Lenovo’s Legion 5 Pro was one of the best gaming laptops that I tested last year.
Now it’s time to find out how the new 2022 5i Pro model actually performs in games!
My Legion 5i Pro has Intel’s Core i7-12700H CPU,
Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti graphics, 16 gigs of DDR5-4800 memory and a 16” 165Hz screen with G-Sync,
but you can customize the specs quite a bit with the links below the video.
The RTX 3070 Ti graphics can run up to 150 watts with dynamic boost, however with the CPU actually
under load I found that they would max out at 125 watts. So a full powered 3070 Ti basically.
The Lenovo Vantage software allows us to set different performance modes,
and all testing here has been done with the highest performance mode enabled.
Just like last year, the 5i pro has a MUX switch,
so we’ve got the option of disabling the integrated graphics, aka Optimus to get a
further speed boost in games, so all testing has been done this way for best results.
Alright, so what about the screen though,
given it’s what you’re actually going to be staring at when playing games?
Although the 5i Pro is using a different panel compared to last year’s 5 Pro just underneath it,
the screen response time is still about the same and a great result compared
to most other laptops. I didn’t notice any blurriness or ghosting.
This also helps the 5i Pro have a lower total system latency. This is the total amount of
time between a mouse click and gun shot fire on the screen in CS:GO, and again it’s only
slightly faster than last year’s 5 Pro, but still above average compared to most others.
Alright let’s get into the game benchmarks. As the 5i Pro has a taller 16:10 screen it’s
got a fairly unusual 2560 by 1600 resolution. Most of the data that I’ve built up over time
for the purposes of comparing is at 1080p and 1440p resolutions, so we’ll look at a
few games with these resolutions first to see how the 5i Pro compares against other laptops.
Don’t worry though! Once we find out how the 5i Pro fits in compared to others we’ll
also test it out in 12 games at all setting levels at its native 2560 by 1600 resolution,
and we’ll also make use of both ray tracing and DLSS to find out what this machine is capable of!
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested the same on all laptops, and I’ve got this year’s 5i
Pro shown by the red highlight. As you might expect, the RTX 3070 Ti graphics is coming out
ahead of the other RTX 3070 results, however it’s only like 1 FPS ahead of last year’s Ryzen based
Legion 5 Pro with RTX 3070 even though that had a lower maximum GPU power limit. To be fair though,
the 1% low from the newer Intel 12th gen system was 19% higher, so less dips in performance.
We’ve got a different selection of laptops at the higher 1440p resolution as we only
test machines that actually have a chance of running it. This time the older Ryzen based
Legion 5 Pro was just ahead of it, though at less than a 1 FPS difference this is absolutely
within margin of error, and the newer 12th gen model still had a higher 1% low.
The 5i Pro was also ahead of other 3070 gaming laptops at 1080p in Control,
this time with a larger lead over the lower specced 5 Pro from the
year before. It's ahead of all other 3070 laptops, as you’d expect to see,
but it’s also beating a few other 3080 machines like the Alienware m15 R6 and Scar 15.
It’s still sitting somewhere between most of the 3080 and 3070 results at the higher 1440p
resolution, which is where you’d expect to see the 3070 Ti based on the name. Anyway, absolutely
playable at max settings with this higher resolution, and this is before we even enable
DLSS which would further boost performance - we’ll look at results with DLSS and ray tracing soon.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark, and again
one of the better results out of all laptops I’ve tested due to this higher end hardware,
though only a couple of FPS ahead of last year’s 3070 version.
I’ve mentioned in a previous video that the 1440p results from earlier last year in this game are a
little sus. Basically I’m not sure if the game was updated at some point that affects performance,
and this is illustrated by last year’s lower specced 5 Pro being further ahead,
while the higher specced Legion 7 is lower.
Alright so this year’s Legion 5i Pro is performing quite well compared to most other gaming laptops,
as you’d expect based on the specs inside. In some cases it doesn’t seem to be a whole lot
better than last year’s Legion 5 Pro, but I guess that’s a different story.
Now we’re going to find out how this machine actually performs
in games at its native 2560 by 1600 resolution - so the resolution you’d
probably actually be playing games at if you were to buy this laptop.
Let’s start out with God of War. We’ll be testing this and more games going
forward with DLSS enabled because honestly, it’s a good feature and
it just makes sense for people to be using it, especially at this higher resolution.
Even max settings were above 60 FPS and playing well, with high close to 100 FPS.
Forza Horizon 5 was tested with the game’s benchmark.
Very low settings were able to hit average FPS higher than the screen’s refresh rate,
but max settings was still running above 60 FPS, even for the 1% low,
so quite a range of performance is possible based on how good you want things to look.
Dying Light 2 was another game tested with DLSS on quality mode. The two ray tracing presets
towards the top were much lower compared to the others, as expected. Though you could of course
use lower DLSS quality modes to further boost performance at the expense of visual quality.
Fortnite was also tested with DLSS on quality mode,
but no ray tracing here as I think that just makes less sense in an esports game. The frame
rates are much higher in this eSports title, with over 200 FPS possible with medium or low settings,
while even high settings weren’t too far off the screen’s 165Hz refresh rate.
Microsoft Flight Simulator on the other hand was far lower at higher settings,
though I’d argue that this one doesn’t need a super high frame rate to play
compared to competitive games like Fortnite. Near 60 FPS at high settings is a good result
considering the higher resolution, but apparently this game is getting DLSS support in the future,
so if that happens expect a further boost.
Far Cry 6 was tested with the game’s benchmark using FSR on quality mode. The differences in
frame rates weren’t too big between the different setting presets. We’re looking at around 70 FPS
maxed out with ultra settings and HD Textures enabled, or just 23% higher at low settings.
So not as much benefit lowering the setting levels here compared to some other games.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was still surpassing 60 FPS at max settings,
plenty for this game in my opinion as someone that played it just fine at lower frame rates
for over 100 hours. These sorts of AAA open world games just don’t need 500 FPS to have a good time.
We were meant to test Watch Dogs Legion with DLSS enabled, but forgot by mistake,
so I’d expect max settings to be closer to 60 FPS had we remembered to do that,
while above 100 FPS was still possible with low settings.
Rainbow Six Siege was easily achieving 1% lows that were higher than the screen’s refresh rate
at max settings, so absolutely no problems at all running less demanding shooter games like this.
Control was tested earlier in the comparison section, but now we’ve got ray tracing enabled
in the green bars. Combined with DLSS on, ray tracing was definitely playable, but yeah DLSS
is definitely needed at this higher resolution, otherwise RT without it isn’t a good time.
Cyberpunk 2077 was also tested earlier, but now with the RT presets here we can see that
we’re not getting excellent results at this higher resolution even with DLSS on quality
mode. You could of course use a lower DLSS mode to boost performance at the expense of lower visual
quality though, unfortunately it’s not possible for us to test every single configuration.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was doing well with DLSS on quality mode, around 80 FPS at max
settings with this higher resolution is a good result from a gaming laptop. But then again,
a full powered 3070 Ti with 12th gen i7 isn’t exactly an entry level configuration.
Now all of this testing has been done with the stock RAM that came with the 5i Pro because I
wanted to show a typical out of the box experience that most users would actually have when they
buy this laptop. Like the Legion 5 Pro last year, it’s using x16 rather than x8 memory,
however this is the first time I’ve had this with newer DDR5 memory. I’m just not sure what
sort of a difference this would make. I’m trying to get some more DDR5 memory at the moment so I
can see what the differences will actually be in this laptop, so make sure you’re subscribed
for that upcoming memory comparison to see if it’s possible to further boost the gaming performance,
and of course for my upcoming full review of the Legion 5i Pro. For now though you can find
out how the 3070 Ti compares against the RTX 3080 Ti in this video next.
You probably don’t want to waste money on the 3080 Ti, find out why here!