Lenovo Legion 5 (2022)

[KING19]

I think its fair to make a separate thread for non-pro version of the Legion 5.

 

 

Full Review:

 

[KING19]

Update: Added Jarrod's full review

 

Quick facts from his review:

The Lid is made out aluminum and but the rest of the laptop made out of plastic

Advanced Optimus is supported

G-SYNC is only available with the 1440p Panel and the 1080p 165Hz Panel.

USB-C 4 is supported for the AMD version so thunderbolt devices can be used but had BSODs when he tried to use his E-GPU with it, The Intel version supports Thunderbolt 4

 

Overall its a improvement over the 2020 and 2021 models.

 

 

 

 

[Bullit]

Continues with MUX and max power RTX3060?

[KING19]

On 9/23/2022 at 2:52 PM, Bullit said:

Continues with MUX and max power RTX3060?

 

Ofc and as i said it uses advanced optimus.

 

It uses the 130w RTX 3060(Last Year's) and not the new 140w version. It can be configured up to a RTX 3070ti

[Bullit]

Thanks, yeah i saw those 140w RTX3060 and asked what changed but no one know, i have the 130w.

[saturnotaku]

I'm wondering if the dust filter that was on the 2021 Legion 5 was the primary cause of the high-pitched fan whine I would hear on those laptops. I had originally purchased an Asus G15 AA in "fair" open box condition from Best Buy for $620. While I loved the performance, the keyboard would frequently miss key strokes, which isn't good when it's something that I type on for at least 25-30 hours per week. I swapped it for an AMD-based 2022 Legion 5. The design, keyboard, and thermals were great and absolutely zero fan whine. Had to take that one back because the laptop would immediately wake up upon trying to put it to sleep, which is a problem I've noticed on a lot of AMD laptops. I swapped it for an Intel version with a Core i5 but otherwise identical specs. I thought the i5 12500H had six performance cores, but it only has four. Not that it seems to hurt as with the laptop in performance mode, I can get a Cinebench score comparable to the Ryzen 7 6800H. Balanced mode nets results in the ballpark of the Core i7 11800H.

[KING19]

On 10/28/2022 at 10:51 PM, saturnotaku said:

I'm wondering if the dust filter that was on the 2021 Legion 5 was the primary cause of the high-pitched fan whine I would hear on those laptops. I had originally purchased an Asus G15 AA in "fair" open box condition from Best Buy for $620. While I loved the performance, the keyboard would frequently miss key strokes, which isn't good when it's something that I type on for at least 25-30 hours per week. I swapped it for an AMD-based 2022 Legion 5. The design, keyboard, and thermals were great and absolutely zero fan whine. Had to take that one back because the laptop would immediately wake up upon trying to put it to sleep, which is a problem I've noticed on a lot of AMD laptops. I swapped it for an Intel version with a Core i5 but otherwise identical specs. I thought the i5 12500H had six performance cores, but it only has four. Not that it seems to hurt as with the laptop in performance mode, I can get a Cinebench score comparable to the Ryzen 7 6800H. Balanced mode nets results in the ballpark of the Core i7 11800H.

 

AMD graphic/display drivers sucks tbh especially their stock drivers which causes that issue. I had some problems with standby in the past and other issues but not anymore with their newest drivers but then again i only use standby when im home and shutdown when im taking my laptop to work and other places as i dont want it to accidentally wake up and roasting in my bag.

 

Anyways i hope nothing goes wrong with this one. 😁

[saturnotaku]

1 hour ago, KING19 said:

 

AMD graphic/display drivers sucks tbh especially their stock drivers which causes that issue. I had some problems with standby in the past and other issues but not anymore with their newest drivers but then again i only use standby when im home and shutdown when im taking my laptop to work and other places as i dont want it to accidentally wake up and roasting in my bag.

 

Anyways i hope nothing goes wrong with this one. 😁

 

Hadn't thought about the VGA drivers being the issue, but that's OK because the Intel model I have now ended up being $100 cheaper with otherwise identical specs thanks to Lenovo's pre-Black Friday sale.

[RandomIdiot]

I'm not sure it's actually a driver issue as much as the fly covered PoS MS calls "modern standby" and Lenovo's absolute lack of understanding how to use it.

I haven't had the issues that @saturnotaku has, but more than enough other problems with it. Probably the biggest outstanding issue is that anytime my screen turns off the damn machine will go into standby mode - even if I disable modern standby. I tested this running Cinebench, with my screen off set at 1 min. A couple seconds after the screen turns off, the fans will ramp down as CB get throttled to hell. The only way I can stop this from happening (you'd think the OS would be smart enough to realize 100% CPU use is reason enough not to use standby) is to not shut my screen off, which is a total PITA when I'm doing a render or something similar. At this point my only hope is that Lenovo bring back a proper S3 sleep mode in a FW update - but I'm not holding my breath.

 

*after proof reading, I see this is a Legion 5 thread and I have a Legion 5 pro, so my experience might not be relevant. Apologies if that's the case

Edited November 11, 2022 by RandomIdiot
added machine info

[KING19]

17 hours ago, RandomIdiot said:

I'm not sure it's actually a driver issue as much as the fly covered PoS MS calls "modern standby" and Lenovo's absolute lack of understanding how to use it.

I haven't had the issues that @saturnotaku has, but more than enough other problems with it. Probably the biggest outstanding issue is that anytime my screen turns off the damn machine will go into standby mode - even if I disable modern standby. I tested this running Cinebench, with my screen off set at 1 min. A couple seconds after the screen turns off, the fans will ramp down as CB get throttled to hell. The only way I can stop this from happening (you'd think the OS would be smart enough to realize 100% CPU use is reason enough not to use standby) is to not shut my screen off, which is a total PITA when I'm doing a render or something similar. At this point my only hope is that Lenovo bring back a proper S3 sleep mode in a FW update - but I'm not holding my breath.

 

*after proof reading, I see this is a Legion 5 thread and I have a Legion 5 pro, so my experience might not be relevant. Apologies if that's the case

 

Modern standby has nothing to do with Lenovo at all, Its a windows feature. I dont know the full details about it though. You could increase the length of time of when the display turn off when plugged in Power Options if that helps. Display and Standby problems normally caused by the VGA drivers. In your case it could be a problem with advanced optimus if your legion supports it. What version is your NVIDIA drivers?

 

 

 

 

[RandomIdiot]

On 11/11/2022 at 3:21 PM, KING19 said:

 

Modern standby has nothing to do with Lenovo at all, Its a windows feature. I dont know the full details about it though. You could increase the length of time of when the display turn off when plugged in Power Options if that helps. Display and Standby problems normally caused by the VGA drivers. In your case it could be a problem with advanced optimus if your legion supports it. What version is your NVIDIA drivers?

 

 

 

 

I'll followup on the 5 Pro thread, since that's what I have

[jlp0209]

Decided to try one last time with a Legion 5 non-Pro AMD. I'd read a random post somewhere that the latest Nvidia driver resolved the G-sync stutter issue that plagued the 2021 Legions (5 Pro, 7 with 1600p screens) as well as 2022 5 Pro (1600p) and 5 non-Pro (FHD 165hz) that I'd tried. Couldn't resist the black Friday deal + 15% cash back through Rakuten. 

 

My latest L5 has a 1080p 165hz display made by AUO, first time any of my Legions had an AUO screen so I was cautiously optimistic. Sure enough, no G-sync stutter at all, finally. 

 

Zero CPU throttling when running Cinebench R23. During the test the 6800H stayed at 4.3-4.4 ghz on all 8 cores for the whole test and max temp was 94 degrees, avg 90 degrees. Multi score was 14,550 which seems to be where it should be.

 

GPU performance is stellar too. I found a compatible 3070 Ti vbios with wattage 125w - 150w that actually boosts to 150w (had seen many posts that the L5 was capped at 140w by the system bios) during gaming. 

 

Slight OC on the GPU yielded a Timespy score of 12,052 overall, 12,339 graphics, and 10,650 CPU. 

 

On the SoTR demo my avg FPS is 127 compared to 131 of the Alienware w/ 3080 Ti that I have.

 

Very pleasantly surprised / punching above its price. 

 

 

[Bullit]

Can you test Blender Benchmark? no need to install.  It tests the tensor, raytracing and Cuda performance. Put it in GPU Optix mode.

 

https://opendata.blender.org

 

In the link you also have a lot of data for comparison.

 

For reference my Legion 5 2021     5800H+3060      13214 in CB23 and 2615 in Blender benchmark.

[jlp0209]

2 hours ago, Bullit said:

Can you test Blender Benchmark? no need to install.  It tests the tensor, raytracing and Cuda performance. Put it in GPU Optix mode.

 

https://opendata.blender.org

 

In the link you also have a lot of data for comparison.

 

For reference my Legion 5 2021     5800H+3060      13214 in CB23 and 2615 in Blender benchmark.

 

Initially didn't give me a score and then I realized I needed to register. Anyway, my score is 3589 (median for the 3070 Ti Laptop is 3439).

[Bullit]

The score is the sum of 3 results that show after in the benchmark screen . I forgot to tell you, apologies.  That is quite a good result anda big difference form the 3060, makes me envious.

 

the scenes you rendered but not shown by the bench are here along others for testing including simulations etc. https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/

 

 

[jlp0209]

17 minutes ago, Bullit said:

The score is the sum of 3 results that show after in the benchmark screen . I forgot to tell you, apologies.  That is quite a good result anda big difference form the 3060, makes me envious.

 

the scenes you rendered but not shown by the bench are here along others for testing including simulations etc. https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/

 

 

Yeah, I installed the complete app by mistake then realized I needed to register. My optimism may have been premature, game breaking stutter still in Cyberpunk even with G-sync off, and still present in Forza Horizon 5. I know both games can be finicky, so maybe not the laptop's fault. But they both run near flawlessly on my other laptop. 

[Bullit]

2 hours ago, jlp0209 said:

Yeah, I installed the complete app by mistake then realized I needed to register. My optimism may have been premature, game breaking stutter still in Cyberpunk even with G-sync off, and still present in Forza Horizon 5. I know both games can be finicky, so maybe not the laptop's fault. But they both run near flawlessly on my other laptop. 

Can you check if the culprit is only the GPU? Latencymon, some GPU tracking app?

[jlp0209]

17 hours ago, Bullit said:

Can you check if the culprit is only the GPU? Latencymon, some GPU tracking app?

Could this be the culprit? The high DPC is a result of me dragging the window and running Windows snipping tool. If I let things just sit and do nothing, there are no DPC / latency issues. 

 

[Bullit]

16 minutes ago, jlp0209 said:

Could this be the culprit? The high DPC is a result of me dragging the window and running Windows snipping tool. If I let things just sit and do nothing, there are no DPC / latency issues. 

 

 

Don't think so if that is only cause of snipping tool.

[jlp0209]

3 hours ago, Bullit said:

 

Don't think so if that is only cause of snipping tool.

Completely disabling G-sync is the only fix so far. Even when in Hybrid mode and G-sync isn't available, games still stutter. You need to actually uncheck G-sync in the NV control panel and then go back in to Optimus / hybrid mode, then there are no issues. I've tried old drivers, Lenovo stock drivers, every setting in NV control panel...nothing works. Tried reverting back to Windows 11 21H2. What a bizarre issue that only seems to affect Legion laptops that I've tried. 

[saturnotaku]

Did you flash a non-standard VBIOS?

[Bullit]

 

MUX disabling the hybrid mode and with Nvidia only do not works?

[jlp0209]

On 11/30/2022 at 7:56 PM, saturnotaku said:

Did you flash a non-standard VBIOS?

No, I am using stock vbios.

 

On 11/30/2022 at 11:19 PM, Bullit said:

 

MUX disabling the hybrid mode and with Nvidia only do not works?

Correct. I did a factory reset but have not set anything up on it yet. It has to be something Lenovo software / bios / Vantage related, why else would it happen on multiple screen types on different Legion models. There are many Reddit threads with people experiencing the same issue, not sure how widespread it is. Also likely varies based on the game. So bizarre, I’ve tried almost everything there is to try in terms of settings, disabling programs, drivers, power options, NV control panel options…