Lenovo Legion Y740 review (Y740-15ICH model – i7, RTX 2070 Max-Q)

21 Comments

  1. Eivind

    April 26, 2019 at 1:05 pm

    Lots of good reviews on this site! Like that you give us good info on thermals, powerlimits, undervolting etc. One thing I wonder about is GPU-undervolt. Using afterburner can provide some nice gains. Instead of doing regular OC, try modifying curve. On the RTX-series a flatline in the area of 1400-1600MHz can provide lower consumption\temps and in some cases improve performance. Using curve-modifiers and for instance forcing max voltage to be 800mv at 1600-1800 or similar can give improved performance at similar temps\consumption compared with stock settings :) Overclocking works fine, but it tends to raise voltage quite a bit which in turn ends with powerlimits og thermal limit.

    • Andrei Girbea

      April 30, 2019 at 10:34 am

      thanks for the suggestion, I haven't looked into GPU undervolting, but I will with the future samples

  2. Roma

    May 5, 2019 at 5:06 pm

    Hi Andrei,

    Great review, as always!

    Quick question. Are you planning on reviewing the new Yoga S940? If you are, when can we expect to read it? : )

    • Andrei Girbea

      May 6, 2019 at 9:29 am

      Hopefully, yes, but I don't have a clear timeframe for when that might happen.

      • Roma

        May 6, 2019 at 4:14 pm

        Thanks for the prompt reply! I am particularly curious about the keyboard. Would really love to know how it feels like in comparison with the latest X1 Carbon.

      • Andrei Girbea

        May 6, 2019 at 4:22 pm

        OK. I haven't touched it yet, so cannot comment on it

  3. Daniel Hamilton

    June 9, 2019 at 6:22 pm

    Im a gaming laptop junky I have the Alienware 17r5 with gtx 1080, Acer Helios 500 gtx 1070 and the Lenovo y740 with RTX Maz Q and I can tell you the the Y740 is better in my expewrience. Bettwer thermals, better RGB keyboard, better display it was $2,025.00 I just got the y740 with 2080 max q you cant BEAT THAT!

    • Andrei Girbea

      June 10, 2019 at 12:01 pm

      Thanks for the feedback, this Y740 does offer great value for what it costs, too bad for the small battery.

  4. Daniel Hamilton

    June 9, 2019 at 6:23 pm

    last post should say RTX 2080 MAX Q for the Y740

  5. Piet De Booser

    June 11, 2019 at 5:35 pm

    I bought such a Y740 and at first it did not ran longer than one hour (normal use, no games), they replaced the battery and now I get 2 hours.
    Unfortunately when I switch to switchable graphice I cannot see any differences , runtime does not get longer. Is there anything else yuo need to set when making the switch to switchanble graphics?

    • Andrei Girbea

      June 11, 2019 at 7:35 pm

      Update to the latest drivers and then check if the Nvidia GPU is deactivated with daily use, that's possible from the Control Panel. HWinfo >> Sensor can also help further look at what's eating through the battery, you'll find some logs with daily use from our review unit, try to compare those with what you get on your version.

      • Piet De Booser

        June 12, 2019 at 10:22 am

        Hi,
        I know where to chek for drivers.
        What I do not know is how to control if the Nvisia GPU is deactivated from daily use and how to check HWInfo >> Sensor.
        Can you help me out?

      • Piet De Booser

        June 12, 2019 at 4:03 pm

        The only thing I can see is in device manager in the windows control panel and over there the Nvidia is still enabled.
        Or should I look somewhere else, in another control panel, another item in the control panel?
        I found out HWinfo is a free application. In those logs I can find info about the Nvidia GPU biut not about the builtin Intel GPU.
        What should I compare in the logs to see what's eating through my battery.
        Is there a tool to look at background apps running or should I find rhe info in the HWInfo logs.
        Battery lifetime is better with discrete graphics in the bios versus switchable graphics.
        I did not change anything in running apps between those two tests.

      • Andrei Girbea

        June 12, 2019 at 4:41 pm

        HWinfo can help you monitor Power drain. Launch in Sensor mode and scroll down to Battery, right click on Charge rate >> Show graph and monitor things as you launch various apps. At idle it should read about 12-14 W, the other normal readings are in the battery section of the article.

      • Andrei Girbea

        June 12, 2019 at 4:38 pm

        right click on desktop >> Nvidia Control panel >> Desktop in the menu at the top >> Check Display GPU Activity icon. Will introduce a tray icon that will let you know when the dGPU is active and what's keeping it active.

  6. Piet De Booser

    June 12, 2019 at 7:17 pm

    Well I got 'No applications running on this GPU' so that's ok but the Battery charge Rate is between 15 and 32X W.
    So I guess I need to figure out which apps, background apps and services are eating my battery?

    • Andrei Girbea

      June 12, 2019 at 8:56 pm

      Yes, you should look at what's running when the Discharge Rate is at 15W, what happens when it's at 30, etc. As a tip, Chrome is a power hog, you can try using a different browser and see if that makes a difference. You should also play with the available power modes, ideally, the CPU should be able to clock down to 800 MHz with very low use, and only spike up for short periods with intensive tasks. The Browsing HWinfo log in the article will show you what to expect.

  7. michal s

    December 26, 2019 at 11:10 pm

    in your test u get 300 nits but its shoud be around 500 version???
    WTF??

  8. Ragna

    February 6, 2020 at 6:03 pm

    A bit late to the party, but I'll leave this for the author of this article and for whoever reads this: The Y740 results that the article posted correspond to an 80W RTX 2070 Max-Q. Here's the kicker, which makes this laptop EVEN BETTER: In Lenovo Vantage, the driver/performance suite responsible for handling the laptop's resources, you can switch from Balanced mode (the default) into a Performance Mode, which ups the RTX Max-Q to 90W, which brings it even closer to a full blown laptop 2070. Expect even better benchmark results than shown here!

    • Andrei Girbea

      February 6, 2020 at 8:55 pm

      Thanks. A full-blow 2070 is 115W, but it's good to know that the Performance Mode ramps up the power.

  9. Jeff

    January 18, 2021 at 1:37 am

    You should have gotten the 17 inch model of this Legion Y740. It's better than the 15 inch.

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