This article is our detailed review of the highest-tier configuration of the 2022 Lenovo Legion 5i Pro series, with Intel 12th-gen i7-12700H + 32GB RAM + Nvidia RTX 3070Ti specs.
I’ve already reviewed the mid-tier i7 + RTX 3060 configuration of the Legion 5i Pro laptop in a previous article , so I’m not going over all the details again in here. If you’re interested in my thoughts on the design and ergonomics, typing experience, and screen options, you’ll find those covered in that article.
Instead, in this review, we’re specifically looking at the performance gains offered by the RTX 3070Ti dGPU in comparison to the RTX 3060 specs in the same laptop, both for production work and for gaming, so you’ll know which variant is worthy of your money. The price difference between the two is normally of around 200-300 EUR/USD or equivalent, but occasionally you can even find the 3070Ti model for only around 100 EUR/USD more than the 3060.
Specs as reviewed– 2022 Lenovo Legion 5i Pro 7th-gen
Lenovo Legion 5i Pro 16ACH7H 2022 (gen 7)
Screen 16 inch, 2560×1600 px, IPS, 165 Hz, matte, 3ms
Processor Intel 12th-gen Alder Lake, Core i7-12700H, 6PC + 8 Ec/20T
Video Iris Xe + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070Ti with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM 125-150W,
Memory 32 GB DDR5-4800 (2x 8GB DIMMS) – 2x DIMMs
Storage 1 TB M.2 gen4 NVMe (Samsung PM9A1) – 2x M.2 2280 PCIe gen4 SSD slots
Connectivity WiFi 6E (Intel AX211), Bluetooth 5.2, Gigabit LAN (Realtek RTL8168/8111)
Ports Left: 1x USB-C 3.2 gen2, 1x USB-C 4.0 with Thunderbolt 4 (on Intel only, 3.2 gen2 on AMD)
Battery 80 Whr, 300 W charger, USB-C charging up to 135W
Size 356 mm or 14.01” (w) x 264.2 mm or 10.4” (d) x 21.7-26.85 mm or .86-1.1” (h)
Weight 2.53 kg (5.57 lbs),+ 1.15 kg (2.54 lbs) for the charger+cables, EU version
Extras 4-zone RGB backlit keyboard, HD webcam with E-shutter kill switch, stereo bottom speakers
You can find this laptop in stores in multiple variants, going from i5 + RTX 3050Ti up to i7 + 3070Ti configurations, with various amounts of RAM and SSD storage.
Update: If interested, here are our thoughts on the updated 2023 Lenovo Legion Pro 5 and Pro 5i models . And here’s our coverage of what looks like the 2023 successor of the standard Legion 5 series, the new Lenovo LOQ 15/16 lineup .
And here’s our detailed review of the 2023 Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (i9 + RTX 4070) model . And here’s our review of the mainstream Legion Pro 5i i7 + RTX 4060 configuration .
Design, screens and inputs As mentioned already, go over to this previous article for my impressions of the design, ergonomics, typing experience, and screen options available for the Legion 5i Pro series.
As a bonus for this article, though, here’s how the Legion 5, 5 Pro, and 7 lineups look next to each other, in the 2022 model year variants.
Hardware and performance Our test model is the highest-specced configuration of the 2022 Lenovo Legion 5i Pro, built on an Intel Core i7-12700H processor, 32 GB of DDR5-4800 memory in dual channel, 1 TB of SSD storage, and dual graphics: the Nvidia RTX 3070Ti dGPU with 8 GB of vRAM and the Iris Xe iGPU integrated within the Intel processor.
Disclaimer: This is a retail unit provided for this review by Lenovo, and it runs on the software available as of late-August 2022 (BIOS J2CN40WW, Vantage 3.13.14.0, GeForce 512.64 drivers). This is a mature software package, as the laptop has been available in stores for a few months now, but some aspects might still change with later updates.
Spec-wise, this 2022 Legion 5i Pro is built on the latest Intel and Nvidia hardware available to date. The Core i7-12700H is the mainstream performance option in Intel’s Alder Lake 12th-gen platform, with 14 Cores and 20 Threads. It is a hybrid design with 6 High-Performance and dual-threaded Cores, and 8 extra Efficiency cores, which work together in the various loads. The design and thermal module of this Legion allow the processor to run at 100+W of sustained power in demanding CPU loads.
For the GPU, the 2022 Legion 5i Pro series is available with RTX 3000 and RTX 3000 Ti graphics chips. What we have on this sample is the RTX 3070Ti running at up to 150W with Dynamic Boost in supported games and applications. In comparison, the 2021 Legion 5 Pros allowed up to 130W of GPU power for the 3070 model.
A MUX is offered here, with several modes including dGPU-only or Advanced Optimus (several Hybrid modes). Switching to dGPU mode requires a restart.
For the RAM and storage options, the laptop still comes with two accessible memory DIMMs and two M.2 SSD slots. Our unit is a 32 GB of DDR5-4800 RAM configuration, with a fast PCIe 4.0 Samsung PM9A1 SSD.
Getting to the components requires you to remove a few Philips screws, all visible around the back, and then pull up the D-panel. Use a plastic pin and/or a suction cup and work your way slowly starting from the front lip and then around the air grills on the sides – you’ll struggle here, because the caps are snug and you’ll have to pull hard. Inside, the RAM and SSDs are covered by radiator shields, so you’ll have to take those out as well to get to the components. Overall, upgrades are possible here, but the process is a bit more complicated than on other devices.
For the software, my unit came with the standard Lenovo software package, and you’ll want to uninstall some of it or put a fresh Windows install on it. The Lenovo Vantage app is a must-have for accessing power profiles, updates, and other settings.
The power profiles are Quiet, Balanced, and Performance, and you can select them from Vantage or switch between them with Fn+Q. Performance is only available with the laptop plugged into the wall. These profiles apply different power settings to the CPU/GPU and different fan profiles, as well as switch the color of the LED in the power button.
Here’s a table that shows what each mode does:
Quiet (blue) Balance (white) Balance + Ai(white) Performance (red)
TDP PL1/PL2
TGP
TDP PL1/PL2
TGP
TDP PL1/PL2
TGP
TDP PL1/PL2
TGP
25/45W
~40W
60W/80W
~120W
60W/80W
up to 150W*
115W/135W
up to 150W
These power settings are different than on the mid-tier Legion 5i Pro reviewed a few months ago, and that suggests Lenovo addressed them in a more recent BIOS update. From what I’ve been told, you will get these power settings if you get the laptop with Windows preinstalled from Lenovo, but if you plan to install a fresh copy of Windows without any of the Lenovo extra software, that will impact the Blanace and Quiet power-limits, as explained in my previous review.
There’s also an option to overclock the GPU in the BIOS/Vantage on this model. By default, it applies a +100 MHz Clock, +200 MHz Memory overclock, but you can further tweak it.
As far as everyday use goes, the laptop runs snappily and stays cool and quiet, so no complaints here.
Performance and benchmarks On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance by running the Cinebench R15 test for 15+ times in a loop, with a 1-2 seconds delay between each run.
The Core i7-12700H processor stabilizes at ~100W of sustained power on the Performance setting, with the laptop sitting on the desk. Lenovo applies 115W PL2 and 135W PL1 power limits for the processor on this power mode, but the CPU ends up thermally throttled and thus has to drop in power in order to prevent any overheating issues. We’re looking at temperatures in the very high 90s Celsius throughout the loops, despite the fans spinning at around 50 dBA at head level.
Bumping the back of the laptop off the desk in order to improve the airflow into the fans allows the processor to stabilize at around 110W of power, with the same kind of high temperatures and noise levels. The 10W of extra power translates into 2-3% higher scores in the Cinebench loops.
Switching over to the Balance profile translates into the CPU stabilizing at the 60W PL2 setting, with quieter fans and cooler temperatures. The Cinebench performance takes a 25% hit over the previous mode.
On the Quiet profile, the CPU runs at only 25W, with sub 30 dB noise levels and temperatures in the 50s C. However, the performance in this mode is only around 35-40% of what the CPU is capable of in Performance mode.
Finally, the CPU runs at ~25 W on battery as well, on the Performance profile. Details below.
I still feel there’s room to further improve these profiles.
The CPU runs hot and is thermally throttled on the Performance mode, while the middle-ground Balance profile is a fair mix of CPU performance, average temperatures, and medium fan noise, but does sacrifice the performance in sustained CPU loads by 20-25%. That means you’ll have to go with the Performance mode for any serious work, and have to accept the high CPU temperatures. You could opt for some sort of stand or cooling pad to help the cooling, but that will most likely only translate into higher CPU power (and a slight boost in performance), but not lower temperatures. With the current power settings and cooling design, the CPU is always going to run at 95+ Celsius in sustained CPU loads on Performance mode, which is not ideal.
To put these findings in perspective, here’s how this Core i7-12700H implementation fares against other higher-tier laptops in this test, both Intel and AMD, as well as the previous-generation Legion 5 Pro 2021 with AMD hardware.
Somehow, the i7-12700H in the regular Legion 5i outscores this 5i Pro implementation while running at a lower sustained power and a bit quieter, but the differences are within the margin of error. At the same time, the i7 in the 2022 Legion 5i Pro is competitive against other implementations of the same hardware, and quite a step-up from the AMD platforms in this sort of test, both the Ryzen 6000 and 5000 variants.
We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and Blender – Classroom, which resulted in similar findings to what we explained above.
We also ran the 3DMark CPU test on the Performance and Balanced profiles.
Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This unit failed to pass the test with the laptop sitting on the desk, suggesting the performance is impacted as the heat builds up, but then it passed the test with flying colors with the back of the laptop bumped up in order to improve the airflow of fresh air into the fans. We’ll further touch on this in the gaming section down below.
Next, we ran the entire suite of tests and benchmarks, on the Performance profile in Vantage, the MUX set on Hybrid mode, GPU Ovberclock switched ON, and on FHD screen resolution for consistency with our other tests. Here’s what we got:
3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 25112 (Graphics – 29238, Physics – 27957, Combined – 11712);3DMark 13 – Port Royal: 7112;3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 11672 (Graphics – 11546, CPU – 12445);Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 7580;Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 21785;Handbrake 1.3.3 (4K to 1080p encode): 66.01 average fps;PassMark 10: Rating: 6507 (CPU: 31643, 3D Graphics: 21710, Memory: 3287, Disk Mark: 30533);PCMark 10: 7586 (Essentials – 10226, Productivity – 10025, Digital Content Creation – 11558);GeekBench 5.4.3 64-bit: Single-Core: 1769, Multi-core: 14014;CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 2832 cb, CPU Single Core 263 cb;CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 6927 cb, CPU Single Core 698 cb;CineBench R23: CPU 18015 cb (best single run), CPU 17392 cb (10 min run), CPU Single Core 1802 cb;x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 24.25 s.
And here are some workstation benchmarks, on the same Performance profile:
Blender 3.01 – BMW scene – CPU Compute: 2m 22s (Performance);Blender 3.01 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 19.3s (CUDA), 10.4s (Optix);Blender 3.01 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 5m 25s (Performance);Blender 3.01 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute: 37s (CUDA), 22.6s (Optix);Pugetbench – DaVinci Resolve: 1123;Pugetbench – Adobe After Effects: crashed;Pugetbench – Adobe Photoshop: 1161;Pugetbench – Adobe Premiere: 1081;SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 108.19 (Performance);SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 72.83 (Performance);SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo: 101.51 (Performance);SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy: 27.84 (Performance);SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 282.42 (Performance);SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical: 37.61 (Performance);SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 22.71 (Performance);SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 236.24 (Performance).V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 11864 vsamples, GPU CUDA – 1413 vpaths, GPU RTX – 1842;
This laptop performs much as you’d expect from these specs.
For comparison, the same specs in the slightly larger Acer Predator Helios 17 return a slight increase in CPU scores (within less than 5% in sustained loads), and the same sort of GPU scores.
As for the 15-inch Asus ROG Scar 15 , that i9 + RTX 3070 150W configuration in that laptop has a slight edge in the CPU multi-threaded loads (within less than 7%), while scoring similarly in GPU loads.
It’s also worth comparing this to some of the more portable RTX 3070Ti designs running at 120-125W of power, such as the Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 (Intel) or Zephyrus G15 (AMD). The Intel-based Legion has a slight advantage in the CPU loads, due to its higher sustained power settings, while on the GPU side, the 150W chip in the Legion outscores the mid-power chips by about 10-15% percent in tests, and normally less in real-life workloads and games.
One other aspect I want to cover here is the performance difference between the i7 + RTX 3060 140W and the i7 + RTX 3070Ti 150W configurations in the 2022 Legion 5i Pro chassis. Here’s what we got in our tests:
i7-12700H + 3060 140W i7-12700H + 3070Ti 150W
3DMark – Fire Strike 21472 (G – 22998, P– 29199, C – 11336)
24586 (G – 27922, P – 27957, C – 11838);
3DMark – Port Royal 5379
7112
3DMark – Time Spy 9614 (Graphics – 9202, CPU – 12892)
11672 (Graphics – 11546, CPU – 12445)
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme 16770
21785
Blender 3.01 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute: 49s (CUDA), 27.5s (Optix)
37s (CUDA), 22.6s (Optix)
SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 89.47
108.19
SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 193.40
282.42
The CPU performance is identical between the two, but the RTX 3070Ti GPU is between 15-25% more capable in benchmarks and workloads. The extra amount of vRAM on the 3070Ti plays a significant role as well, especially in some demanding work applications and games.
With that out of the way, some of you might not appreciate the loudly spinning fans on the Performance mode, which ramp up to ~50 dB at head level. Thus, if you prefer sacrificing the performance to some extent for quieter fan noise, here’s how this Legion 5i Pro does on the Balance profile with the Legion AI option disabled in Vantage , which limits the fans at sub 44 dB at head level.
3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 24586 (Graphics – 27922, Physics – 27957, Combined – 11838);3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 10924 (Graphics – 10669, CPU – 12402);Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 6942;GeekBench 5.4.3 64-bit: Single-Core: 1733, Multi-core: 12335;CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 6083 cb, CPU Single Core 658 CB;x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 27.89 s;Blender 3.01 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 6m 40s (Balanced).
The performance is hardly impacted in short-durations loads, but with longer-time loads, the 60W CPU and 120W GPU sustained power limits play a role. Nonetheless, at ~120W, the RTC 3070Ti performs at 85-90% of its capacity on Performance mode, at 150W, which is not bad at all.
It’s also worth noting that the components run at slightly lower internal temperatures on this Balanced mode than on Performance, and this aspect makes the Balance profile even more attractive for longer work/gaming sessions.
Keep in mind all these are with Legion Ai disabled in Vantage. If you tick the Legion Ai option in Vantage, the laptop is going to perform pretty much as on Performance, without the lower fan noise and power settings.
There’s also the Silent mode to consider here, which keeps the fans at sub 35 dB in sustained loads, but this significantly limits both the CPU and GPU, so I wouldn’t recommend it for anything intensive.
Gaming performance Let’s look at some games.
We tested a couple of different types of games on the Performance, Balanced and Quiet modes, all with the MUX set on the discrete GPU mode and the applied GPU default overclock (+100 MHz Core, +200 Mhz Memory).
Core i7-12700H QHD+ Performance QHD+ Balanced FHD+ Performance
Battlefield V 124 fps (74 fps – 1% low)
112 fps (71 fps – 1% low)
167 fps (92 fps – 1% low)
Cyberpunk 2077 44 fps (36 fps – 1% low)
41 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
67 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
Doom Eternal 195 fps (131 fps – 1% low)
172 fps (116 fps – 1% low)
236 fps (168 fps – 1% low)
Far Cry 6 82 fps (47 fps – 1% low)
76 fps (43 fps – 1% low)
104 fps (56 fps – 1% low)
Far Cry 5 114 fps (92 fps – 1% low)
105 fps (87 fps – 1% low)
142 fps (108 fps – 1% low)
Metro Exodus 68 fps (43 fps – 1% low)
63 fps (40 fps – 1% low)
87 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
Red Dead Redemption 2 86 fps (54 fps – 1% low)
78 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
117 fps (72 fps – 1% low)
Shadow of Tomb Raider 96 fps (72 fps – 1% low)
86 fps (61 fps – 1% low)
131 fps (76 fps – 1% low)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 111 fps (87 fps – 1% low)
101 fps (73 fps – 1% low)
148 fps (107 fps – 1% low)
Battlefield V, Cyberpunk, Doom, Witcher 3 – recorded with Fraps/in-game FPS counter in campaign mode;
Far Cry 5, 6, Metro, Red Dead Redemption 2, Tomb Raider games – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities;
Red Dead Redemption 2 Optimized profile based on these settings .
Those above are rasterization tests, and here are some results for RTX titles with and without DLSS.
Core i7-12700H QHD+ Performance FHD+ Performance
Battlefield V 76 fps (55 fps – 1% low)
111 fps (84 fps – 1% low)
Battlefield V 86 fps (68 fps – 1% low)
121 fps (92 fps – 1% low)
Cyberpunk 2077 50 fps (39 fps – 1% low)
60 fps (43 fps – 1% low)
Doom Eternal 38 fps (23 fps – 1% low)
205 fps (146 fps – 1% low)
Far Cry 6 69 fps (38 fps – 1% low)
80 fps (44 fps – 1% low)
Shadow of Tomb Raider 54 fps (39 fps – 1% low)
82 fps (52 fps – 1% low)
The gaming performance is solid here, within 5% of other similar power RTX 3070Ti configurations we’ve tested so far, and about 10-15% higher framerates than in the mid-power ultraportable designs built on RTX 3070Ti 120-125W chips.
Compared to the i7 + RTX 3060 configuration, the RTX 3070Ti offers 10-20% higher framerates between the tested titles. However, you should also consider that the only 6 GB of vRAM is a limiting factor in some games, especially at Ultra settings or with RT on, and that’s ane extra advantage for the RTX 3070Ti configuration.
i7 + 3070Ti model, i7 + 3060 model,
Battlefield V 124 fps (74 fps – 1% low)
107 fps (59 fps – 1% low)
Battlefield V 86 fps (68 fps – 1% low)
53 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
Doom Eternal 195 fps (131 fps – 1% low)
insufficient vRAM
Far Cry 6 82 fps (47 fps – 1% low)
71 fps (45 fps – 1% low)
Red Dead Redemption 2 86 fps (54 fps – 1% low)
73 fps (55 fps – 1% low)
Shadow of Tomb Raider 96 fps (72 fps – 1% low)
77 fps (54 fps – 1% low)
Shadow of Tomb Raider 54 fps (39 fps – 1% low)
43 fps (31 fps – 1% low)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 111 fps (87 fps – 1% low)
84 fps (65 fps – 1% low)
With that out of the way, let’s go over some performance and temperature logs for this i7 + RTX 3070Ti configuration of the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro 2022.
The Performance mode ramps up the fans to ~50 dB at head level, with the laptop sitting on the desk. That keeps the CPU at around 78-85 degrees Celsius between the tested titles, but the GPU runs at around 85-86 degrees. CPU temperatures are OK, but the GPU runs toasty and can even throttle in warmer environments with long gaming sessions.
Bumping the back of the laptop off the desk in order to improve the airflow into the fans leads to a 3-6 degrees drop in the CPU/GPU temperatures, with the CPU now running in the mid-70s and the GPU in the very low-80s in this case. These are good temperatures for this sort of hardware and design, and suggest that you should use this laptop on a passive raiser-stand or even an active cooling pad for long gaming sessions.
The fans are perceived marginally louder with the back of the laptop bumped off the desk.
There’s also the option to switch over to the Balance mode.
With Legion Ai Engine disabled, the fans slow down to about 42-44 dB at head-level and the framerates take a 7-12% toll from the Performance mode, as the GPU power is limited at around 120W on this mode. The temperatures are good on both the CPU and GPU, in the 75-80s with the laptop sitting on the desk, and 70-75s with its back bumped up. Balance mode is excellently suited for gaming on this design.
With Legion Ai enabled on Balance, on the other hand, the laptop performs just as on Performance mode, with 50 dB fans and the GPU pushed to 150W. Hence, this setting makes little sense to me.
As for the Quiet mode, it keeps the fans at sub 35 dB levels and it’s still somewhat usable at FHD resolution and medium settings. This mode limits the GPU at only around 40W of power, though.
The laptop’s performance on battery power is somewhat similar to the Quiet mode explained above, with a 40W GPU setting and around 55W combined. Hence, FHD with medium settings should be doable in most games. Don’t expect more than 1 to 1.5 hours of gameplay.
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others This Legion 5i Pro gets an efficient thermal module, with two fans, four radiators, and three heatsinks that spread over the components. The big thermal plates cover up the CPU, GPU, VRMs, and the Chipset, and Lenovo put thermal radiators over the RAM and SSDs as well. There’s even a radiator over the WiFi chip, which is the kind of attention to detail few other mid-range lineups match.
As explained in the previous section, this cooling module works well for the most part, but the GPU runs hot on the Performance mode, with the laptop sitting on the desk.
Most of the fresh air comes into the fan through the bottom intakes with this design, and these intakes are chocked by the low-profile implemented rubber feet as long as the laptop sits on a flat surface. That’s why lifting up the back of the laptop in order to improve the airflow into the fans leads to a significant decrease in internal temperatures, and overall a more consistent experience with longer work/gaming sessions. In this way, even the GPU temperatures on Performance mode rarely go over 80 degrees Celsius.
The fans run loud on this laptop, though, ramping up to 50 dB at head-level on Performance with the laptop sitting on the desk and 51+ dB with it pushed up. You’ll need a good pair of headphones to cover that up.
The Balance profile allows the laptop to run at around 44 dB, while the Quiet mode keeps the fans at sub-35dB – both these modes come with a drop in performance over the top profile, but Balance is a solid option for gaming and most workloads.
That aside, with daily multitasking on Balance mode, the fans stay active, but spin at very quiet levels and are barely audible even in a silent room. On top of that, they idle with video streaming and low-intensity tasks on the Quiet profile. So no complaints there. I also haven’t noticed any coil whining or electronic noises on any of the Legion 5 laptops tested lately.
*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Quiet profile, fans idle or sub 30 dB
External temperatures are fine with this laptop, both with daily use and with games.
With games, at the keyboard level, the hottest part is aroudn the top-left corner, and just goes over 45 degrees Celsius on Balance and 47 C on Performance. The arrows, WASD, and most of the keyboard deck stay at under 40 degrees Celsius. As for the back, the hottest part is right over the heatpipes, at around 55 degrees Celsius.
Bumping up the back of the laptop in Performance mode allows for these hotspots to drop by a few degrees.
*Gaming – Balanced– playing Far Cry 5 for 30 minutes, fans at ~42-44 dB *Gaming – Performance – playing Far Cry 5 for 30 minutes, fans at ~48-50 dB
For connectivity, there’s Wireless 6E and Bluetooth 5 through an Intel AX211 chip on this laptop. It proved reliable during my time with the laptop, but for some unknown reason couldn’t match the speeds provided by other laptops with my router. Still, at 300-400 Mbps, there’s little to complain about.
Audio is handled by two speakers placed on the bottom of this laptop, and firing through the grills on the angled laterals, which prevents them from being easily covered and muffled.
Somehow these are louder than on the Legion 5 Pro tested last year, at close to 80 dB max levels, but the audio quality still isn’t much, lacking in the lows and slightly distorting and high volumes. Much like with the entire Legion lineup, the audio quality is still lacking here, and you’ll want to use headphones with this laptop.
Finally, I’ll mention the camera placed at the top of the screen, and flanked by microphones. The ensemble does what it’s supposed to, but the camera is still HD-only and washed-out quality. I do appreciate the electronic shutter offered on the right side of the laptop, which let you electronically kill both the camera and the microphones when you don’t want to use them.
Battery life There’s an 80Wh battery inside the Legion 5i Pro configuration, which is fair-sized for a mid-range laptop and hasn’t changed from the previous generations.
The system still doesn’t automatically switch the screen’s refresh from 165 Hz to 60 Hz when you unplug the laptop, as other devices do, and I couldn’t cycle between the 60 and 165 Hz modes by hitting Fn+R, as this combination didn’t do anything on my unit – somehow this only worked on the Legion 7s for me, and not the others. Hence, I had to go and switch between the two refresh modes in the Windows display settings, and you’ll want to do it, as it makes a difference with streaming and lightweight use.
It’s also important to set the laptop on Hybrid-Auto or Hybrid-iGPU only modes in vantage in order to disable the dGPU with battery use, otherwise, your battery life will greatly suffer.
So here’s what we got on our unit, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~60 brightness) and either 60 or 165 Hz refresh.
16 W (~5 h of use) – 165Hz, text editing in Google Drive, Quiet Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;15 W (~5-6 h of use) – 165Hz, 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;12.5 W (~6 h of use) – 60Hz, 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;14 W (~5-6 h of use) – 165Hz, Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;11 W (~7 h of use) – 60Hz, Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;23 W (~3-4 h of use) – 165Hz, browsing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;18 W (~4-5 h of use) – 60Hz, browsing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;65 W (~1+ h of use) – 165Hz, gaming – Witcher 3, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON.
These are fair runtimes for an Intel 12th-gen laptop and better with video streaming and light use than the average Alder Lake Core H laptop we’ve tested this year. However, the 5i Pro is still no match in efficiency for the AMD-powered alternatives.
I’ll also add that Lenovo pairs this configuration with a bulky and heavy 300W power brick, at 1.15 kilos. You can charge the laptop via USB-C as well, though, at up to 135W, just be aware that it’s not going to run at full capabilities when plugged in this way.
Price and availability- Legion 5i Pro The Legion 5i Pro is available in most areas of the world at the time of this article.
In North America, you can find the i7 + RTX 3070Ti + 16 GB + 2 TB SSD configuration for around $1800 on Lenovo’s website at the time of this article. That’s excellent for this sort of specs.
Over here in Europe, prices are not as competitive for now, with the cheapest RTX 3070Ti models starting at around 2200 EUR in Germany, but in the UK you can find this from 1700 GBP, so I’d reckon EU prices will get better over time as well.
Follow this link for updated configurations and prices in your region at the time you’re reading this article.
The AMD-based 2022 Legion 5 Pro models sell for a little less than these Intel configurations. We’ll cover those in future articles.
Final thoughts- 2022 Lenovo Legion 5i Pro If you can get this for the right price of around 1800 USD/EUR, this RTX 3070Ti configuration of the 2022 Lenovo Legion 5i Pro is one of the better-value performance/gaming laptops on the market.
Compared to the 2021 generation, we’re looking at a significant boost in performance on both the CPU and the GPU side, as well as a cleaner design and slightly tweaked ergonomics. Compared to the RTX 3060 configuration of this laptop, the RTX 3070Ti is noticeably faster in games and demanding workloads, for only a marginal price increase at this time, which makes it the obvious choice between the two in most markets.
At the same time, battery life isn’t amazing with these Intel models, so if you don’t need the extra performance provided by the 12th-gen Intel platforms, you could consider some of the AMD variants instead. Lenovo also only offers the series with 100% sRGB screen options, so if you need a high-gamut display for color-accurate work, this is not for you.
Of course, the 5i Pro is not without competition, both from the other Lenovo models and other OEM options in the same segment, such as the Acer Predator Helios 300 , Asus ROG Strix and Strix Scar , MSI GP66 Vector , and others. You should check out our reviews for those as well, and decide based on the pros/cons of each series and your needs and budget.
Generally, though, this RTX 3070Ti configuration of the Legion 5i Pro earns our recommendation in its segment, and it’s a better value than the RTX 3060 model tested earlier in the year, at the current prices.
This wraps out my time with this 2022 Lenovo Legion 5i Pro series, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the series and feedback on my review, so get in touch in the comments section down below.
Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com . I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.
NikoB
September 23, 2022 at 9:17 pm
I see no reason to test consumption and noise on playing muddy fhd on YouTube, which is doubly muddy, because. played on a 2.5k screen. Now only the 4k@60fps+ playback mode is relevant. And in it, not everything is already so good in the x86 camp, as in smartphones that consume many times less …
fhd on such a screen no one will watch a priori if there is a 4k+ source. And even more so the buyer who understands the difference in video quality 4k and fhd on YouTube…
For people who buy it as a universal laptop (thanks to the keyboard with a numpad), what is more important is what is the typical noise when the load on the cores (all threads) is around up to 25-30%. No discrete video chip. It is this load that most often occurs in browsers (or even more without banner cutters and the removal of analytical scripts that collect various information in the background) and in various specific software running in the background, and 32GB of memory is only clearly conducive to this.
In a quiet room, I would like to get complete silence up to about this load in the Balanced profile, although, for example, on my Dell G5 5587 in the Performance profile, the coolers are silent up to about this load and core temperatures up to 75C, i.e. they do not turn on for hours in surfing. This is exactly what is important to the average buyer. Apparently, Lenovo, unlike Dell, is not sure about the reliability of the solution with disabled coolers even under such a load and a processor temperature below 75C, although the G5 5587 is completely plastic…
Andrei Girbea
September 24, 2022 at 1:34 pm
Hi, this makes sense. I test daily use with light browsing, not with video streaming. I only take the thermal reading with streaming because it allows for a more standardized load, while with browsing it would vary to some degree between each run
AlexS
September 26, 2022 at 4:50 am
4K60FPS do not stress a machine like this. I was playing a 4K60FPS HEVC file (albeit in a FHD screen) and the RTX3060 was at 24% and consumption 27w. CPU was not taxed at 1%. Fans did not changed.
NikoB
September 29, 2022 at 2:00 pm
[i]4K60FPS do not stress a machine like this.[/i]
It's not about whether it's annoying or not (although here you are wrong – 27W Is 100% annoying), but about complete silence in this mode. Do smartphones make noise when playing 4k@60fps video? 100% no. Why are all x86 noisy? Apple laptops on ARM do not make noise …
This is a long-standing shame of the entire x86 industry – their hardware is miraculous in terms of consumption on primitive tasks, where not long ago it should not exceed 5W in total like smaptphones SoC's.
That is what I am emphasizing. A laptop should not make any noise while surfing (and it should do it quickly, at full frequency in an impulse), it must be silent like a smartphone. And even more so when playing video up to 8k hardware.
Every time I read another new review, it shocks me. Intel/AMD are simply disgraced against the background of smartphone SoCs, not to mention NVidia. How can you consume 27W for such nonsense? Power circuits and hardware optimization are disgusting in the x86 camp.
AlexS
October 1, 2022 at 4:48 am
Good point NikoB in the comparison with ARM.
Timotius Arifin
March 25, 2023 at 7:54 am
What's the crossload max cpu tdp + gpu tgp on each power mode? (3070ti model)