Lenovo Legion Y740S – gaming laptop without a dGPU?

Rating

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

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Details

The package of the notebook has the inscription Legion in a glossy black version on the outside, otherwise it is a regular cardboard box.

The package includes, of course, the laptop itself, a USB-C charger and documentation.

The Legion gaming brand from Lenovo is becoming more and more popular among gamers and it’s no surprise. In addition to their original design, Legion devices also offer a great price to performance ratio. The last generation also amazed me with its cooling, which was very well handled on laptops. Gaming events, where you often see Legion as the main partner, also help to build brand awareness. Personally, I already consider Legion as a capable competitor for Asus or MSI, which are more established brands of gaming laptops in our country. However, what none of these manufacturers had “balls” for was to release a gaming notebook without dedicated graphics. But that’s nonsense, you might say. But when I tell you that you can have a thin and light laptop with a long battery life on the road, and at the same time a full-featured powerful gaming machine at home or at work, it’s no longer such nonsense, is it? But how do you combine these two conflicting factors? One solution is thin gaming laptops like the recently tested MSI GS66 Stealth, where, however, the eternal fight with temperatures and battery life will not just blow you away. The Y740S went the other way with a combination of Thunderbolt 3 and eGPU. We will talk more about this principle in a separate chapter.

The Legion Y740S has many design elements in common with its siblings 7i and 5i, that we saw at the presentation in June. The gray variant with slightly pushed forward display hinges looks modern and elegant. The notebook does not yell its gaming DNA in any significant way, perhaps except for the backlit Legion logo on the display lid. The Y740S is thus also intended for work use, where purely gaming machines may not be sufficiently representative. But enough about the design, the interior is also important. There are three configurations to choose from, with the 10th generation Core i5/i7/i9, 16/32 GB RAM, 512GB/1TB/2TB SSD and Full HD/4K display. We are testing a medium piece, i.e. a model with Ci7/16GB/1TB/Full HD.

The exterior and port selection is the same for all models, so let’s take a look at it. The side view reveals the ultra-thin 15 mm body we see in ultrabooks rather than gaming machines. The right side has an SD card reader and an audio jack, i.e. ports that are gradually disappearing from laptops. If you need them for work, the Y740S is the right candidate for you. On the left side there is a pair of USB-C ports, both ports supporting Thunderbolt 3 for charging, video output, or connecting other TB3 accessories such as fast external drives or eGPU docks.

It’s hard to imagine praising thickness based on numbers, so let’s look at a comparison with the GS66 and OMEN 15 we’ve tested recently. The difference in thickness and weight of the devices is enormous.

However, the port selection does not end with connectors on the sides of the device, as it might seem at first glance. Still, relying on a pair of USB-C ports is a bit of an “Apple” approach, which would mean having to carry adapters everywhere. Fortunately, they didn’t do such nonsense in Lenovo, so on the back you will find a pair of 10 Gb USB 3.2 gen 2 ports of the classic type A. One of them even supports fast charging, e.g. for your smartphone.

You will not find any more ports or control elements in the front.

The top view shows us a gray lid with a backlit logo again and a black bottom cover. It has a perforation along its entire width for sufficient air access to the fans.

It’s interesting that the bottom cover has heat conductive pads in place of the SSD for better heat distribution. The black design is not very practical, it captures fingerprints very easily, which are then difficult to clean.

The tested configuration offers medium equipment of the Y740S and thus an Intel Core i7-10750H processor with 6 cores and a clock speed of up to 5.0 GHz for 1 core or 4.3 GHz for all-core turbo. The standard is already 16 GB RAM, which has a speed of 2933 MHz and is non-removable. If you want 32 GB, you will have to reach for an 8-core version with the Core i9-10980HK. The middle configuration offers 1 TB SSD, the higher one up to 2 TB. In contrast, the lowest configuration is the Core i5-10300H with 4 cores and 512 GB of storage. RAM is 16 GB, just like with our model. The difference between the configurations is also with the used display, the base and medium have a 300 nit 60 Hz Full HD display with 72% NTSC coverage. The highest configuration got 4K, 600 nits and 100% Adobe RGB along with DisplayHDR400. This is probably the first time that I would recommend reaching for a 4K display in a laptop and thus for the highest configuration.

Looking inside, we see that the SSD and WiFi card are interchangeable. The second free slot in our configuration will be especially pleasing, but I assume that the Core i9 model with a 2 TB SSD will have both slots full. Theoretically, however, you can install your own SSD and get up to 4 TB of capacity using both slots. You will hardly change the WiFi card in the near future as it supports WiFi 6 802.11ax.

Interesting is also the design of cooling, which uses a vapor chamber and up to four smaller fans for cooling the processor. The manufacturer refers to the cooling system as Coldfront 2.0 and talks about its very quiet operation.

Opening the lid is possible up to a straight angle, i.e. to the plane with the base, which is my favorite feature of Lenovo laptops and I was pleased that it is not missing here either.

The keyboard is always a strength of Lenovo laptops, especially when it comes to business ThinkPads. The Y740S got a very similar keyboard to what you would see in its siblings in suits. The shape of the keys and the layout are practically identical, but the keys are not black but gray.

Pleasing is also the white backlight, which is again decent and does not need to glow of RGB colors like crazy, as is customary with gaming laptops. I have no reservations about the resolution, response time or other aspects, I am fully satisfied. However, it will be due to the fact that I myself had used ThinkPads for quite some time and I’m used to such a keyboard.

On the contrary, the touchpad didn’t really grab my attention. Not saying it’s especially bad, the glass surface is nice, the gestures also work well, but it’s nothing that would make my jaw drop. It is very difficult to press in the upper third, almost impossible and the dimensions could also be larger. However, the truth is that it’s hard to compare anything to the touchpad on the MacBook Pro, which I’m currently used to.

When looking at the top edge of the display, we see only a thin frame, the same as on both sides of the display. Where did the camera go? Is it absent as with the new Asus ROG laptops? No, it was just moved under the display to the so-called chin. In addition, it is equipped with a cover that you can use to cover it to prevent anyone from watching you. Again, this is a solution that is known from ThinkPads and I praise its use on Legion. The quality of the camera is the same as always, i.e. 720p with an image significantly worse than that offered by cheap smartphones. The camera does not offer face recognition, as was the case with the MSI GS66, but the Y740S did not completely lose its biometric security. The fingerprint reader is hidden in the power button, for which I’m giving a thumbs up.

Only 15 mm thickness and compact dimensions had to be reflected somewhere and the battery capacity was the target. 60 Wh is the value we see with 13–14″ ultrabooks, so the capacity is disappointing. The GS66 from MSI has been mentioned many times before. It has up to 99.9 Wh battery. However, what the GS66 doesn’t have is USB-C charging with a 95 W charger. We don’t normally see USB-C in gaming laptops, as it is limited to a maximum power of 100 W when charging, which is not enough to power gaming graphics cards, and since the Y740S does not have dedicated graphics, USB-C will suffice.

After an hour of charging, you reach 76% and a full charge takes 1 hour and 50 minutes. In addition, you can turn on fast charging in the Lenovo Vantage application, which achieves slightly better results. After an hour you will get to 86% and the total charge will be shortened by about 5–10 minutes. The 95 W charger has relatively compact dimensions, which you will definitely appreciate when traveling.

Although the battery is smaller than expected and a 45 W processor needs to be powered, its battery life is very good. In our demanding test on YouTube, we achieved 5 hours and 11 minutes, which is above average for a “gaming” laptop. However, we really don’t have much to compare it with, as we haven’t tested an H-series processor without dedicated graphics yet and you won’t even find such a concept elsewhere. Compared to gaming laptops with dGPU, although they use Optimus, may not be completely fair, on the contrary, ultrabooks have less power-thirsty 15 W processors that do not need as much. Personally, I consider the result to be very good, but of course due to the capacity of the battery, more could not be expected.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Testing methodology

We tested the notebook at home, not in a laboratory environment. Nevertheless, the effort was made for the most accurate results. These are therefore the average of the measured values from repeated tests.

The tests include synthetic benchmarks to compare the performance of both the processor and the GPU. We also measure storage speed, battery life, charging speed and in-game performance. The goal is to test laptops and desktops in various scenarios and get a comprehensive overview of their performance and operating characteristics.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Thunderbolt 3 eGPU

The whole idea of using the Legion Y740S is based on the use of eGPU via Thunderbolt 3. I therefore consider it important to explain, at least briefly, what eGPU is and how it is used.

The acronym eGPU means external GPU, i.e. external graphics processing unit. Various connections have been used to use this concept, currently the Thunderbolt 3, which the Legion Y740S is equipped with. On the other side, there is a box in which you can install a classic graphics card, in our case the RTX 2060 Super in the Dual version from Asus. Then you connect the box to the power outlet and with the Thunderbolt 3 cable to the laptop. Drivers will be installed and you can use the graphics right away. It is a plug-n-play solution, so there is no need to restart the laptop or anything like that.

Lenovo offers its own eGPU box for the Y740S called Legion Booststation, which we did not have the opportunity to try though.

That’s why we used Sonnet Breakaway Box 550, which I have owned for a long time and I have often used it in combination with various ultrabooks. It should be noted that the eGPU Thunderbolt 3 boxes are universal, so you are not bound to buy the box from the manufacturer of your laptop.

The limitation is just the size of the graphics and the power supply you use to power the graphics. 2080 Ti Aorus Xtreme did not fit into my box, in addition, the goal was to keep the price of the laptop with the eGPU solution around 2000 euros, so that it can be compared with classic gaming laptops at this price.

It’s also important to note that with eGPU via Thunderbolt 3, you’ll never get the full performance of the graphics card, just like you would when connected to a normal computer motherboard. The limitation is the Thunderbolt 3 interface itself, as well as the connection of the TB3 to the processor in the laptop, etc. Therefore, losses must always be taken into account, which in addition can vary depending on the laptop used.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Gamut, brightness and color difference

We measured the image properties of the display using the Datacolor Spyder5Elite color analyzer. The display in the tested piece cannot really be labelled as gaming oriented. It has 60 Hz, Full HD resolution in 16:9 aspect ratio (1920 × 1080 px), IPS technology and 300 nits. So there is no indication that this is a gaming panel. You won’t even find screen anti-tearing technology like FreeSync or G-Sync, which is kind of expected due to the absence of dedicated graphics.

The top configuration offers an equally non-gaming but more professionally oriented display with 4K resolution, 600 nits brightness and 100% AdobeRGB color reproduction. It also supports DisplayHDR400, although as you know, 400 is a marketing term rather than a meaningful value about the display quality. Either way, from the pair of displays, I would choose the 4K one for better color reproduction, which will also be suitable for graphic work, for which the Y740S is somehow more oriented than directly for playing games. Our tested piece should have 72% of the NTSC spectrum, which we will check in a moment.

The color analyzer showed us 98% sRGB coverage, 76% AdobeRGB, 81% DCI-P3 and 74% NTSC, which are neither bad nor charming values. Gamma closely copies the value of 2.3 with only a slight deviation. The uniformity of colors and brightness is relatively good, deviations are minimal. Delta-E is also very good with an average of 1.68, although you can see a relatively large deviation in turquoise. The brightness reaches a maximum value of 315 nits, which is again an average value. However, this should not affect indoor use.

The X-Rite Color Assistant application is used for display controls, where you can switch between several profiles.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Rendering, Geekbench

The tested Y740S configuration is equipped with a 6-core i7-10750H, similar to the Zephyrus M15 or OMEN 15. However, the Legion is significantly thinner than the competing models, so it will be interesting to see how it will affect the performance.

Let’s start traditionally with Cinebench R15 for a first look at the raw CPU performance. Due to the thin profile of the Y740S, I expect that compared to the M15 and OMEN 15 it will achieve a few percent worse results due to the thermal solution. Surprisingly, the results of single-core tests are very good, where in R15 the Y740S has a 3% lead over the M15 and only a 1% loss against the OMEN 15. In the R20 it even offers the highest score with a 1–2% lead. In the multi-core, my assumption is already beginning to show up, and in R15 the Legion is losing 2–5% to Asus and HP. In the newer R20, the difference has increased to 9%.

Blender and POV-Ray practical tests show different results. In Blender, the Y740S holds on to the competition with the same time as the M15 and loses by 4% to OMEN. In POV-Ray, however, it is already losing 14–18%.

The single-core results in Geekbench 3–5 show similar results as Cinebench and thus a 1/4/3% lead over the M15 and a -4/-1/-1% loss to OMEN 15. Multi-core also confirms the lower results, namely -1/-7/-11% compared to M15 and -6/-13/-18% against OMEN 15. The results show that the Y740S offers comparable and in some cases slightly better performance than the competition with the same processor. However, the multi-core tests correspond to my assumption of a slightly lower performance, which on average is around 5–10%.

We also see interesting results in Compute tests. First of all, comparing the integrated graphics and the eGPU dock, there’s not much to it. The RTX 2060S is 10–12 times faster than the integrated Intel UHD, which is no surprise. Interesting, however, is the comparison with the Zephyrus G14, which has the RTX 2060 Max-Q, where the Y740S with the dock wins by 20 and 9%. OMEN 15 with RTX 2070 Max-Q in one test lags behind by 5%, in the other it wins by 8% over the Legion with eGPU. In comparison, the M15 wins in both cases by 2 and 22%.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

3D/PCMark and Unigine Heaven/Superposition

The combined PCMark 10 test shows only a 14% difference between the performance of the default notebook and the eGPU configuration. With the additional graphics card, it beats the M15 by 3% and lags behind the OMEN 15 by 2%.

Gaming-oriented 3DMark Firestrike and Time Spy show quite different results. Let’s start with Firestrike. eGPU delivers 9x the performance of iGPU, yet loses 49 and 66% to OMEN and Asus. In Time Spy, the situation turned around, here the Y740S is already 3% faster than OMEN and beats the G14 by 22%. The performance compared to iGPU is almost 15 times as high. However, it still loses by 13% to the M15. Sky Diver shows different results though. The increase against iGPU is only 5-fold, losing 31% to OMEN, 9% to G14, but beating the M15 by 10%.

Tests focused on RTX and DLSS functions show very similar performance with OMEN 15. In Port Royal, the Y740S with eGPU is 5% faster. When DLSS is off, the fps are identical, when switched on, OMEN is slightly more powerful, by 3 and 11% depending on the DLSS version. The comparison with the G14, which has an RTX 2060, is also interesting. Here, the Legion already offers 20–30% higher performance.

Unigine Heaven gaming tests already show a higher potential of the RTX 2070, although in the mobile versions, in the M15 also OMEN 15. The Legion with eGPU thus lags behind by 18 and 53%. On the contrary, it is 4% faster compared to the G14. In higher resolution, the differences have significantly decreased, OMEN is only 2% faster and M15 by 29%. The lead over the G14 has also increased to 20%.

The latest graphics tests of Unigine Superposition tell us about the higher performance of the Legion with eGPU by 12 and 9% against the OMEN 15. To the M15, however, it loses 17 and 21%, but the G14 achieved a 31 and 23% lead.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Gaming tests – integrated graphics

Let’s start with CS:GO, which is one of the most popular games ever. Here you can see that the eGPU brings an 11-fold increase in performance. Without the GTA V is one of the most popular games on the market and offers complex and challenging graphics. Here, the difference between eGPU and iGPU has been reduced “only” to 6–7 times, and the performance of iGPU is one of the best in the range of UHD graphics. Without the external graphics card, however, a 27 fps game is more or less unplayable, unlike the Iris Plus graphics in the Ice Lake models.external graphics card, the Y740S is among the other Sky Lake to Comet Lake models.

GTA V is one of the most popular games on the market and offers complex and challenging graphics. Here, the difference between eGPU and iGPU has been reduced “only” to 6–7 times, and the performance of iGPU is one of the best in the range of UHD graphics. Without the external graphics card, however, a 27 fps game is more or less unplayable, unlike the Iris Plus graphics in the Ice Lake models.

We see a very similar result as in GTA in Dirt Rally.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Gaming tests – external graphics card

In gaming tests, there is again an interesting difference between the Y740S with eGPU and competing models OMEN 15, Zephyrus M15 and G14.

In GTA we see the difference between the eGPU configuration and G14 at the level of 17%, 21% for OMEN 15 and up to 89% for M15. In this game, the Y740S does not give very good results.

In Far Cry we see a similar result. It loses by 21% to the G14, 42% to the OMEN 15 and 52% to the M15.

Odyssey shows the worst result so far for the Y740S with eGPU, a loss by 48% to the G14, 73% to the OMEN 15 and 92% to the M15.

SOTTR surprisingly suits the eGPU version and the Y740S beats the M15 by 10%, the G14 by 8%, but lags behind the OMEN 15 by 13%.

In Metro, we return to the results before SOTTR and the Legion loses by 30, 49 and 95% to the G14, OMEN and M15.

When RTX was on, the difference in Metro was reduced to 4% compared to the G14, 42% compared to the OMEN 15 and 88% compared to the M15.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Encryption, encoding

In encryption we see a practically identical result with the OMEN 15, which is commendable due to the different dimensions.

Working with videos first shows a worse result by 11 and 6% compared to the OMEN 15 and the M15, but the order changed slightly with H.265 and the Y740S is in second place with a loss by 6% to the OMEN and a lead of 4% over the M15.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Memory and storage tests

The Y740S offers 15–30% slower memory speed, but has the best latency of the laptops compared.

I can praise SSD speeds with sequential speeds of almost 3.3 GB/s when reading and 2.9 GBs when writing. Not to forget the second free M.2 slot, which allows you to expand the internal storage or create RAID and a configuration for even higher speeds.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Heating and battery life

Maximum CPU temperatures are relatively high with a maximum of 101 degrees. Again, however, this is the maximum value, which is usually the result of a rapid increase in performance and then falls slightly. We will look at a more detailed analysis when comparing the modes and extended Blender tests. The absence of eGPU could mean more stable CPU performance.

Battery life is very good, over 5 hours, which is unusual for gaming laptops. The Y740S has the advantage of the absence of a dGPU and, for example, G-Sync, which often significantly reduce endurance. Nevertheless, this is a very good result, considering that we have a 45 W processor and a 15″ screen, but the result is not far from 13–14″ ultrabooks.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Blender – comparison of CPU and GPU

We are introducing a new type of test in which we want to show you the differences between CPU and GPU rendering and at the same time take a closer look at thermal management, clock speed and power draw in practice and not just the maximum or average values as in the previous chapters.

So, we’re comparing the course of the BMW test in the latest version of Blender, where in addition to the classic CPU and GPU render using CUDA, we also have the opportunity to use the new Nvidia OptiX, which uses new hardware resources for RTX graphics cards. While CUDA works with shaders, OptiX also uses RT cores and tensor cores for acceleration. Such a more complex involvement of computing units brings higher performance and efficiency is at a better level. At the same time, the application support is already quite decent and comprehensive. For an overview of the editors supported by the Optix API, see the Nvidia website. Nvidia is serious about this interface and has been developing “studio” drivers for some time, in addition to gaming ones, which are better and faster optimized for changes in supported applications.

In the case of the Legion Y740S, we will do Cuda and OptiX modes on the eGPU. It will therefore be interesting to observe how the CPU and GPU behave when they are not in the same body.

In the first graph, you’re looking at the progress of CPU clock speed during rendering. The classic CPU mode gradually decreases and stops at somewhere around 3.5 GHz. In Cuda mode, we see a drop from 4.4 GHz to 3.7 GHz. OptiX does not load the processor in any way and therefore the clock rate jumps somewhere between 4.2–4.4 GHz.

The power draw in CPU Package shows that the CPU and CUDA modes make full use of the processor and it thus consumes up to 100 W at maximum. With the CPU, we see a decrease to 75 and later to 65 W, which was reflected in the clock speed, as we saw above. In OptiX mode, the power draw is not so high, it moves around 30–35 W.

Processor temperatures for CPU and CUDA modes are at the level of 95 degrees, with a slight decrease at the end in CPU mode. Due to the lower CPU load, OptiX also offers lower temperatures somewhere between 75–85 ° C.

The GPU load in both CUDA and OptiX is full or almost full. Unlike laptops with dedicated graphics cards, we can see that even in CPU mode, the GPU does something, but it is not related to the test itself.

The load corresponds to the clock speed, where it is interesting that with both CUDA and OptiX it is kept at 1950 MHz and with the CPU the clock is only around 300 MHz.

The power draw of the GPU copies the graphs of load and clock, so the CUDA mode draws a little more than OptiX, specifically about 150 W and 120 W. In the CPU mode, the work of the GPU was reflected in 20 W consumption.

Finally, a look at GPU temperatures. Because the graphics card is in an external box, the CPU and GPU temperatures do not affect each other in any way. The GPU therefore reaches a maximum of 65 degrees in CUDA mode and approx. 60 °C in OptiX. In the CPU mode, it stays at 43 °C, which is actually an idle temperature.

The differences between the modes in Blender are considerable. The fastest is optix with a 20-second lead over CUDA, which represents a 44% difference. Compared to the CPU mode, OptiX is up to 7 times faster.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Performance modes

The notebook offers a choice of Performance, Balance and Quiet modes in Lenovo Vantage.

All tests were executed in Performance mode, but it’s worth looking at what differences the individual modes offer. Therefore, we compare the performance curves in Blender, as we are interested in the behavior of the processor in individual modes. Without a dedicated graphics card, there is no combined load and influence of one component on another, which we have already seen in the tests above.

The differences in clock speed between the modes are relatively large. Performance starts at around 4.4 GHz and gradually decreases to 3.5 GHz. Balance starts sparingly at around 2.6 GHz, then we see a jump to 4.0 and a drop to 3.1 GHz, which is kept until the end of the test. Quiet drops to 2.4 GHz right after the start and stays there until the end of the test.

The power draw directly copies the clock speed graphs. So, Performance shoots to 100 W right at the beginning and gradually drops to 75 W and in the second half drops to 60 W. In addition to the initial rapid increase, the Balance stays stable at 45 W. Quiet again stays at 25 W.

The temperatures also do not deviate in any way from what we have seen with clock and power draw. In Performance, therefore, the temperature is still at 95 degrees and will not drop slightly until the end of the test. The Balance is stable around 75 °C for the duration of the test. Quiet only rises slightly around the limit of 55–60 degrees.

Differences between the modes are also noted in the overall test results. As we have seen, the differences in the clock speed, power draw and temperatures are quite large, and also the rendering time varies significantly between the modes. There is a minute between Performance and Balance, which is an 18% difference. Subsequently, Quiet is 31% slower than Balance and 54% slower than Performance. So the modes really work and significantly affect the behavior of the notebook and the course of performance.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Lenovo Vantage

Use the Lenovo Vantage application, previously known from ThinkPad devices, to control the settings. It received a new gaming theme for the needs of the Legion.

You can monitor the status of your computer and control various settings in the application. The main functions are switching the modes that we have already mentioned. You will also find tools for updating drivers, the ability to record macro keys or turn on fast charging.

You can adjust the camera, check the functionality of hardware, turn on WiFi protection, or read a number of tips for a better laptop experience.

Lenovo Migration Assistant is an interesting feature, which allows you to transfer data from your old device to your new one.

Lenovo Vantage is a simple and clear application where you will find everything you need to manage your laptop, for which I’m giving a thumbs up.

Gaming laptops in a thin body often suffer from two flaws – overheating and short battery life. What to do if you want high processor performance, but in a thin body, with good battery and at the same time not lose graphics performance when you are at home or at work? A gaming notebook with dedicated graphics card will always be heavier than an ultrabook and will not offer such battery life. On the other hand, ultrabooks lack CPU performance. The Legion Y740S resolves this dilemma.

Rating

Legion Y740S-IMH 81YX0013CK is a very unconventional laptop, it can be said to be the only one of its kind. We can also say that no manufacturer had the courage to make something like the Legion Y740S. Personally, I have been looking for such a device for a long time. The Y740S represents meeting the very specific requirements I had for my work laptop. Compactness, low weight and a thin profile are important in the first place. The new Legion deserves an A+ for this, not even a 1.7 kg and 15 mm body is a real success with a 15″ laptop.

Performance was also important to me, and since I needed high portability, I always ended up with an ultrabook with a 15W U-series processor, which unfortunately was not enough for the classic H-series 45 W in gaming laptops. I don’t need a dedicated graphics card for my work, and at home/at work I can connect to the TB3 dock, if necessary. The Y740S combines high portability with the performance of gaming notebooks in terms of processor, as it also uses a 45 W H-series processor, unlike ultrabooks.

Good port selection without the need to use adapters always helps on the road, which the Legion meets almost perfectly. I praise the pair of TB3 and classic USB type A. A surprise is also the SD card reader, which will be appreciated by many creators. Only the HDMI connector for easy connection to a monitor is missing, fortunately a USB-C adapter is included in the package. Since I write a lot on a notebook, a very good keyboard is also needed. The Legion will only surprise you in this area, its high quality almost reaches the legendary ThinkPads. So, I insist that Lenovo is currently making the best laptop keyboards. It is also nice to have the ability to expand the internal storage thanks to the second M.2 slot. Unfortunately, RAM is not removable. What didn’t fascinate me so much is the display with average parameters, but you can choose the 4K version, which already offers significantly better properties. A small disappointment is also the 60 Wh battery, although the battery life over 5 hours is quite decent. However, it does not match ultrabooks.

The most controversial topic is, of course, the absence of dedicated graphics and the need to use eGPU. But of course, this depends on your needs. I don’t need a GPU for work, but I do need CPU performance. So for me, the absence of a graphics card is a good compromise for lower weight and better battery life. A surprise for me was also the price of the device, which in the tested configuration is about 1,350 euros. When you add 300–400 euros for the dock and another 400 euros for a GPU, we’re moving somewhere around 2,000–2,100 euros, which is roughly the price of laptops compared. eGPU configurations used to be significantly disadvantaged, but with the Legion Y740S, this is already beginning to make sense in terms of finances. You can change the graphics card for a better one, which you will not be able to do in the case of a gaming laptop. Keep in mind, however, that you leave certain percentages of GPU performance on the table when using an eGPU dock, but we’ve talked about this several times.

• Contents
• Specs and details
• Testing methodology
• What is eGPU?
• Display tests
• Rendering and Geekbench
• 3D/PCMark and Unigine Heaven/Superposition
• Gaming tests – integrated graphics
• Gaming tests – external graphics card
• Encryption, encoding
• Memory and storage tests
• Heating and battery life
• Blender – test of CPU, CUDA and Optix
• Performance modes
• Utility app
• Rating