Test Fest: Can an All-AMD Gaming Laptop Beat an Equivalent Intel/Nvidia One?
As AMD, Intel, and Nvidia continue raising the bar in laptop performance, it begs the question: What’s the fastest combination of CPU and GPU you can get in today's power notebooks?
That's a tricky one, because laptops, unlike desktop PCs, are hard to find configured in ways that are truly fair to compare one-to-one. Different chassis designs, varying thermal solutions, and a host of other factors conspire to make meaningful head-to-head comparisons between the major chip makers difficult, or at least laden with caveats. (See our guide to understanding laptop processor basics.)
But we got a rare chance to skirt most of these hurdles. Lenovo just sent us two of its flagship Legion 7 Gen 7 gaming laptops—and the fight was on. One has Intel’s Core i9 HX processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics, and the other, an AMD Ryzen 9 HX chip and a Radeon RX 6850M XT GPU. These are two of the very fastest gaming laptops, in two identical chassis, and we’ll be pitting them against each other in an all-out battle: with Teams Blue and Green (Intel and Nvidia) paired up on one side, and Team Red (AMD Ryzen/Radeon) holding out solo on the other. Let the games begin.
The Legion 7 series comprises Lenovo’s top-of-the-line gaming laptops. The Gen 7 models we tested come in two flavors, the Legion 7i with an Intel processor and Nvidia graphics, and the Legion 7 (no “i”), which is the one with the AMD Ryzen processor and Radeon RX graphics. Those preceding links take you to our reviews of the two Gen 7 models; more about them below.
The Legion 7 and Legion 7i Gen 7 use the same chassis; the only way to tell them apart out of the box is by the obvious branding of the stickers on the palm rest.
These laptops don’t hide their bulk, at
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