[REVIEW] Lenovo Legion 5i 15ITH6H - Intel i7-11800H, Nvidia RTX 3060

The fastest RTX 3060 laptop?

Welcome to my review on Lenovo Legion 5i 15 gaming laptop (2021 version, 15ITH6H). I bought this laptop myself with a special price thanks to a laptop seller I knew for about $1200. Main specs of my laptop are as below (model 82JH002MMJ):

• i7-11800H
• RTX3060 Laptop 130W
• Kingston Fury Impact 16GB 3200MHz RAM (CL20 1Rx8, upgraded from stock RAM)
• Samsung PM9A1 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD
• 15.6 inch 165Hz FHD IPS GSYNC
• Intel AX201
• W10 SL with MS Office H&S 2019
• 2yr Legion Ultimate Support

In this review I will also compare a few things with my old laptop, Legion Y530.

Lenovo Legion 5i 15 website: Legion 5i Gen 6 (15" Intel) | Intel®-powered gaming laptop with NVIDIA® graphics | Lenovo Malaysia 

Build quality
The laptop chassis is mainly made from ABS plastic. Despite that, build quality is surprisingly good. The bottom chassis (keyboard deck/C cover) has little to no flex when force is applied on it. The same can be said when force is applied on the middle of the lid cover. Since it's still a plastic lid, there is some flex when twisting the lid, but nothing concerning. The lid can be opened with one hand, the maximum angle is 180 degrees. It closes in place at about 5 degrees. The hinge is smooth and well calibrated, no noticeable wobbling when shaking the laptop. The plastic material used doesn’t feel cheap at all, in fact there is a slight metallic feel on the C cover.

Compared to my old Y530, the material used has improved. I think you don't have to worry about the soft touch plastic surface getting dirty every day or might tear off after a long period of usage. The 5i also feels more solid when holding in hand, making the Y530 feels cheap - you can feel the thinness of the chassis layer in Y530. I am very impressed on the build quality overall.

Input devices

The keyboard has 1.5mm key travel and ~60g actuation force. Keys are clicky and satisfying to type on. The slightly curved keycaps are a big plus. Typing noise is OK, not quiet not too loud. The keyboard layout is excellent, full size arrow keys, complete numpad and my personal requirement - full sized right Shift key. I still think it's one of the best laptop keyboards I have tried, close to Thinkpad if it had longer key travel. You can customize keyboard lighting via Lenovo Vantage (if your model has the optional 4 zone RGB backlit), while the Fn+Space shortcut cycles the 4 presets including off. TBH the lighting looks kinda ugly, I still prefer the white backlit.

The clickpad has good accuracy and smooth gliding. However, if you use it for a long period of time, you might have uncomfortable fingers due to the friction on plastic surface vs glass. The L/R clicks are shallow and a bit mushy, kinda like what u expect from an Ideapad. The clickpad is quite big, but slightly aligned to the left which is a bit unnecessary IMO. They should put the clickpad at the middle of the keyboard layout excluding the numpad (eg align more to right), but this is not a big deal.

Compared to my Y530, the keyboard is slightly better but for touchpad/clickpad, I think both are fine.

Display, speakers
The 15.6 inch 165Hz FHD IPS display from BOE (BOE0998) has great colours, brightness and contrast. Ghosting is minimal, and there is an overdrive option in Vantage (although might introduce some inverse ghosting). Some might argue that it has a slight yellow tint, but I prefer it. In dGPU mode, GSYNC is available. Unlike Legion 5 Pro or 7, it is not colour calibrated with X-Rite (still looks decent out of the box) and does not have a 60Hz switch (although you can create custom profiles). Compared to my Y530 with 144Hz 72% panel, I can feel the colours are slightly more accurate and richer, while contrast is much better. The response time is also slightly lower. This is definitely a good quality panel.

The 2 down firing speakers are located at the sides. If you are sitting far from the laptop, the audio experience is mediocre. I suggest sitting closer to the laptop so that the audio from speakers will have a more direct path to your ears. Audio quality is OK out of the box. Mid-highs are overpowered. I have to manually tweak some settings in Nahimic software. Luckily there are a number of options that can be adjusted there. These are the settings I use:
Compared to my Y530, I would say the audio is a slight downgrade. Even after some manual tweaks, it's still sound a bit worse than the Dolby software powered Y530. Not to mention that the speakers are front facing also in Y530.

Thermals
Now on to thermal testing. The cooling solution has 4 heatpipes: 1 shared on CPU&GPU, 2 individual pipes on CPU and GPU, and 1 at the backside of the heatsink for VRAM cooling. There are 4 exhaust vents, besides intakes from bottom the keyboard also has holes for more ventilation.

Notes for thermal testing:
Ambient temp: 29-30C
Laptop is lifted, ~1.5cm space at bottom for airflow
CPU PROCHOT: 94C (Performance mode)
Nvidia driver 466.81
BIOS H1CN33WW
Laptop is plugged in
Gear 1 memory / Memory Enhance enabled
CPU UV of -0.065V is applied
Max fan noise is around 54-56dBA with max fan mod, not annoying due to low pitch but still quite loud

Power limits:
Quiet mode : PL1 25W, PL2 45W, GPU 80W (no DB)
Balance/auto mode : PL1 70W, PL2 92W, GPU 80-95W
Performance mode : PL1 90W, PL2 135W, GPU 115-130W

I will compare the stock results here. There is a special tweaking section in the following of this review.

Thermal results:

Without UV: CPU at 3.8-3.9GHz in Aida64 FPU Perf mode

Unigine Heaven settings: CPU disabled turbo, Extreme profile, untick fullscreen, 1920x1080

In Balance mode Aida64+Heaven, the PL1 for CPU initially is 60W, then drop to 50W. After about 10 mins, it will slowly drop 1W to 46W, then hovering around 46-49W. I believe with lower ambient/room temp, it can hold the 50W.

Same case in Performance mode. PL1 starts at 70W, then 60W. After about 10 mins, it slowly drops 1W to 51W, then auto adjusting between 51-56W.

3DMark Time Spy (2 runs, stock RAM, no CPU UV)

Score: 9025, Graphics 8945, CPU 9508
Score: 9029, Graphics 8943, CPU 9554

3DMark Fire Strike (2 runs, stock RAM, no CPU UV)
Score: 18763, Graphics 21998, Physics 25176
Score: 18596, Graphics 22015, Physics 23994

3DMark Time Spy (2 runs)

Score: 9339, Graphics 9090, CPU 11059
Score: 9338, Graphics 9085, CPU 11097

3DMark Fire Strike (2 runs)

Score: 18764, Graphics 22396, Physics 23046
Score: 19932, Graphics 22413, Physics 22725

The Division 2 Benchmark (Ultra settings, VSync off)

While under load, you can feel warm surface on the keyboard (especially the middle part, around backspace/enter/shift area) and the area above the keyboard / around the power button, but not burning hot. Palm rest is cool to touch.

There is uneven CPU core temp of ~10-15C while under load (odd number cores - 1,3,5,7 have higher temp). Note that in TGL-45 CPUs, uneven core temp is normal, even at idle it will have about 5C difference. Looking at many reviews of TGL-45 laptops, I believe it is not heatsink related since Legion 2021 models use a decent stock paste (Honeywell TPM7950), more to the silicon design itself.

Surprisingly, clock speed efficiency of TGL-45 under CPU heavy load is similar to Ryzen. With a small undervolt of -0.065V, here is what I got in Aida64 FPU:
75W 3.9GHz
80W 4.0-4.1GHz
Without UV: 80W 3.8-3.9GHz

For comparison, the R7-5800H generally can achieve 3.75-3.95GHz at around 73-80W. It might be due to silicon lottery, therefore I need more samples to confirm this.

Compared to Y530, cooling capacity in this 5i is exceptional. It can handle burst loads easily, you will not hear the fans suddenly ramping up. Even when Windows Update is running, the fans did not bother me at all. I cannot hear them unless I put my ears closer.

The fans won’t be fully quiet even at idle. but you will only notice it in a very quiet environment. There is a slightly higher pitch fan whine when the fans are spinning slowly, but you will only notice it in a very quiet environment and put your ears near to the fans.

Fan noise based on CPU+GPU load:
Quiet speed: <39C
Very low/low: Idle/light load
Medium: Quiet Mode, max load
Medium-high: Balance mode, max load (49-51dB)
High: Performance mode, max load (51-53dB)

Note: The fan speed is exactly the same at the same temperature levels in all modes, despite Vantage saying that Performance mode has 'higher fan speed'. The higher fan speed only applies when GPU pulling more than 95W, or CPU pulling more than 60W.

There is a copper heatsink for the PCIe 4.0 SSD to keep it cool. When installing games, both flash and controller never exceed 65C. If the bottom cover is aluminum, the heat dissipation might be even better. PCH/chipset is also cooled by heatsink. Some laptop brands need to take note on this.

Further tuning and tweaking
Since i7-11800H has not only unlocked voltage control but also 4 overclock bins in Legion 5i, I wanted to try it. I set all core boost to 4.6GHz. At the same time, I undervolted the GPU to 1912MHz@0.887V. The results:
3DMark Time Spy (1 run only)
Score: 9714, Graphics 9439, CPU 11637

3DMark Fire Strike (1 run only)
Score: 20535, Graphics 22574, Physics 25033

Impressive results, the Time Spy CPU score is about a R7-5800X, while the graphics score is almost a 1080Ti. I can probably tune it further to squeeze out it's max potential, but I am happy with how it performs now.

The Division 2 Benchmark (CPU no OC, GPU UV, Ultra settings, VSync off)

Note that not every TGL-45 laptop has unlocked voltage control, even though the CPU supports it (i7 or i9). Also, undervolting in TGL-45 is risky even if using software. Your laptop might be bricked if you are unlucky, I have heard a few cases regarding this so far.

There is a Memory Enhance setting in BIOS that changes the memory Gear mode from SAGV/auto to Gear 1. This slightly reduces the memory bandwidth since the max supported speed in Gear 1 is only 2933MHz compared to Gear 2 3200MHz, however memory latency is greatly reduced by about ~20-25ms. Note that in Gear 1 mode, the Kingston Fury Impact RAM runs at 2933MHz CL19.

Aida64 memory test (Gear 1, 2 runs)

Compared to SAGV:

I haven't try cache OC yet. I tried single core OC but it seems like it does not work. Maybe my silicon can only do 4.6GHz max or it needs more voltage, not sure.

Adjusting Fan Speed with LegionFanControl (LFC)

You can alter the fan speed with a 3rd party software called LegionFanControl. I did a small test on the fan speed based on CPU power using Aida64 FPU and here's what I got:

Idle: 32/34/38/42%

25W: 42%

35W: 46%

45W: 52%

55W: 58%

60W: 70%

65W: 84%

70W-80W: 86%

Any speed below 46% is too quiet IMO. I suggest using 50-60% for light gaming, 60-70% is a good middle ground. For heavy loads/games, you might want to consider using 70-80%, but might be loud. Note that the EC can only settle at even number fan speed (eg 75% will become 74% or 72%).

Battery life
This laptop has a 80Wh battery. Based on my testing, the laptop should be able to achieve 5.5-7 hrs battery life in YT playback.

Settings: Microsoft Edge, 1080p quality, brightness 45%, volume 32%, Windows best battery life, Vantage Quiet mode, Hybrid mode on, Intel Graphics maximum battery life, CPU undervolted and disabled turbo, Memory Enhance off. Note that I have checked the CPU is idling properly - 0.5W in idle.

If battery life is your priority, I would suggest getting the Ryzen based Legion 5. As expected, battery life on TGL-45 isn't great. Note that there is Advanced Optimus when Hybrid mode is on.

Miscellaneous
Lenovo Vantage:

Some important features:

• Thermal mode: Performance modes, switch between Quiet, Balance and Performance (can also use Fn+Q shortcut).
• Hybrid mode: Switch between MSHybrid/Optimus and Discrete/dGPU only mode with MUX.
• Overdrive: Lower screen GTG response time but might introduce some inverse ghosting.
• Power -> Conservation mode: Caps battery charge at 55%-60% (or higher if currently battery capacity is more than 60%)
• Rapid charge
• Lighting (kb)

This laptop weights at ~2.4kg and has ~25mm thickness. I can definitely feel the weight difference holding Y530 and 5i.

The included power adapter is a 300W from Delta. Huge brick, bigger than I thought.

There is an empty M.2 slot but only has PCIe 3.0 x4 lanes.

There are x2 Thunderbolt ports and one of it supports PD charging (enable Rapid Charge for fastest charging rate when using USB C charger). There is a webcam kill switch on the right that disconnects the camera for privacy.

The chassis colour is 'Phantom Blue', which is dark blue close to black colour in reality.

Fun fact: The i7-11800H CPU has more L3 cache than i9-10900K and i9-11900K.

Conclusion
Well, what can I say? It is a performance beast, with good cooling as well. After using it for a few days, I was impressed with this machine - better than what I expected from a mainstream product. No regrets buying it.

Pros:

Excellent performance - unlocked CPU voltage and overclocking, max 130W 3060 TGP, MUX and Memory Gear 1/2 selection
Good thermals

Decent build quality

Decent keyboard, best keyboard layout IMO

Good quality 165Hz panel, with GSYNC+Advanced Optimus

Subtle look

Supports PD charging

Small stuffs: Thunderbolt, PCIe 4.0 support, camera privacy shutter

Cons:

Mediocre out of the box audio

Poor battery life with TGL-45

A bit heavy to some people

Nitpicks: Out of the box 1Rx16 8GB RAM sticks, no 2.5 inch bay, no SD card slot (the 17 inch version has though), no Windows Hello, no USB A on the left side, would be better if it has QHD panel option

Thanks for reading!