Hi guys
Welcome back to Lenovo PC
For the past few months
We’ve made product reviews and buying guides
for you to know better about Lenovo laptops
before placing the order
Now we want to take a step further
and share with you technical knowledge
related to laptops
so you can avoid buying mistakes in future
This time we wanna talk about laptop specs
Shopping for a laptop is more than just poring over spec lists
Because laptops with similar specs
might differ greatly in performance
Take the most current ultrabook packed with
Intel Core i5 processor
NVIDIA GeForce MX450 graphics
8GB of ram and 512GB of storage as an example
Any brand of laptops would have this kind specs
But why some of them took the lead while others just
That's why we've pulled together
this primer on technical specifications
What we need to focus on behind all these specs
When it comes to laptop performance
many people think that this has a lot to do with CPU
GPU
Memory
Hard disk
Display and so on
Well
these are indeed important factors that affect performance
But only part of it
In our previous stockout video
we mentioned a laptop is composed of structural parts
electronics parts
And key parts from the design and production side
These three parts have a significant impact on performance
But the thing is CPU
GPU
Memory
Hard disk
etc are only part of key parts
structural parts and electronic parts are not covered at all
so of course they cannot stand for all
when we talk about performance
To make it all clear
we decided to split it up into 4 episodes and see how key parts affect performance in terms of CPU
and see how key parts affect performance in terms of CPU
GPU
Memory
Hard disk
ports selection
laptop structure and cooling system
and last but not least motherboard
power and performance tuning
First off
Let’s talk about CPU
It is the core processor of a laptop
For many people
Intel core processors come in three categories of performance:
low-end i3
middle-end i5
and high-end i7 and i9
While AMD's latest line of processors R9
R7
R5 and R3 are primed to compete against
Intel's current Core i9
i7
i5 and i3 offering
Before this
We also have processor generation and power consumption
As for processor generation
the most critical factor in determining CPU performance
Is first and foremost the core framework
In general
the latest generation of CPUs
offer a higher level of performance
than the previous generation
with the latest CPU architecture and technology
The performance improvement over the generation is about 30%
For example
Intel 11th gen i5 is much better than 10th gen i7
Currently
Intel is now in its 11th Generation
while AMD Ryzen 5000 Series is the latest one
Next power consumption
Based on power consumption settings
the CPU is usually divided into two series:
H standard voltage and U low voltage
The standard voltage processor with higher power consumption
can achieve better peak performance
Keep in mind
Intel standard voltage CPU ends with H
AMD ends with H or HS
Intel 11th generation of low voltage CPU ends with G+ number
AMD ends with U
For brand modifiers
higher modifier numbers generally mean
better performance and more features
CPU performance is also determined by its frequency
number of cores and threads
and CPU cache
Frequency represents the processing speed of the CPU core
The number of cores means that
the CPU has several cores that can be used to handle tasks
At present
mainstream CPUs support Hyper-Threading technology
Each core has two threads
that is
it can handle two tasks at the same time
CPU cache is located inside the CPU
as a temporary storage station
for data transmission between the CPU and memory
The speed of data retrieval from cache
is faster than that from memory
Higher grade CPUs typically have better frequency counts
more cores and threads
and larger caches
In addition to that
we still need to focus on the performance release
in specific products
Take IdeaPad 5 Pro 14” i5-11300H as an example
from this model we can see this is the 11th generation
standard processor i5
and its performance release can reach 42W
while the other laptop with the same model
only 35W
we have a winner!
In a nutshell
4 key words to summarize CPU: processor generation
power consumption
brand modifier and power release
Keep these four points in mind to avoid mistakes
Let’s move on to GPU
It’s responsible for displaying
all the images you see on the screen
A GPU can be either integrated or discrete
Integrated graphics is a GPU built into the processor
It’s enough for daily office use
not enough for video editing
modeling and gaming
For the discrete graphics card
we have NVIDIA
AMD and Intel three manufactures
but among them NVIDIA graphics cards
are still the main ones at present
It is necessary to consider the graphics card level (MX/GTX/RTX)
which is suitable for the work content
At present
the mainstream ultrabooks are packed
with integrated graphics cards or MX450 graphics
the all-around laptops are equipped with MX450
GTX1650 and RTX3050 graphics cards
and gaming laptops come with GTX/RTX3050 and above
You can pick up based on your actual needs
and budget considerations
Spend responsibly!
Apart from that
if you choose a laptop featuring MX series graphics
You must have MX450 graphics
As MX350 and earlier gen can not compete
with the latest integrated graphics of Intel and AMD
Laptops of different brands
and models are likely to use the same graphics card
but the performance release might differ greatly
So it’s necessary to focus on graphics card power
If the product page is not marked
you can check CPU and GPU stress test results
from relevant product reviews
Dual-Direct GFX
similar to NVIDIA's Optimus technology released this year
was first proposed
by Lenovo engineers and co-developed by Lenovo
and NVIDIA in 2019
In the Legion gaming series
we name it DDG mode
Direct output from the graphics card to the display
will drastically improve the game frame rate
a great choice for gaming laptops
So it’s important to know if it supports Dual-Direct GFX
and whether or not it supports switches between DDG mode
and Mixed output mode
That’s all for today’s specs explanation
In case you guys doze off while watching
we only covered CPU and GPU today
No tricky parts
easy to follow
Next episode
we will talk about memory
hard disk and I/O
these can be seen as mysterious parts
So stay tuned
catch you guys in the next one