With desktop graphics cards now practically sold out everywhere or in stock at prices increased by 40% at best, the old axiom that for the same expense it is better to get a fixed one because you can have components without having the classic problems of gaming notebooks (overheating, inability to upgrade and weight that reduces portability) are certainly less. If we add to this the miniaturization, which in recent years has allowed manufacturers to create very powerful but at the same time light and thin notebooks, we can safely assert that nowadays and in this crazy market affected by pandemics and shortage of semiconductors, for playing at high levels may be worth getting a laptop instead of a desktop.
We therefore took advantage of the release of one of the most anticipated AAA titles of the year, Call of Duty Vanguard, to understand how to play at the gates of 2022 on a mid-to-high-end gaming notebook. For this purpose, we took advantage of Lenovo, which provided us for this test with a Legion 5 Pro 16, a gaming notebook that offers a powerful, balanced confituration, but also within the reach of a good slice of the audience thanks to its price which is around € 1500 (variable depending on the configurations.
With a body made entirely of brushed aluminum and a beautiful LED manufacturer logo on the upper shell, the Legion 5 Pro 16 is beautiful and elegant, pleasant to the touch and decidedly thin and light in relation to the components it mounts, which are almost at the top. The model examined for this test was equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU (8 cores and 16 threads) with a maximum frequency of 4.4GHz, 16GB of DDR4 at 3200MHz and a GeForce RTX 3070 laptop. The latter, combined with the 165Hz QHD screen with HDR 400, guarantees excellent results on paper in terms of frame-rate, frame stability, sharpness and color depth, thanks also to 100% sRGB coverage. To complete the specifications there is a 1TB PCI-e Gen4 SSD, and WiFi 6 connectivity. On paper, but in practice? We set out to find out how to play on a laptop of this caliber.
As usual in our reviews, we begin our tests by launching a suite of synthetic and graphical benchmarks, in order to test the individual components, the computing capacity of the PC, but also the reactivity, the multitasking capabilities and last but not least important, the battery life in the various situations of use. Let’s start with the processor, the Ryzen 7 5800H. It is a Zen 3 CPU with 8 cores, 16 threads, 16MB of cache, with a 7nm production process and 45W TDP. We have also integrated an 8-core graphics unit operating at 2000MHz, useful for lighter operations and keeping consumption low without disturbing the powerful and expensive Nvidia RTX.
We then performed the compression tests with WinRar and 7zip using the integrated benchmarks, obtaining good results, especially in multithreading. Then we used the numerous Aida64 tests dedicated to processors, including a new benchmark dedicated to ray tracing. So we also ran memory tests (read, write and copy) and classic storage benchmarks. Find all the results in the screenshot gallery, with comparisons with other models on the market. To conclude the general testing phase, we launched PCMark10, a benchmark software that tests PCs by simulating real-world workloads. The express test puts the machine in various usage scenarios, giving a numerical result which in our case was 7013 points.
Once this phase has been archived, we have moved on to the most interesting one, that is the one dedicated to gaming. Here too we start from synthetics, with 3DMark and its Fire Strike and TimeSpy DX12 benchmarks, the trio of Unigine (Superposition, Valley and Heaven). Here we got respectively 10230 points with TimSpy and 24022 with Fire Strike, and excellent results also in the Unigine suite, although it is now a bit dated, but it always pushes the GPU to 100% and that’s what counts.
After these preliminary tests, it’s time to dedicate ourselves to the central phase of our test, or the new Activision shooter, Call of Duty Vanguard, on the Legion 5 Pro 16. The new COD is definitely at the forefront from a technical point of view, with all technologies that can be exploited on modern CPUs, GPUs and displays. The game also offers a memorable single player campaign, which we have talked about in detail here, but which is unfortunately undermined by some technical flaw that has not allowed us to promote it cum laude.
The RTX 3070 mounted on the Legion is more than adequate to manage Vanguard in maximum detail and with all the graphic filters and embellishments active, ray tracing excluded because Sledgehammer has chosen not to implement it even on PC. With 8 GB of RAM and a TGP of 140 W, the GPU is able to exploit much of its potential, almost reaching the levels of the desktop version. The various notebook manufacturers can in fact limit a lot the power reserve destined to the RTX GPUs, up to halving the potential performance in notebooks with TGP less than 100w. The game is full of explosions and destructible elements, and here both processor and GPU are put under strain.
Oddly, the game doesn’t have a built-in benchmark tool, so we looked for a single player campaign scenario packed with volumetric effects, real-time lighting, and alpha transparencies to run our tests. It won’t be a representative mirror of the whole experience, but it sure helps to get an idea of the most challenging scenario hardware can encounter. As you can see from the attached screenshot, Vanguard is full of graphics options to manage every aspect and customize performance and graphics quality to suit your experiences, but we were able to set everything to maximum without any problems, and we wanted to see if the QHD 165Hz would have been fully exploited with one of the most technically advanced titles of this fourth quarter.
In the scenario we chose for testing, the game returned an average of 61 FPS with DLSS off and native QHD resolution, in practice we managed to hit the fateful 60fps locked. If we then activate the DLSS, supported at version 2.2 on these GPUs, the average frame-rate spikes above 90fps. We are far from the fps useful to take full advantage of the 165Hz refresh of the screen, but we must consider that the one chosen for the test is one of the heaviest scenarios of the entire game. In other sections, devoid of rain and other effects, the frame-rate also travels close to 200fps.
And we must not forget that traditionally as in all CODs, multiplayer is the main component of the game for Vanguard as well. With its iconic maps supporting up to 64 players, having high frame-rates can mean the difference between life and death. In the multiplayer the maps are smaller and you are often inside buildings. With the exception of Red Star which has large and very destructible open environments, you will therefore get frame-rates on average higher than the campaign, going to take full advantage of the screen’s updating capabilities. Thanks to G-sync we then have regularized frames, no stuttering and low latencies, all vital things for competitive gaming.
And if you want to decide to play with the graphic options to increase the fps, this is absolutely possible, since by going down one or two steps presets or modifying single options that are not noticed but have a lot of impact on resources, you can earn dozens. frames per second and in the frenzy of multiplayer action it will be really difficult to notice the reduction in quality.
The experience we had playing CoD Vanguard with the Legion 5 Pro was therefore more than satisfactory, and has nothing to envy to that obtainable on a desktop. With high frame-rates a large, high-resolution display with true colors and HDR is also a pleasure for the eyes to play on the laptop. The keyboard with 4 separate RGB zones helps to reach the keys more easily, even if there is a lack of mechanical switches. The audio also behaves well, returning a good volume and a decent spatiality both with the speakers and through the 3.5mm jack, since we were able to drive high-impedance headphones without resorting to external amplifiers.
And what about the other games? The Legion 5 Pro chewed them up without problems … Any examples in terms of frames per second? Cyberpunk 2077 (67fps), GTA V (98fps), F1 2021 (118fps), Final Fantasy XV (97fps), Far Cry 5 (103fps), all benchmarks run at ultra details and 1080p. Going up in QHD you lose something but you remain largely on 70-100fps.
Finally, it is time to talk about operating temperatures, noise and battery life, crucial aspects for a gaming notebook. To our surprise, the temperatures were quite low, either because of the great cold even though winter has not yet come, or because of the excellent dissipation system developed by Lenovo engineers, the GPU never exceeded 80 ° C. , while the CPU gets to exceed 80 ° C only in intensive benchmarks that exploit all cores, such as archive compression or rendering, we hardly get similar usage scenarios in video games. We have seen much worse and we are far from the thermal limit, but expect about ten degrees more in the summer season. In any case, a good base with fans is recommended, taking advantage of the fast heat dissipation guaranteed by the aluminum frame.
The noise level is also quite low. After gaming sessions of an hour or more, we are not faced with the classic plane taking off that we have experienced in other gaming laptops: you hear a hiss, audible even with the volume of the game high, but definitely bearable and that yes immediately reduces as soon as the 3D application is closed, testifying to the good heat dissipation. As for the battery, we relied on the integrated test in PCMark10, which took 1h and 8 minutes to consume the battery from 97% to 6% while simulating a gaming session. In a web surfing test with WiFi on and medium brightness we consumed the battery in about 3 hours, which however doubles by activating the hybrid mode in the Lenovo Vantage application.
Summing up, the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro is a very good notebook for playing Call of Duty Vanguard, but not only. Thanks to the powerful RTX 3070 you can handle all upcoming ray tracing titles without problems. The powerful but balanced configuration will not be the latest, but it allows you to play everything and manage intense workloads without sacrificing portability, but above all without weighing too much on your pockets. It is undoubtedly a more than valid alternative to a fixed one, especially if you do not already have components such as power supply, case, monitor and input peripherals and you have to assemble it from scratch: with the current price of video cards you could have serious difficulties. to stay under 2000 euros with a fixed.
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