Lenovo Legion 9i vs. 7i

[superbrett2000]

Getting ready to buy a laptop in the next week or so and I've decided I'm going with a Lenovo Legion. I've had favorable experiences with Lenovo's business laptops and these offer pretty good performance for the price. It also helps that the company I work has a partnership that'll knock a few hundred bucks off of what's listed on their website.

 

Here are the laptops I'm considering:

• 7i - Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 Intel (16″) with RTX™ 4090 | Lenovo US
  • This config only has 32GB ram (which I'd eventually upgrade to 64GB but is easy to do) and 2 TB of storage. 
  • My price would be $2.6k instead of $2.9k
    • Or $2.8k when factoring in $200 to upgrade the RAM to 64GB, though I may not do this right away. 
• 9i - Legion 9i Gen 9 Intel (16”) with up to RTX 4090 | Lenovo US
  • I'd go with the 4080 (default option) but I would upgrade to 64GB RAM since upgrading the RAM on this one requires a lot more effort than the 7i.
  • I'd also go with the default 1TB NVME drive, but adding another one is super easy and I'm fine doing that later.  
  • My price as configured would be $3.1k instead of the $3.55k.
    • Or $3.2k if I were to factor in installing another 1 TB NVME card which could be sooner than later but I'd probably just get a bigger one when that time comes. 

Any Legion owners have some experience with either the 9i or 7i to share? I'm particularly curious about the liquid cooling on the 9i in terms of how loud the laptop will be. I couldn't find much online other than it can get loud but didn't give any comparisons to other laptops of similar specs. 

 

The config I'm targeting for the 7i would have a 4090, though the 9i would be a 4080. I'm willing sacrifice some performance for a quieter system but if both systems are pretty close to each other noise-wise then I'd just assume go with the higher performance (and cheaper) 7i with the 4090. The higher rez screen on the 9i is tempting, though I already have a very nice ultrawide that it'll spend ~70 to 80% of it's time hooked up to. 

 

I'm willing to consider other brands, but I've looked and I just couldn't find much (if anything) that comes close to the price/performance that the Lenovo offers especially with my discount. I also must have a dedicated number pad so that does limit my options a bit since anything without one is a non-starter. Some of the MSI laptops looked pretty good and were in serious consideration until I found out about the deals I could get through Lenovo. Alienware is another partnership that we have but the deals weren't quite as good. I think on Alienware I got $100 off retail prices. 

 

[MrSimplicity]

I have an Asus Scar 17 with a 3070TI and it runs anything I've wanted it to even on max settings. Along with having a 240hz 1440p display it's really nice. Though I picked mine up January 2023 on sale for $2k.

 

That being said, as far as gaming laptops go, you shouldn't focus on the hardware too much. Laptop GPUs and CPUs never run as fast as their desktop counterparts. So a laptop 4090 probably won't run any faster than a desktop 4070 and a laptop 4080 will be about the same. Regardless of the Cuda cores and the clock speeds they just can't push enough power to them to see the full potential of the cards. I've never seen a laptop with more than a 300w power brick and a desktop 4080/4090 can use twice that alone. Ultimately what you need to look for is basically everything else; Ram (which you've obviously considered), Storage (same), and whatever other creature comforts tick the rest of your boxes.

 

Now, as far as your selections go... get the 7i, especially since it's on sale right now or else the 9i would be more enticing. Other than the display, which on a 16" screen is not going to be all that noticeable (1440p is the sweet spot I'd say even up to a 27" display), there is absolutely no discernable difference between the two. Plus as you said it's going to be docked most of the time. Other than the cooling might be ever so slightly better on the 9i (which isn't gonna make it any quieter). On that note, a gaming laptop is gonna be loud. There's no way around it, doesn't matter what brand you get, they're all going to be loud. I think Razer's have a more passive approach to cooling but that diminishes performance since it's hitting it's thermal max sooner.

 

So yeah, the 7i while it's still on sale or else the 9i would be a better option.

[adm0n]

From what I can tell, the cooling performance of these laptops is pretty similar. The "water cooling" of the legion 9i does nothing and seems to be more of a marketing gag.

From https://www.ultrabookreview.com/66327-lenovo-legion-9i-review/#a7

Quote

1. This laptop is not primarily water cooled, as some articles might suggest. The heatpipes and radiators are in charge of the cooling.
2. There is indeed a small water-loop, with a tiny pump and one heatpipe connected into the pump. This heatpipe goes over the GPU’s VRMs, and the water loop only activates when the internal temperatures go over 84 degrees Celsius (I’d reckon that’s when the GPU or the VRMs reach 84 C – this is not clear to me, and I don’t have insiders with Lenovo to ask for clarification). From my tests, the GPU never goes over 84C, but the VRMs do sometime on the Balance or Performance modes. However, the loop doesn’t seem to activate when this happens on these modes. In fact, the only mode where the pump is active is Custom, with everything maxed out and the fans set on Full Speed mode. Even on Custom, with the fans on a Custom curve, that pump doesn’t activate.
3. And even when/if the water-loop becomes active, I fail to understand how this is supposed to work, because the water-loop heatpipe is not connected to any radiator that would be used to dissipate the heat. So the heat just builds into the liquid, and I don’t see how it is cooled, other than just passively through the pump’s metal casing.

So the question is, if you want a MiniLED monitor (which is awesome for HDR but has pretty average/bad response times) and is it worth the performance loss and price increase to you?

 

At that price class, if you are tethered to a monitor for most of the time anyway, a desktop with a RTX 4070 could also be a real consideration. You can probably build one for around 1k and with the rest of the money you could still get a nice laptop with a RTX 4060 or similar. When you want to play games on your laptop, you can just stream them from your PC and anything simple can be handled by the laptop directly. So unless you are often out without access to a solid network, but still want to play AAA games maxed, this is a way better solution in my opinion! With the added benefit, that if the GPU is to weak in a couple of years, you can just chug in a new one.

[superbrett2000]

Thanks both, it's sounding like the screen is the main reason I'd want to go with the 9i. I think I just need to decide if I want the extra pixels, which despite being docked a lot of the time would be useful as a secondary monitor or when mobile since I will be using it to develop personal projects. 

 

I really thought about building a desktop with a 4070 (my build comes in at ~$2k) and I still might pivot towards that route but I leaned towards a laptop due to space (I already have a huge work tower and a console dev kit at my home office) and ease of mobility.

 

I'll take the fact that nobody said to run for the hills when I mentioned the Legion laptops as a good sign though  I'll have to double check the Razer offerings but I don't think any had the number pad which is why I moved from them early on in my search. 

[superbrett2000]

Sooo... desktop it is! I haven't quite locked down what I'm going to build, but it finally hit me that I could spend $2k on building a desktop from the ground up and still have enough money to buy a Steam Deck for the occasional on the go gaming for the price that I'd pay for a 7i though I'd probably have gone with the 9i mainly due to the screen.

[MrSimplicity]

Just remember you can always build an SFF pc if you're worried about space. I've built a couple in my day and they are surprisingly pretty nice to have. Also if you manage to keep your budget for the PC that low you could always even buy a cheaper laptop that would most likely be running a 4050 in it and it will runs games quite a bit smoother than a steam deck. For the games that I play I find the only really advantage to the steam deck or my laptop or desktop is that emulators work extremely well on it. I always had issues with super laggy emulations of PS2 games on PC but whatever hardware the steam deck is using is perfect for it. After 20 years I finally had the motivation to actually beat DK64. Currently off and on with Zelda: OOT but mainly just been playing the old pokemon games. On that note if you do get a steam deck, download emudeck. It houses all of the emulators you could want and it's super easy to use.

[superbrett2000]

1 minute ago, MrSimplicity said:

Just remember you can always build an SFF pc if you're worried about space. I've built a couple in my day and they are surprisingly pretty nice to have. Also if you manage to keep your budget for the PC that low you could always even buy a cheaper laptop that would most likely be running a 4050 in it and it will runs games quite a bit smoother than a steam deck. For the games that I play I find the only really advantage to the steam deck or my laptop or desktop is that emulators work extremely well on it. I always had issues with super laggy emulations of PS2 games on PC but whatever hardware the steam deck is using is perfect for it. After 20 years I finally had the motivation to actually beat DK64. Currently off and on with Zelda: OOT but mainly just been playing the old pokemon games. On that note if you do get a steam deck, download emudeck. It houses all of the emulators you could want and it's super easy to use.

I'll have to keep that in mind for the Steam Deck.

 

I'm considering an mitx build (I assume that's what you mean by SFF) and with the Corsair P2000 case.  I've been intrigued by some of the newer stuff I've seen for windowed cases and RGB. I've never really been into that before but I'm liking what I see out of Corsair and have some links to what I'm considering in this thread I have going below. Also, given where I have to put the computer, while the mitx does save space, I'm not gaining much usable space in my set up and the other case I'm considering does give me something snazzy to look at. 

 

At this point I could pivot back to the mitx build - a few days ago I was dead set on a laptop haha. 

[jaslion]

On 4/22/2024 at 5:31 PM, superbrett2000 said:

really thought about building a desktop with a 4070 (my build comes in at ~$2k) and I still might pivot towards that route but I leaned towards a laptop due to space (I already have a huge work tower and a console dev kit at my home office) and ease of mobility.

Keep in mind a mobile 4090 that is properly cooled and not too power limited (these laptops will have problems with both a bit since the intel cpu's are waaaay too hot and power hungry) will be about rtx 4070 level

 

Also these laptops are NOT QUIET even at just word docs and wbebrowsing they have to keep the fans going due to the hardware in them. Its not that loud but you will hear them running at idle.

[jaslion]

10 hours ago, superbrett2000 said:

I've never really been into that before but I'm liking what I see out of Corsair and have some links to what I'm considering in this thread I have going below.

Believe me when I say icue is the best rgb management software but as a piece of software its a terrible heaping pile of shit that is on fire and exploding.

 

If you can avoid software rgb do so. Also keep in mind the corsair rgb fans get their ass handed to them in performance by 4$ fans from arctic. They are very much looks over function/performance.

 

Keep things simple and clean. If you want some rgb add a rgb strip that connects to your motherboard and call it good.

 

Or some random rgb fans that can be controlled with a remote

[superbrett2000]

57 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Keep in mind a mobile 4090 that is properly cooled and not too power limited (these laptops will have problems with both a bit since the intel cpu's are waaaay too hot and power hungry) will be about rtx 4070 level

 

Also these laptops are NOT QUIET even at just word docs and wbebrowsing they have to keep the fans going due to the hardware in them. Its not that loud but you will hear them running at idle.

Yea that's what it seemed when I started researching and looking. I guess a moot point now that I'm going with a desktop and the 4070 looks to offer great performance for the price. 

[jaslion]

3 hours ago, superbrett2000 said:

Yea that's what it seemed when I started researching and looking. I guess a moot point now that I'm going with a desktop and the 4070 looks to offer great performance for the price. 

Id say start a build ask in the builds section here. Gonna get plenty of advice.