Lenovo Legion Pro 7I (Gen 8) Review

RTX 4080 | Core i9 13900HX | 32GB DDR5-5600 | 1TB SSD | $2,750

The Lenovo Legion 7i Pro is an exceptional gaming laptop with a premium look and feels that’s hard to beat. If the high price tag doesn’t bother you, it’s truly phenomenal.

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Lenovo Legion Pro 7I Gen 8 Specification

Processor	Intel Core i9-13900HX
RAM (as Tested)	32 GB
Boot Drive Capacity (as Tested)	1 TB
Screen Size	16 inches
Native Display Resolution	2560 by 1600
Touch Screen	No
Panel Technology	IPS
Variable Refresh Support	G-Sync
Screen Refresh Rate	240 Hz
Graphics Processor	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU
Graphics Memory	12 GB
Wireless Networking	Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1
Dimensions (HWD)	1 by 14.3 by 10.3 inches
Weight	Tested Battery Life (Hours: Minutes)
Operating System	Windows 11 Home
Tested Battery Life (Hours:Minutes)	6:13

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8: Configurations

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 is a cutting-edge machine priced at $2,299. Equipped with a dominant Intel Core i9-13900HX central processing unit, it boasts an impressive 16GB of DDR5 memory and a capacious 512GB solid-state storage. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics processing unit, which is paired with 8GB of video memory, provides this device with unparalleled graphics processing power. Our testing unit of the Legion Pro 7i represents a significant upgrade in several key areas. It contains 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a state-of-the-art Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 GPU that features an impressive 12GB of video memory. It has a price tag of $2,749.

The new Lenovo Legion Pro 7i laptop is a top-of-the-line gaming laptop that boasts next-gen features and exceptional performance. What sets it apart is its comparatively affordable price point, making it a standout option compared to other high-end RTX 40-series laptops that come with exorbitant price tags of $4,000 or more. With its RTX 4080 GPU, the Legion Pro 7i delivers outstanding gaming performance that puts the RTX 4090 to question.

This gaming laptop is the first of its kind to utilize Nvidia’s second-tier Ada Lovelace GPU, which is a game-changer. Although the mobile graphics silicon used in xx90-class GPUs is different from the ones found in desktop versions of the same name, Nvidia is touting this as a major development as high-end GPUs are now available in laptops. However, the mobile RTX 4090’s AD103 GPU is the same as the desktop RTX 4080, and the mobile RTX 4080 uses a cut-down version of the AD104 found in the desktop RTX 4070 Ti.

This translates to 7,424 CUDA cores for the mobile RTX 4080, as opposed to the 7,680 of the desktop version. In contrast, the mobile RTX 4090 boasts 9,728 CUDA cores, giving it a slight advantage. However, the constraints of a gaming laptop’s chassis can sometimes work in favor of lower-power, second-tier chips. As a result, the Legion Pro 7i’s gaming performance can match or even surpass that of higher-end laptops, despite having a lower number of CUDA cores.

The Legion Pro 7i runs on a 150W TGP, which is the maximum effective power consumption of the GPU. While manufacturers are allowed an extra 25W to boost their specs, Lenovo has opted not to take advantage of this. This sets it apart from other high-end gaming laptops such as the MSI Titan GT77 and Razer Blade 16, which have been given the full 175W allowance for their RTX 4090 GPUs.

Apart from the GPU, the Legion Pro 7i’s power lies in its 13th Gen Intel chip – the Core i9 13900HX. While its name is almost identical to the Core i9 13900H used in the Asus Zephyrus M16 gaming laptop, it is a substantially better CPU with a 24-core setup that includes eight P-cores and twice the number of E-cores. The Legion Pro 7i’s CPU is capable of a boost clock of 5.4GHz, and while its TDP is higher at 45W, it outperforms other CPUs in its class.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is an exceptional gaming laptop that offers outstanding performance and value for money. It delivers gaming performance that rivals higher-end laptops, thanks to its second-tier GPU and 13th Gen Intel chip. If you’re in the market for a high-performance gaming laptop, the Legion Pro 7i is definitely worth considering.

System performance

The actual performance statistics are very close to those of the Core i9 13950HX, which has a slightly higher clock speed and is used in the Blade and Titan machines.

Supporting the primary CPU/GPU combination is a 1TB PCIe 4.0 Samsung solid-state drive and 32GB of DDR5-5600 SK Hynix memory.

The final component of the bundle is the 1600p 240Hz screen, which is acceptable. The mini LED backlights used in the most recent laptop screens I’ve tested have spoiled me because this one lacks the punch I now require from a gaming panel.

However, it does have a 16:10 aspect ratio that I didn’t realize I needed in a gaming laptop until I started using it frequently. The 2560 x 1600 native resolution is an excellent match for the Legion Pro’s 16-inch display, providing a better experience when just on the desktop and a bit more screen real estate in games. The slight increase in resolution has little impact on gaming performance when you have a graphics processor as capable as the one baked into the system.

This leads us smoothly to the letters that I have amalgamated to express my thoughts on the Legion Pro 7i’s performance. As expected, I’m comparing this to the three machines based on the RTX 4090 that I’ve tested so far, and I would have assumed that it would be significant, or at least tangibly, inferior to the top Nvidia GPU. However, as previously stated, this is not the case.

Graphics Tests

In a high-end gaming machine, the processing power takes a backseat to the graphics performance. Our main focus was on how the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 would compare to the Strix Scar 18 and Titan GT77, both of which use top-of-the-line 4090 GPUs.

We conducted our graphics performance tests on Windows PCs using two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark. The Night Raid simulation, which is suitable for laptops with integrated graphics, was more modest compared to the Time Spy simulation, which is more demanding and suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs.

For a more comprehensive assessment of graphics performance, we utilized the GPU benchmark GFXBench 5. The benchmark stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. We conducted two tests, the 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase, which exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation, respectively. These tests were rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions. We measured the frames per second (fps), with a higher fps indicating better performance.

To evaluate real-world gaming performance in laptops, we conducted a suite of in-game benchmarks, which included the built-in 1080p benchmarks of three real-world games: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, F1 2021, and Rainbow Six Siege. We ran Valhalla and Rainbow twice with different image-quality presets, and F1 with and without Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing activated.

We were initially apprehensive about how well the RTX 4080 would perform in games. However, the Legion Pro 7i equipped with the RTX 4080 consistently delivered excellent results in every single test. It even surpassed the leading machines, Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 and MSI Titan GT77, in some cases, such as with 3DMark Night Raid.

For those considering an upgrade, the performance of the RTX 4080 is a significant improvement compared to the best RTX 30 Series cards currently available. The graphics and gaming performance difference between the fairly basic RTX 3060 of the Acer Predator Triton and the premium RTX 3080 Ti from last year’s Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 7 was stark. Across the board, current-gen GPUs outperformed last year’s hardware by significant margins.

Gaming performance

The Legion Pro 7i comes out as a winner in terms of performance, outperforming both the Razer and Asus laptops at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions. The only laptop that beats it is the MSI Titan GT77, which is much more expensive and has issues with acoustics.

The author highlights that the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is significantly cheaper than the Razer Blade 16 and the Asus Zephyrus M16 while delivering similar or better performance. They mention that the Legion Pro 7i has a great CPU and GPU, and a good 16:10 screen, even though it doesn’t have a mini LED display. The gaming battery life is not as good as other RTX 4090 laptops, but it’s not a major issue as long as you play with the charging cable plugged in.

The author also praises the design and build quality of the Legion Pro 7i, stating that it looks and feels like a grown-up gaming laptop. It has a per-key RGB illumination and a light bar up front, which looks great. The keyboard is excellent, with a usable numpad and separated cursor keys. The laptop has a premium price tag of $2,750, but it’s expected for a high-powered gaming notebook, and it’s still cheaper than the Blade 16 with RTX 4060. Overall, the author highly recommends the Legion Pro 7i as a great gaming laptop that delivers excellent performance and value for money.

Big-Time Connectivity

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i has a larger chassis, which allows designers to add plenty of ports for wired connectivity. On the left side of the laptop, you can find USB 3 and Thunderbolt 4 ports. On the right side, there’s a 3.5mm headphone/mic combo jack and another USB 3 port, along with a switch to disable the webcam’s camera.

The back of the base has a third I/O panel that includes a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, two more USB 3 connections, HDMI 2.1 output, and an Ethernet port for wired networking. You’ll also see a proprietary Lenovo power connector highlighted in yellow.

In addition to these physical plugs and ports, the Legion Pro 7i comes with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, allowing you to connect wirelessly to the internet and peripherals.

A game at Warp Speed With a 240Hz Display

The Legion Pro 7i Gen 8’s 16-inch display is specifically designed for gaming, featuring a 16:10 aspect ratio and a resolution of 2,560-by-1,600 pixels (QHD). This resolution provides the perfect balance between full HD’s lower resolution and 4K’s high resolution, which would be excessive on a screen this size. Despite this, the laptop can support up to three 4K displays at 60Hz, for those seeking maximum pixels and multiple screens.

However, utilizing a higher resolution wouldn’t add much to your experience on this 16-inch display, and you would miss out on the fantastic 240Hz refresh rate that this device boasts. It’s true: the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is equipped with a 240Hz screen, and Nvidia G-Sync technology ensures that all visuals are smooth and free from judder.

The display also features several other advanced functionalities, such as 500-nit brightness, Dolby Vision HDR support, 100% sRGB color, and TÜV Rheinland glass, which reduces blue-light emissions. However, one thing that is absent, and likely not even desirable on a gaming laptop, is touch support. Rest assured, gamers won’t miss it.

Productivity Tests

Our main benchmark, UL’s PCMark 10, emulates a miscellany of genuine production and content-generation workflows to quantify comprehensive efficacy for office-centered undertakings such as script processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We further administer PCMark 10’s Complete System Drive trial to assess the burden era and throughput of a notebook’s storage.

Three more of our benchmarks focus on the central processing unit, utilizing all accessible cores and threads, to rate a personal computer’s appropriateness for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 exploits that corporation’s Cinema 4D engine to render a multifaceted scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro by Primate Labs emulates fashionable applications ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we utilize the unrestricted-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (inferior times are superior).

Our terminal productivity trial is PugetBench for Photoshop(Opens in a new window) by workstation manufacturer Puget Systems, which exploits the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s celebrated image editor to rate a personal computer’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a miscellany of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

Battery and Display Tests

When testing a gaming laptop, the processing power is not the only important factor to consider. A high-end gaming machine also requires serious graphics capabilities, so we were particularly interested in how well the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 would perform compared to the top-of-the-line 4090 GPUs used in the Strix Scar 18 and Titan GT77.

To assess the graphics performance of Windows PCs, we utilized two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Night Raid, which is more modest and suitable for laptops with integrated graphics, and Time Spy, which is more demanding and suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs. For additional graphics performance measurements, we ran the GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level game-like image rendering. We conducted the 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, and they exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation, respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better the performance.

Finally, to assess real-world gaming performance on laptops, we ran a suite of in-game benchmarks, including the built-in 1080p benchmarks of three real-world games: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, F1 2021, and Rainbow Six Siege. We ran Valhalla and Rainbow twice with different image-quality presets, and F1 with and without Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing activated.

Our concerns about how well the RTX 4080 would perform in games were unfounded. Although the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 and MSI Titan GT77 consistently delivered top scores, the Legion Pro 7i equipped with the RTX 4080 was within spitting distance of those leading machines in every single test. In fact, it even surpassed them in some cases, such as with 3DMark Night Raid.

Moreover, the RTX 4080 outperformed the best RTX 30 Series cards available, making it an excellent choice for those considering an upgrade. Whether it was the basic RTX 3060 of the Acer Predator Triton or the premium RTX 3080 Ti from last year’s Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 7, the difference in graphics and gaming performance was significant. Current-gen GPUs outperformed last year’s hardware by significant margins across the board.

We tested laptop battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file of the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel, with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We made sure the battery was fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. However, as expected, the demands of the hardware and the cooling systems required for a gaming machine like this meant that the Legion Pro 7i’s battery life was not very long. Lasting just 6 hours and 13 minutes, it fell a bit short of the MSI Titan GT77 (6 hours and 51 minutes) and the Asus ROG Strix (8 hours and 14 minutes), and fell even farther behind the Acer Predator Triton (10 hours and 3 minutes). However, we did find one bright spot in this otherwise mediocre display of endurance: The 2022 Legion 7i, equipped with the equivalent 12th Gen CPU and a 3080 Ti, lasted less than half that time (3 hours). It is not something to boast about, but at least Lenovo has made some significant improvements to the battery life it was capable of before.

On the other hand, the display quality of the Legion Pro 7i is excellent. This IPS panel delivers 100% sRGB color, and the claimed