Lenovo’s Legion 5 and ASUS’s TUF A15 are both great mid-range gaming laptops this year,
but which should you get? I think the answer is going to surprise you!
The build quality of both laptops is quite good,
they’ve both got metal lids and plastic interiors which feel nice. There’s only
minor flex to the keyboards and the lid, nothing to complain about for mid-range gaming laptops.
The TUF A15 is a little smaller in both width and depth, and the TUF is thinner
too. It’s hard to fairly compare because Lenovo only lists the thinnest point at the front,
and although the thinnest point of the TUF is a little thicker,
side by side the back of the Legion is thicker than the TUF.
Not only was the Legion 5 bigger, but I found it noticeably heavier too. The
Legion is also available with an even larger 300 watt power brick in some regions too,
which would increase its total weight further.
On the left the Legion just has two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports. The TUF also has
two USB 3.2 Type-C ports here, but they’re slower Gen 1. The TUF
otherwise also has its power input, gigabit ethernet, HDMI 2.0b output,
a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port and 3.5mm audio combo jack right down the front.
They’ve both got a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port on the right, and that’s all the TUF has on this
side. The Legion has its 3.5mm audio combo jack on this side, as well as a switch to
physically disconnect the camera to ensure privacy, a feature the TUF does not have.
The TUF doesn’t have any ports on the back, while the Legion has its gigabit ethernet port,
a third USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, HDMI 2.1, 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and its power input.
Personally, I prefer the port layout on the Legion, because it keeps those larger and
bulky cables like the power and ethernet running out the back and out of the way.
The ports on the Legion are also just objectively better too.
The TUF has two USB Type-A ports,
while the Legion has three. The TUF also has two USB Type-C ports while the Legion has 3,
and not only that but the Legion’s are faster USB 3.2 Gen 2 while the TUF uses slower Gen 1.
Now only that, but the TUF does not have Type-C charging, while the Type-C port on
the back of the Legion can be used to charge the laptop with up to 130 watts. Only one of
the Type-C ports on the TUF can be used to connect an external screen with DisplayPort,
while all three of the Type-C ports on the Legion support that.
The Legion also has HDMI 2.1, so you can connect a 4K 120Hz 8-bit screen with G-Sync, while the
TUF on the other hand maxes out at 4K 60Hz 8-bit with G-Sync, due to it being 2.0b.
I preferred the keyboard on the Legion, it’s probably personal preference,
but the keys just felt clicker and nicer to press to me.
The Legion also has larger arrow keys that are easier to press, while the TUF has clear
WASD keys, making it more obvious that it’s a gaming laptop. The lid of the TUF also
just makes it look a bit more like a gaming laptop, while the Legion looks a bit cleaner.
Both keyboards have one zone of RGB backlighting,
and although the key brightness was a little higher with the TUF,
the TUF’s lighting looked a bit more patchier compared to the consistently lit Legion keys.
The touchpads on both were good. I preferred the clicker feel with the
Legion more, but the TUF’s was about a centimeter wider and still worked well.
The Legion’s power button was more useful, as it lights up to show you
the current performance mode in use. The Legion’s screen also goes the full 180
degrees back for sharing, while the TUF tops out at around 130 degrees.
Both laptops have speakers underneath towards the front on the left and right sides.
The Legion’s speakers sound clearer, but also more tinny. The TUF has more bass,
and overall just sounds better to me.
The latencymon results weren’t particularly impressive from either of these laptops.
The ASUS TUF A15 comes with a 720p camera, and this is how it looks
and sounds. The Legion 5 on the other hand has a higher quality 1080p camera,
but it is also available with a 720p option, so expect a bit worse with that one.
Both of my laptops have the same key specs with
AMD’s Ryzen 7 6800H 8 core CPU and Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics.
Both laptops have their batteries towards the front, cooler at the back with two fans,
two memory slots, two M.2 slots for storage, and a removable Wi-Fi card,
it’s just hiding underneath the SSD in the TUF.
Wi-Fi performance wasn’t that amazing from either laptop,
but the Legion 5 had a slight lead over the TUF A15 in my testing. You
could of course upgrade the Wi-Fi card to something better for like $20 though.
Although both of my laptops came with 512 gig SSDs, the one in my Legion 5 supports
faster PCIe Gen 4, so it has much faster read and write speeds. This might vary by region though,
and as both laptops have the 6800H CPU you can use faster PCIe Gen 4 drives in either laptop.
It’s worth noting that the TUF A15 I bought only came with one 16 gig stick of DDR5 memory,
while the Legion 5 had two 8 gig sticks. This might give the Legion a benefit in some tests,
but from my own testing one stick of DDR5 is still similar to dual channel.
Both laptops have control panel software that lets you set different performance modes. The
A15 gives us some control over the fans with the option to set the fans to full speed, while the
Legion 5 does not have any fan control out of the box, you need third party software for that.
As for thermals, generally the TUF A15 was running warmer. The A15’s idle temps were
like 15 degrees Celsius warmer, though I don’t personally think this matters at all.
When under a combined CPU and GPU stress test to represent a worst case full load scenario,
the A15’s CPU was reaching thermal throttling at 95 degrees Celsius. Although the Legion’s CPU
wasn’t thermal throttling, the GPU was thermal throttling in its highest performance mode,
though the A15’s GPU was thermal throttling in performance and turbo modes too,
the highest manual mode with the fans maxed out was needed to avoid it.
Both the CPU and GPU were clocking higher with the A15, which may excuse the higher
CPU temperatures on the TUF. The A15 was able to run all 8 CPU cores at 4GHz in
manual mode while the Legion 5 maxed out below 3.7GHz in the exact same workload.
This explains why the TUF A15 was generally running warmer, especially on the CPU. The
Legion’s CPU was power limited to a little over 30 watts, while the A15 could surpass
45 watts. More power means more performance, but at the expense of more heat. The Legion was able
to reach higher GPU power limits, though as we saw the TUF was still clocking a little higher
on the GPU. It was a small difference in any case, and could come down to silicon lottery,
or perhaps the faster and louder fans in the TUF allow the GPU to boost higher.
The Legion’s keyboard area was cooler to the touch with both laptops just sitting
there idling. The TUF was also a bit warmer on the keyboard when under heavy load, but this
was mostly in the middle section, the WASD area was fine. Let's have a listen to the fan noise.
The Legion was quieter in most cases, especially when running under full load with a combined CPU
and GPU stress test, but don’t forget the TUF does give us some fan control to make changes.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark, and at 1080p the Legion
5 was just 1 FPS ahead, which honestly is a small difference and within the margin of error range.
It’s definitely not going to be a change that you’re actually going to notice when playing,
in any case. Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolution and now the TUF A15 was a little ahead,
but again it’s a 1 FPS difference, so no major change either way, I doubt you’d be
able to tell which laptop you’re playing on in a blind test with performance so close.
Cyberpunk 2077 was about 1 FPS ahead on the Legion 5 at 1080p,
however the Legion had a 13% higher 1% low, so less dips in performance. It’s possible that
this is a result of the TUF A15 only having one stick of memory, but from my own testing so far,
this doesn’t really matter as much with DDR5 as it did with older DDR4. The 1% low gap closes
in a bit at the higher 1440p resolution, though the A15 was still a little behind,
but the difference in average FPS is even closer together now.
The TUF A15 was also a little behind in 1% lows in Control at 1080p,
though its average frame rates were slightly ahead of the Legion. The 1%
low difference again gets smaller at the higher 1440p resolution, and again the TUF
was about 1 FPS or so ahead of the Legion, so really not much of a difference at all.
Here are the 3DMark differences for those that find them useful.
Outside of gaming, raw CPU performance was also quite close. Both laptops were basically
scoring the same in single core performance in Cinebench, and the Legion was only a couple of
hundred points ahead of the TUF in multi core score. We’re talking about a 1.4% increase there,
so again like the games, only a minor difference that you’re not going to notice in practice.
That said, things change when we unplug the charger and run the same test on battery
power. The single core scores are still fairly close together, however the Legion’s multicore
performance suffers much more, dropping back over 5000 points. This results in the TUF performing
much better in multicore performance when you’re unplugged from the charger.
Not only does the TUF perform better when running on battery, it’s also able to last
longer when running on battery too. The TUF’s battery is 12.5% larger than the Legion’s,
but it’s able to last 21% longer in the YouTube video playback test with both
screens at 200 nits. The Legion was lasting a bit longer when running an actual game though.
The Legion was also ahead when it came to content creation workloads,
despite both laptops having the same CPU and GPU. Again some of this may be a result of
the two sticks of memory, but the Legion does also have a higher minimum GPU power limit,
and as we saw in Cinebench earlier it has a slight edge in CPU performance too. Blender
was an exception, in this entirely GPU only workload the TUF had a small lead.
Although both laptops have a 15.6” screen, they’re both available with
1080p or 1440p options. Unfortunately I’ve got a 1080p TUF and a 1440p Legion,
so not directly comparable, but I’ll still share my screen results.
The 1440p panel in the Legion gets brighter at full brightness, but at 90% brightness
or below the TUF was brighter with a more consistent brightness curve.
Color gamut was much better with the Legion,
the 1080p 144Hz panel in my TUF just doesn’t seem that great.
The screen response time was way better with the 1440p panel in the Legion too.
Again this isn’t a fair comparison, because the 1440p A15 screen is probably better
than the 1080p version, but it’s clear that the 1080p panel in the TUF isn’t
great. The 1080p panel in last year’s Legion was better than the newer TUF,
so based on this I’d hope the 2022 Legion’s 1080p screen isn’t as bad as the TUF’s.
The total system latency shows how long it takes between a mouse click and when
a gun shot fire appears on the screen in CS:GO,
and the faster screen in the Legion would be the biggest reason that it was faster than the TUF.
Although both laptops have a MUX switch, only the Legion takes things to the next
level with advanced optimus, meaning you don’t have to reboot to swap between optimus on or
off. The TUF would need a manual reboot to change. The Legion also has G-Sync,
at least with my 1440p panel. I believe the 1080p 165Hz Legion 5 screen also offers G-Sync,
but the 144Hz and 60Hz options do not, and I don’t think any of the TUFs screens offer G-Sync, though
both laptops can do FreeSync with the integrated Radeon graphics as long as optimus is on.
The Legion gives us much more customization options through the BIOS,
the TUF on the other hand only offers extremely basic options.
Alright so what about the price difference? This is difficult to fairly compare,
because both laptops often go on sale,
so refer to those links below the video for current prices and current deals.
And speaking of deals, if either of these laptops do have a good
sale I’ll be sure to add them to my new website gaminglaptop.deals,
so make sure you check out that website to save money on your next gaming laptop!
At the time of recording, the ASUS TUF A15 with lower tier RTX 3050 Ti graphics is on sale for
$700 USD at Bestbuy. Lenovo’s Legion 5 with the same RTX 3050 Ti graphics starts at $1100,
but that’s with the 6 core 6600H instead of the 6800H. The 6800H version is an extra $70. The
3060 version of the Legion 5 that I’ve tested in this video is $1450 right now on Lenovo’s website,
which really isn’t great as I’ve seen the 5 Pro with 3070 Ti on sale for around that in
the past. Still though, this is cheaper compared to buying the same laptop from
other sites like Newegg, which have it for $100 more. The TUF is also available at
Newegg with the same 6800H CPU and 3060 GPU for $100-200 less than the Legion.
Alright so generally speaking, the ASUS TUF A15 seems to be cheaper
compared to Lenovo’s Legion 5 wherever I look.
So then the question becomes, is it worth paying more money to get the Legion 5?
Honestly, probably not. In more cases than not, the TUF A15 was the better laptop,
so the fact that you can get it for less money is just icing on the cake.
Things like performance in games were basically tied, and CPU performance in Cinebench was very
close too. The TUF does perform better when running on battery power though,
and the TUF also lasts longer when running off of the battery,
at least when not gaming. The Legion did seem to have an edge in content creation
tasks though. Granted as mentioned, that could be due to the memory difference.
The TUF did run hotter, but this isn't something I'd personally be worried
about. The tradeoff is of course that it’s able to reach higher clock speeds,
though as we saw in the game tests, that doesn’t really seem to translate to extra
performance. Although the insides of the TUF are hotter, the laptop isn’t hot to the touch,
but the fans can get louder which is something you'd be more likely to notice.
The TUF is a little smaller and more portable as it’s a fair bit lighter too,
and its speakers sound better too.
The Legion does have some nice extras though, including more and better ports,
and in my opinion the better keyboard and touchpad. Build
quality was fairly evenly matched, maybe a slight edge to the Legion.
All things considered though, unless you really need the extra or faster ports of the Legion,
or if you’re lazy and you want advanced optimus so you don’t have to reboot to turn optimus on or
off, then you really can just save the money and get the cheaper TUF A15 in most cases.
Maybe not with the lower quality 1080p 144Hz screen that mine has though, as that was notably a
step down compared to what my Legion had. I never thought I’d be recommending a TUF over a Legion,
but here we are. The A15 has definitely grown up since it first launched in 2020.
If you need more information on either of these two laptops, then check out the full
review videos over here next, as I go into more depth in those. Both of these laptops
are also available with Intel 12th gen CPUs, it’s not just AMD only, so find out which CPU
you should get in your next laptop over here next before wasting your hard earned money!