Turning on maximum detail and playing at over 60 frames per second is no longer an unattainable scenario for laptops. We tested the Lenovo Legion 7, a powerful gaming machine with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and an Intel Core i9-12900HX processor. The gaming beast did not disappoint.
This article is based on a test of an external editor and contains its real experience. This is not our editorial content, but paid advertising.
It’s hard to imagine the kind of gaming performance you can get on a top-end laptop these days. Gone are the days when these highly detailed machines showed only 60 frames. Lenovo Legion 7 with GeForce RTX 3080 Ti starts at this limit and you can play most games at much higher FPS. Paired with a 165Hz display with G-Sync support, you’ll be able to use your laptop to its full potential.
The Lenovo Legion 7 with the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and Core i9 we tested is the absolute leader in the range. Of course, this was reflected in the price, but Lenovo’s offer also includes models with the GeForce RTX 3070 and weaker processors. At the same time, the workmanship is identical, and for less money you get a machine of the same design with excellent performance.
When it comes to build quality, the Legion cannot be faulted. A laptop with a 16-inch screen looks very elegant at first glance. This is due to the edging, reminiscent of brushed metal. Shades of gray at first glance indicate that this is a work machine worthy of a company director.
Opening the lid, you will also be impressed by the screen with very small bezels on all sides. Lenovo Legion 7 offers a 16:10 aspect ratio display. At the same time, there is still a Full HD camera on the top edge. There are no compromises in the form of moving the camera down. After all, this approach is applicable to other specifications.
The keyboard again combines practicality and elegance. The buttons themselves have the iconic ergonomic shape that has been highly regarded in Lenovo laptops for years. At the same time, customizable RGB lighting appeared. The keyboard is distinguished not only by a fully Czech layout, but also by separate arrows and the presence of a number block. Given the dimensions of the laptop, the engineers apparently had to work hard to fit the keyboard into the case. There is a minimum of free space due to the large trackpad. You’ll fall in love with its size while you work, and you’ll only look for the mouse minimally outside of gaming.
Superlatives can also be used for screen. It has a resolution of 2560×1600 pixels, i.e. slightly extended QHD resolution (more precisely, WQXGA). The maximum brightness is up to 500 nits, there is HDR, G-Sync, Dolby Vision and TUV Rheinland certification. The response dropped to 3ms, the refresh rate then reaches 165Hz in our version. A 240Hz version is also available.
In order to achieve a smooth image at this resolution, you need really powerful hardware. The main role in games belongs to the video card. In this case, this is the absolute top from Nvidia. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti model with 175W TGP can generate tens of frames per second even at this high resolution. Therefore, we have chosen three demanding games with ray tracing or DLSS. First, this is a complete novelty in the form of A Plague Tale: Requiem. Next, Peter Parker and I took to the streets of New York in Spider-Man: Remastered. The last choice will please motorists. You can enjoy F1 22 racing with really high fps.
However, before the gaming tests, we will mention the rest of the characteristics. The 24-thread Intel Core i9-12900HX is also a very powerful piece of silicon. After all, Cinebench R23 also showed this. The result of 18,868 points leaves even some desktop chips behind.
The processor and graphics duo is complemented by 32GB of DDR5 4800MHz high-speed RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD. We can safely say that you will not wait until any program or game is turned on. A large amount of RAM contributes to multitasking, which the laptop handles easily.
The specification ends with a list of ports. The left side has two fast Thunderbolt 4 ports, while the right side has USB-C and a microphone. Where do the rest go? After all, at the back, where the power is, two USB-A, another UBS-C 3.2 Gen 2 with DisplayPort support, a new HDMI 2.1 and Ethernet supporting up to 2.5 Gb / s. From practice, I have to praise the location of the ports behind the display, no need to bother with turning the laptop over when connecting cables. Wireless connectivity is represented by WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1.
The laptop also has a 99Wh battery. For practical reasons, it is no longer possible to install a larger one. Don’t expect a battery to last all day while gaming, but 4th generation Nvidia Max-Q based laptops can make it last. In particular, the CPU optimizer and Battery Boost 2.0 will take care of this. In this case, artificial intelligence can effectively use the components while providing high performance. This will increase battery life by up to 70%. Max-Q also has other features, modes, and technologies that you can customize in GeForce Experience for maximum performance, noise reduction, memory efficiency, and more.
When you have to look for an outlet, fast charging will please you. You can reach 100% in less than an hour and a half. The laptop can also be charged via USB-C, which you will appreciate at school, for example. You just need to put a more powerful USB-C charger in your bag, which you can also use for your phone.
The specification is rounded out by a pair of speakers tuned by Harman. At the same time, everything fit in a case weighing 2.5 kilograms. Given the performance, this is a very good value.
Now finally to the games and let’s not forget that we play at a resolution of 2560 × 1600 pixels :). A Plague Tale: Requiem was first on the agenda. Testing took place at the initial stage of the game. The very complex graphics and our love for an uncompromising environment that brings an otherworldly experience to the game was reflected in the frame rate. But you definitely don’t need hundreds of FPS for a story game because it’s all about the details. At the highest possible settings and in the most demanding places, the laptop without DLSS produced about 36 frames per second. After enabling DLSS, we get 48 FPS for quality, and up to 58 FPS in performance mode. In all cases, the frame rate was stable. All scenarios were playable, but DLSS brought absolute fluidity, further graphical optimization of the game will mean dozens of FPS more. It is also worth adding that there were also locations in which we achieved 70 FPS with the same settings with DLLS for performance.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered was a little painful in the test. The number of frames per second depends on the area of the city and the view of New York. It is all the more pleasant that you don’t have to deal with this deviation, and without the FPS indicator, you are unlikely to even notice the difference. Without DLSS and RTX, the game showed about 90 FPS. If you enable both technologies, you will reach 100 FPS.
In Spider-Man, G-Sync especially shined. The screen refresh rate always adjusts to the generated FPS. In the dense center, the frame rate usually dropped to 70 FPS, when climbing skyscrapers, on the contrary, the figure reached over 120 frames. In all cases, the game was absolutely smooth.
The laptop got hot while playing at these high settings, but it always had time to cool down. Graphics and CPU temperatures were around 80°C, which is definitely a good result. The cooling noise is also acceptable. You will need headphones during the game, but this is not a big deal.
Last but not least, here we have formulas. This year, F1 22 received full ray tracing and DLSS support. The result is a desktop. During the benchmark, it was not difficult to reach over 120 FPS, with the RTX turned off, the refresh rate was also close to the screen limit, i.e. 165 FPS. Here the differences between a laptop and a desktop are already blurred. Even with a car that fits in a backpack, you can race like a pro.
The power of DLSS and G-Sync is key for laptops. Image scaling using machine learning saves valuable performance, which is then reflected in a higher refresh rate. G-Sync, on the other hand, keeps the screen refresh rate in sync with the graphics output. This way you will always get a smooth image. For example, A Plague Tale felt reasonably smooth even though the game barely hit 60 FPS.
For fans of competitive games, the Nvidia Reflex function has been prepared, which reduces the response of the system. It also perfectly complements the high screen refresh rate and low response. Competitive play is not the slightest problem in Legion.
For video calls, Nvidia Broadcast comes in handy, where you can remove the background of the camera or filter out noise from the microphone with one click.
Streaming from such a powerful laptop is also not a problem. Not only the aforementioned Nvidia Broadcast app will find use here, but also the NVENC encoder. Its advantage is that the video is efficiently encoded by the video card and not by the processor. The result is a cleaner image and better use of the laptop’s performance.
Students can take advantage of the AI acceleration of a number of applications. The laptop excels mostly in technical areas and content creation-oriented programs, including Adobe, Blender or Davinci Resolve applications.
Due to its versatility, the laptop is especially suitable for students. They can perform more complex calculations in the hostel, where they also play in the evenings with the highest detail.
Lenovo Legion 7 is just a dream car. Uncompromising performance is finally embodied in a practical laptop case. An overall display with small bezels, a wide range of ports, solid cooling and a comfortable keyboard. All this makes this machine one of the best on the market.
Source : Zing
