i7 13700HX + RTX 4060 – Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Review

The Lenovo Legion 16IRX8 is a new gaming laptop, featuring Intel 13th gen Core i7-13700HX CPU and Nvidia’s RTX 4060 GPU. It offers strong gaming performance in a refined yet understated design.

Key features:

• Intel Core i7-13700HX CPU (8P + 8E cores, 24 threads)
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU (8GB GDDR6)
• 16″ 2560×1600 240Hz 500 nits display with Dolby Vision
• 16GB 4800MHz DDR5 RAM
• 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
• 80Wh battery with 300W fast charging
• Multiple performance modes and advanced cooling

The Legion 16IRX8 balances gaming prowess and subtle aesthetics for use anywhere – work, home, or play. It competes with offerings from other brands like the ASUS Zephyrus G16 and MSI Vector GP76.

Design and Build Quality

The Legion 16IRX8 is available in Onyx Grey. The clean, professional design lacks overt gaming cues, allowing the laptop to blend in anywhere. Build quality is excellent despite the polycarbonate chassis. The metal lid and bottom panel feel sturdy with no flex. The smooth hinge allows opening the lid with one hand, and it can tilt back 180 degrees. I liked the quality of the lid and hinge. Also the laptop starts just from opening up the lid, cool!

At 2.5KG, the Legion 16IRX8 is reasonably portable for a 16-inch gaming laptop. The centered keyboard layout and well-balanced weight distribution enhance usability on the go.

Ports

Plenty of USB-As, would love to see 2.5/10Gb ethernet and Thunderbolt 4 support.

Performance & Thermals

We have the HX series which resemble the desktop counterparts in performance, pair it with RTX 4060 and voila.

Cinebench R23
Multi Core – 20,000
Single Core – 1750

Geekbench 6
Multi Core – 12000
Single Core – 1900

Blender Open Data Benchmark – 3800

3DMark TimeSpy – 10500

120W GPU TGP

Gaming Benchmarks:
1600p Native Res, High settings, DLSS On for supported titles.

Valorant – 300+
Apex Legends – 140
Warzone – 85
Far Cry 6 – 90
Miles Morales – 90
GTA5 Extreme – 150
Red Dead Redemption 2 – 70
Cyberpunk – 75
Cyberpunk RT – 50
Forza Horizon 5 Extreme RT – Smooth 60

Reduced the CPU Power by 15W and saw negligible performance loss. If you just max out the settings, it will throttle being a HX series CPU. Play around with the Vantage software and find the sweet spot. Running Furmark easily gets to 90-95C but it sustains it.

Fan really go loud when you hit it with a heavy load.

GPU Score on new Cinebench 2024

150W !

SSD Performance

Display and Audio

The 16-inch 2560×1600 IPS display offers vivid colors and sharp details aided by the fast 240Hz refresh rate and Dolby Vision. It covers 100% of the sRGB and reaches 500 nits peak brightness for good HDR performance. Audio quality from the bottom-firing speakers is decent and clear enough for gaming and media playback. While bass response lacks punch, midrange and highs are well represented with Dolby Atmos support.

Battery Life

With hybrid mode disabled, battery life is average at about 3.5 hours of light use. For longer unplugged runtimes, Quiet mode extends battery life to 5-6 hours by capping performance.

The 300W adapter charges to 75% in just 30 minutes – perfect for gaming between outlets. The 80Wh battery, multiple performance profiles, and exceptional thermal design make the Legion Pro 5 an excellent portable gaming powerhouse.

Future-Proofing, Upgradability & Repairablilty

You can add an additional SSD, we tried 1TB and works like a charm. Also can upgrade the RAM to 32GB although we recommend you customize it direct from their site to avoid opening.
We cracked open the back, and it was easily repairable, just needed one standard screwdriver to open it.

Software

Excellent integration of everything under one roof.

Lenovo Vantage Home

Keyboard Customization

WiFi + Ethernet Combined – Excellent Performance

Something Extra

I wanted to try something other than every other review. Why constraint oneself?
So we installed AI Models. Yes

First we tried LLaMA 7B, worked flawlessly. Like a fully offline GPT3 (Article coming soon on how to seamlessly do it)
Then we tried image generation from prompts, https://techgg.org/how-to-generate-ai-images-locally/

It was just beautiful, it used less than 20GB of storage and if you have a Discreet GPU or patience, you should try it.

Excellent Autodesk Inventor Performance (Both CPU + GPU)

Verdict

Price is higher, and would love to see OLED screens as an option. This targets specific power-users who remain plugged in but still need some level of portability.

Recommended, if you are one of those!