after much deliberation, I've ultimately decided to keep my Legion Pro 7i and sell the desktop. One thing that really helped in this decision was getting a new backpack as my MSI one finally gave up the ghost after nearly 15 years. The new one has a lot more padding that somehow makes the Legion feel not as heavy when I carry it. I'm also going to use the 170W power brick that came with my kid's IdeaPad Gaming 3 as my travel adapter. While the lower-wattage adapter locks out performance mode, I never use it anyway when I want to play games on the road. Since the IPG3 only has an RTX 3050, I figured it was safe to use my 135W 20V/6.75A Lenovo GaN charger there.

[ryan]

whats wrong with your 4080 legion? its technically a top 3 gaming laptop if not the best