Lenovo Legion 5 and 7 (2020)

It'll be a complete waste of money. Just wait till laptops with RTX 3000 series/ AMD 6000 series gpus are released, you already have a very powerful laptop.

 

This is first batch issue. Second batch has normal temps.

 

RGB lighting decoration seems to be suffocating the system's heat dissipation. This was pointed out in Jarrod's review.
My Legion 5(AMD regular) runs quite cool even after 3hrs of usage.

 

Once u had gone big... it's going to be a time of struggle to go small.
Anyway, Legion 5i-17 should be available now in some markets, although i don't know resellers over at ur side is carrying such stocks or not...
An announcement was made on the plan to release the Legion 5-17 with Ryzen CPU and RTX2060/270 in coming months. It's either u wait, or perhaps now look around for the Intel system with those RTX cards.

 

I guess I'll probably have to wait as it's not even out here yet either.

 

For the moment, u can give the TongFang built GK7NR-0 variants(XMG Core17/Elutroniks Matrix RP17) with rtx2070 dGPU.
As i forsee, that Lenovo's pricing then will not be that much cheaper as the rtx2070/60 dGPU are the Trump Cards of nVidia now...

 

Welp I decided to order the 7i with i7-10750H, RTX 2070 Super Max-Q, 240 Hz screen.
It's only going to be a marginal improvement coming from the Y740 with i7-9750H, RTX 2070 Max-Q and 144 Hz display but it was the other portions that I liked about it moreso; given the price I got each of them for, it's going to cost about nothing to upgrade. Just couldn't pass up the IGD2020 code with military discount and 15% cashback through Rakuten. Getting a $3100 for $2200 CAD is pretty great, even if the new cards are going to be announced next week.
The biggest contributing factor that had me want to get the 7i is the better keyboard layout (I miss the numpad), the power button changing colour to match the power profile to know what it's on, bigger battery, Nvidia advanced Optimus, and webcam on top. Realistically I probably won't notice the difference between the 144 and 240 Hz displays but it's still nice.
Really hoping that the vapour chamber is sorted out and it should be effective with the 2070 super vs the 2080S. If I have to repaste it, I don't mind: done that a lot with my Y740 since thermal grizzly Kryonaut doesn't have good longevity it seems.
Either way, looking forward to it!

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Got my Legion 7i in! Gotta say, I did not expect to see any difference between the 144Hz display of the Y740 and the 240Hz of the 7i; I was wrong. When scrolling online, it's a huge difference as the text remains readable while scrolling which is impressive! Modern Warfare is seeing about a 20-25% increase in fps on performance with the 2070 Super Max-Q over the 2070 Max-Q. I expected less so that is awesome. While the physical dimensions are actually smaller than the Y740, the 7i feels heavier, more dense. It's both thinner, less deep, and a sliver slimmer. And that new charger is SO much smaller than the previous! That in and of itself is amazing.
So while that performance is great in games and I don't notice much throttling, it's still getting up to 95*C despite the vapor chamber... I expected better thermal management with the 6-core vice 8-core and having the 2070 Super Max-Q vice 2080... Guess this first revision of vapor chambers really aren't great as many have alluded to in here. I even unlocked the advanced bios in order to allow Throttlestop to function and undervolt by 95mV. Also set up a curve for the GPU maxing at 1V and 1860MHz.
The keys are smaller than Y740 which will take a little getting used as I'm making errors but I'm just so happy to have a numpad again! I will get used to it for sure. Otherwise it's quite a pleasant typing experience so far.
While I love having the power light function to see the different states you're in, it seems as though Lenovo Vantage always just says it is in Balanced until you click to change it and then it shows the right power mode. Another issue I noticed that Hybrid mode still requires a restart to enable and disable (defeating the purpose of Nvidia Advanced Optimus) but when hybrid mode is enabled, it will attempt to use the iGPU in benchmarking tests (and I would therefore assume games too) so I will leave it off for the time being until that little bug is fixed. However, when hybrid mode is on? GREAT battery life. With it at 50% brightness, hybrid mode on and scrolling online and downloading things back, it was showing over 5 hours expected battery life which is fantastic.
Anyway, here are a couple pictures comparing between the two of them.



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The 7i doesn't have Advanced Optimus, and I don't think Lenovo ever advertised it as such.

 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=615507382389406&extid=7vHuqjnrHVMahhbU
There are also plenty of articles stating that they are the first ones to enable Advanced Optimus; however I guess it doesn't apply to me because the 240 Hz display doesn't have GSync. It was just made out to be a big deal to not have to reboot to turn on and off hybrid mode in order to enable Optimus but I guess that's not really the case. There are plenty of other people having issues as well.

Also, Lenovo does have it right in the product description:

Battery life-hack
A seamless fusion between mighty and mobile, the Legion 7i features all-day battery life via a powerful 80Whr battery and a smart dynamic discharge power management system, all charged via a sleek and slim power adapter. Charge from 0-50% in under 30 minutes with Rapid Charge Pro. Toggle between Quiet Mode with Q Control 3.0, Hybrid Mode with Advanced Optimus Technology that intelligently switches between the dedicated GPU and integrated GPU for improved battery life, or just throw caution to the wind and kick it into Performance Mode for maximum frame rate goodness.

 

I did indeed miss that. Borderline false advertising right there.

 

Biggest thing I don't like? The wild thermals... performance is great but a 30*C differential in core temperature? That's insanely bad.

 

Could that potentially be a bad fit or warping where the plate meets the CPU die?

 

Very likely. I'm just going to chalk it up to a defective vapor chamber but since it's new, I'm having them replace the whole thing. Why would I accept repair on a new laptop? Na. Got the exchange approved so now I just have to wait.

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I just ordered the Amazon version.

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-1920x...aming+laptop+amd+1660ti&qid=1598642841&sr=8-3

Nothing can beat it at that price especially with a 4800H, 1660ti, 144hz 300nit screen, and 16GBs of RAM.

Since it doesnt come with a 2nd storage drive im planning to install my HDD from my current laptop since i already use it as a data drive to store most of my stuff then later down the line replace it with a 2nd M.2 NVME SSD.

 

THAT"S A DAMMMMMN GOOD DEAL!!!
Btw... after a search in PSREF, ur model turns out to be a 60whr battery configuration.
This means that u get only one m.2 SSD storage, while a SATA for 2.5" storage of ur own upgrade choice(Mechanical HDD or SSD).

 

Yeah!.

Even with the smaller battery i expect about 4-5 hours of battery life which is good enough for me. It'll be here tommorrow thanks to Prime

Also the Maximum RAM allowed with the legions is 32GBs which is a big relief for the future

 

I got the Laptop today and had a rough start because the laptop wouldnt turn on and i was very close of returning it until i plugged in the charger and it turned on.....

Idk its a feature or not but anyways besides that the legion is great so far. I havent done any gaming on it yet because im still setting everything up.

Heres proof of the 1660ti




I will post more info and pics another time

 

Well... U got urself an untampered set there which is subjected by international shipping regulations, cannot be turned on unless triggered by proper power supply.
My company's product which requires battery to act as memory backup, needs to hv battery removals or disable before shipping as well... And that turns out to be a challenging issue when the product reaches customers' end...

 

Oh ok i didnt know that and i was very close of returning it. I even opened the laptop to see if any ribbon cables was loose or unplugged...

 

Alright, so my replacement came in and I have to say, I'm happy with this one. Best benchmark I could achieve in Firestrike for the previous hot one was 17.7k and 7888 for Timespy; this one is hitting 18.2k in Firestrike and 7896 in Timespy. While that doesn't seem like much of an increase, the curve applied in Afterburner speaks wonders about the card in this new machine. The previous one topped out at 1860 MHz at a 975mV cap, and this one topped out at 1875 MHz at the same 975mV; meaning it is more efficient. Additionally, this machine was running at a peak temperature of 93*C but averaging in the high 80's which is still higher than the 9750H and 2070 Max-Q I had previously that topped out at 88*C but less than the first one with an absurd 98*C peak. Userbenchmark also shows amazing results, as well with this i7-10750H achieving 100% percentile which is crazy good (best score for a 10750H). So while my first 7i was performing well, albeit hot, this one is much, much better. It really is the luck of the draw with the silcon lottery.
Over all, I am happy I upgraded from the Legion Y740. The RTX 2070 Super Max-Q is absolutely a great upgrade over the RTX 2070 Max-Q and this is illustrated with an uptick of about 20% in FPS in Call of Duty Warzone: approximately 120 FPS vs 100 FPS with the same settings and Ray-Tracing enabled.

 

Ok nearly 2 weeks of having the Legion 5 besides having certain issues with Windows 10 its a awesome laptop and it was well worth the wait!. Like i said before for the price i paid for nothing come close with specs like these. Playing games like GTA V temps rarely reached above 80C and the cooling system quickly bring the temps down to upper 60s and lower 70s even running on performance mode which is insane plus the fans run very quiet too. I ran Prime95 for about a half hour and the temps reached to 94C after about 20mins and started throttling but the system quickly cooled down to the upper 70s with the fans running at full blast. Im not a fan of running benchmark tests but with the 4800H/1660ti i got a score of 6029 in Timespy and a score of 13488 in Firestrike which are better scores than Intel laptops with the 1660ti. The only con with this laptop is the battery life which is expected with the smaller battery and the 4800H, Out of the box i got around 3-4 hours of battery life but after some tweaks and disabling boost from the CPU on battery and running on power saver mode i got around 5 to 6 hours.

Overall i am very happy with this laptop. The deal is still ongoing on Amazon if you're interested. I think the RTX 2060 version will be out in October here in the states but im not sure.




Bigger heatpipes with the 1660ti & RTX 2060 Config


230W AC


3DMark




CrystalDiskMark with the Samsung NVMe SSD

 

And yet the graphics scores are lower than my Zephyrus G with 1660ti Max-q

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/22961346
14708 vs 15830 firestrike graphics

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/12671011
5669 vs 5915 timespy graphics

 

Clearly you've overclocked your 1660ti max-q to reach the normal clock speeds of the non max-q 1660ti going by your core clocks and memory clock speeds, I kept mines on stock clocks when i did the tests.

Anyways i did another run of 3dmark just now and got the nearly the same results as yesterday

Timespy
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/50712727

Firestrike
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/50712948

 

Try it with an overclock, its free performance after all.

 

Yup this is very true! My RTX 2070 Super Max-Q performs at the same level (or above as compared to the Origin laptop with AMD Ryzen R9 3900) as a RTX 2070 Super Max-P all with a simple curved overclock with max topped at 975mV.

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Can anyone confirm if the L5 4800/1660ti has a mux switch? and any kind of tips and tricks to max gaming performance?

Thanks

 

Maybe in the future but right now im happy with the current performance of the 1660ti

Yes, same as the legion 7 and last year models Y540 & Y740. Also Optimus is disabled by default in the BIOS. You can easily enable/disable optimus through Lenovo's Vantage Software and in BIOS. I recommend updating the GPU drivers before playing any games.

 

I know that Intel locked the undervolting capability for the 10th gen processors, but in the advanced BIOS I know it is possible. Does anyone know of any guide to modify the settings in the advanced BIOS to do that? Thanks!

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Only the 300nits 144Hz panel has it.

 

Could you monitor the GPU power draw while it's under load with hwinfo64? (Performance mode)

To enable advanced BIOS in 7i: Click 'more options' to enter BIOS, then hold Fn, run your finger across the keyboard: Q-P, A-L, Z-M (must slide fast). Press F10, and Yes. Spam/hold F2 to enter BIOS. To enable undervolting: advanced>overclocking performance menu>enable overclocking feature>enable XTU interface

 

Thanks for this. I knew up until that point but am not sure about what value to actually use in the multitude of options... Is it Processor, GT, Ring or Uncore?


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While playing GTA V for 18 minutes on Performance mode. GPU temps stays in the 60s when gaming.

 

Does that work for Legion 5?

I'm just ordered a 15IMH05H (i5-10300H / RTX2060), but I'm concerned about the following:

1) Intel undervolt lock.
2) RTX TDP limited to 80W.

I'd be VERY keen to remove both of these, but I gather that unlocking / bypassing the TDP on the RTX is extremely difficult and either involves a BIOS mod (and I've already seen someone brick theirs) or a shunt mod...

EDIT - I found another Lenovo "secret" keypress sequence too:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkC...OS-Setup-on-ThinkCentre-M720-Tiny/m-p/5015557

EDIT2 - Hah, and another one!

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo...ced-BIOS-Settings-in-Ideapad-S540/m-p/5027364

EDIT3 - and another...

"i unlocked advance options pressing fn + o + d just right after reboot. Just before legion logo appears, it will reboot again, you will see that your keyboard's light turn on and then turn off twice, release the keys and then you'll see something like this (see attached). Then press f2 to enter bios and you gonna have advance options unlocked"

EDIT4 - and another...

"Just enter the BIOS normal (pressing F2 at boot up) then press Fn+TAB, then Fn+ASDFGH, then Fn+O, after that F10 (save and exit). Then the laptop will restart into debug mode, just follow on screen instructions to enter the unlocked BIOS. Remember that unlocking the hidden features doesnt unlock the BIOS permanently. You have to do this everytime you want to acces the BIOS hidden features. Good luck !"

 

Seems the Legion is likely to have the newer 1F51 2060 mobile, which theoretically supports 115W TDP.

Someone in this thread managed to flash their (non-Lenovo) laptop with a 1F51 2060 to 115W:

https://www.win-raid.com/t5087f16-Requesting-a-modded-vbios-for-Rtx-max-Q-1.html#msg121945

Anyone want to try it!?

 

OK, so I can get the debug info to appear by holding Fn + O + D, after which I can enter the BIOS by pressing F2, but there are very few (if any) additional options, which makes me think there is no advanced BIOS for this laptop.

XTU disabled.

Will see if I can enable XTU with BIOS mod...

 

OK, XTU enabled as per https://www.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/com.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

 

Boom! 115W MSI VBIOS working on Legion 5!

Sure, nvflash complains that the subsystem ID is wrong, but because the main bit is the same (1F15), overriding subsystem ID mismatch with -6 works.

Previous boost limit was 1200 MHz (GPUZ). Actual boost limit was around 1600 Mhz before hitting power limit.

After flash, boost limit is 1560 Mhz (GPUZ). Actual boost limit is now around 1860 Mhz before power limit hit.

Now to tinker with custom voltage curves...

 

Now stable @ 1950 MHz core (925 mV, custom curve), +500MHz memory.

EDIT - Actually, it's only benchmark stable @ 1950.

Game stable @ 1905.

 

are you able to use discrete mode with those vbios? of all the 115w vbios i tested, none worked in discrete and any gains i seen with the 115w vbios were lost by having to use optimus.

once i get my legion 5 back i was planning on trying the 115w i heard was coming on a newer legion 5/7 model, that or shunt mod.

EDIT: if you have not tried discrete mode yet with those vbios, i suggest you memorize the key presses to get into bios and switch back to hybrid because the screen will be black and you'll need to do it blindly (i found out the hard way).

 

Thanks for the edit - I'd actually just read about that issue elsewhere!

Do you have any links or evidence that discrete / hybrid in BIOS has any performance implications? (I've tried a quick Google, but not found anything yet).

I've not tried comparing yet, but I simply tell Windows (i.e. nVidia drivers settings) to "prefer maximum performance" and when sitting with just Chrome open, it's using the RTX.

i.e. my belief is that Windows overrides the BIOS (or at least it does when you set it up).

 

in hybrid mode the nvidia gpu does the rendering but it then has to be passed through to the iGPU which is in control of the display, some games that are not very optimized this doesnt matter much but on most games this comes with significant performance loss, not to mention more need for vsync to be enabled.

the legion 5i/7i were the first laptops to get Advanced Optimus which can switch display control from iGPU to dGPU on the fly when needed but nobody has been able to make it work so hybrid mode is just plain old optimus garbage. this doesnt only effect gpu performance, in hybrid mode i get 300-400 point lower scores on cinebench r20 and higher temps because the intel iGPU is using power that you'd be using all of for the cpu when in discrete mode.

jarrodstech did a video on it but these are things i've known for years, optimus kills performance, the only benefit it has is battery life savings when not doing graphic intensive tasks but since your flashing higher power vbios and your using optimus with the nvidia gpu set as the default gpu i dont think you really care much about battery life anyway. for me, i could care less if the laptop came with AA batteries since 99% of the time im plugged in and i heavily prefer performance over battery savings.


edit: the "g-sync" aspect of that video means absolutely nothing, only that g-sync only works in discrete mode

 

Haha, just back after trying discrete mode.

It did indeed turn off my display, so thanks for the tip about memorising the key presses to switch back!

I did a benchmark in discrete mode and hybrid mode - using Unigine Superposition, there is no difference. ~4300 points in both modes.

I'm back to hybrid now because I do actually need the laptop screen sometimes!

 

By any chance does someone know if the external display connections (HDMI, USB-C) for the AMD model are driven by the Nvidia GPU or AMD GPU in hybrid mode?

 

superposition is not very cpu dependent if i remember correctly (could be wrong), youd need to run something with combined load like a game benchmark to notice. i also have other reasons i hate optimus like linux and the new nvidia prime render offloading solution is garbage. when i get my legion 5i back from lenovo i was thinking of going the shunt mod route but im gonna make a new thread for that seeing as how i've never done it before and i'd like to know if the vrm's have enough headroom to handle it

 

You've bigger balls than me!

I was bricking it (no pun intended!) when I flashed the 115W BIOS and then again when I unlocked XTU!

I really wanted the BIOS flash to work so I wasn't power-limited (these laptops have loads of thermal headroom on the GPU), but I wouldn't resort to a hard mode (although I have done hard vMods before, but only on desktop gfx cards).

 

i actually managed to completely brick mine, i flashed a modded bios to get advanced bios settings and it worked great the first time, i had every setting under the sun in bios but i changed something i shouldnt of by mistake. when i went to reflash the bios with the spi programmer the second time to reverse my mistake the spi programmer went to **** and took my laptop with it . i've tried many many hours and using a new working spi programmer but it's now a hardware issue so i had to send it in.

Working advanced bios on Legion 5i:

 

Its driven by the Nvidia GPU

 

Unfortunately my new 7i just died... Was playing Modern Warfare and then all of a sudden blue screen and WHEA UNCORRECTABLE ERROR... Wouldn't reset or recover either as it would blue screen during with that or KERNEL EXCEPTION... Seems to be a serious hardware issue with either the motherboard, GPU, ssd or RAM or a combination of all. Not happy as this would make it my second lemon in 3 weeks...

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That's sucks... People are going get a lemon once in a while but twice is just plain unlucky

I been hearing a lot of horror stories with the Legion 7 lately with owners reporting broken hinges after 2 weeks