I'm looking for a gaming laptop and I came across this. Usually I see the Y7000 during these eBay sales that Lenovo have but it looks they’ve gone with the Y540 this time. From what I can see the only difference between the 2 is the storage (512SSD vs 256SSD +1TB HDD).
It looks like a pretty good price for the spec to me. PLNVO20 to get the price.
Referrer and referee get $20 after referee's 1st purchase of $90+.
I got Y7000 last year and it's been good so far.
Not sure if this or this is better at this price range? https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/556779
I'm leaning towards the cpu being the most important, and think the mobile graphics card differences for 1660ti vs 1650ti are not huge.
If you’re getting primarily for gaming I’d get the 1660Ti
For what it's worth, the performance difference between a 1650 Ti and 1660 Ti is fairly significant. In 3DMark Time Spy and Fire Strike the latter has a nearly 50% performance uplift based on NBC data: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmar…? (you'll need to apply the filters manually)
If gaming performance is a higher priority for you I'd recommend you towards the 1660 Ti. If it's not too important then I guess you have options!
Depending on the game difference between 1660ti and 1650ti is about 20fps
if you are after a cheap gaming laptop with 1650ti you can go with the Asus TUF Gaming FX505DT for under $1100.
https://www.shoppingexpress.com.au/buy/asus-tuf-gaming-fx505…
That's last generation Ryzen mobile, which is ok, but definitely not the boss that Ryzen 4000 mobile chips are. I would go with the Lenovo laptop deal in this thread over that TUF machine in your link.
ahhh.. no wonder its relatively cheap..
in any case, really depends whats more important to you, $$ or having the latest and greatest hardware
Bought the FX505DT, I believe it was related to my mesh routers, but I had significant Wi-Fi issues, serious lag and dropouts with gaming and video conferencing (the two reasons I bought i. I tried every troubleshooting option under the sun, but nothing fixed it.
There's threads all over reddit, some people have issues connecting to wifi at all, some say upgrading or upping ram fixes it,
but for my issues, they say swap the wifi adapter, which can void the warranty, that part won't be covered, and there's no guarantee if other net issues emerge.
It did seem to work on a mate's standard router, but since mesh are an emerging tech, it might be better to stay away from them.
Since it was working as intended and unusable at my home, I returned it and bought a Legion Y540 RTX2060 model, not the same price range, but I just wanted something reliable.
If you just want a working product, I strongly recommend not buying the FX505DT.
Strongly recommend any Legion product, haven't heard a bad thing about them and mine is sweet. (underside gets a lil hot, ~60*C, but nothing crazy concerning, just can't be used on your lap, but that's basically all gaming laptops)
I got a Y540 at the end of last year and have been using it infrequently since then (much less than expected due to world events though lol). If you care about temperatures / fan noise / sustained performance I very strongly recommend you consider undervolting the CPU. Guides to do so for the i7 9750H etc are plentiful. I personally ended up with the following settings for my 9750H WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT BLINDLY COPY but I have provided for reference and hey maybe they'll appear in a search engine result for somebody in the future.
My load temps dropped substantially (>15C iirc), the fans are quieter, and clocks (and therefore performance) are much improved under sustained load. I tried repasting as well to see if it would make a difference - for me it didn't but YMMV.
I also chucked a GPU overclock of +220 core +850 memory using MSI Afterburner / EVGA Precision X1 (again, I don't suggest blindly copying these numbers). I consistently had issues with Afterburner having high CPU usage at idle that I was never able to resolve even after digging around a bit so just switched to Precision X1. Given the listed laptop is nearly identical to my own, you might run into the same issue as me if you try to use Afterburner on it.
Some of the (optional) BIOS updates affect the automatic fan profiles. I personally didn't really mind the way that mine changed (shipped on BIOS version BHCN32WW, updated to BIOS version BHCN35WW), but there are a few people online who appear to be extremely upset about it, so idk. It's been minor enough to me that I don't even remember exactly what the difference is - I think maybe the fans ramp up faster than before (perhaps slightly too fast, but they were too slow to ramp on 32WW imio) but you can no longer lock them at 100% manually (100% is uncomfortably loud though).
My biggest complaint with the laptop is that the power brick + power cables are bizarrely heavy (1kg), which I did at least know before buying it. I've been overall very happy with the unit other than that.
Performance numbers post-tweaking (9750H + 1660 Ti):
Probably the best ozb comment I've seen all year.
Thanks lol. I just had some notes leftover from when I was tweaking it, and accidentally still had a search alert on OzBargain enabled for the Y540. Figured since I was already here I might as well share the info that I had saved. At this point maybe I should just keep the search alert on so that I can pop in each time it's posted again haha.
You're the Y540 oracle.
@dingle: Haven't really been monitoring my hardware of my Y540, but there has been random performance lag here and there, and I have noticed my SSD running at not too hot, but also an ideal temp at random times where it should be idle (just noticed cuz I had a random HD monitoring tool for other purposes).
Will look into this, have the RTX 2060 model, but conveniently living with an IT whiz who I'm sure could help me figure this stuff out.
Thanks for the tips 🙂
Mate you've answered questions I didn't even know I had.
Correction: I found my notes on the BIOS fan change and it was the reverse with regard to fan speed change (but the part about the updated bios removing the manual 100% fan speed is correct I believe, and that's why some people got upset).
Old BIOS ran the laptop fans a bit loud even when CPU and GPU were 60-62 degrees C (i.e. plenty cool). The updated BIOS went slightly too far the other way in my experience, as even under load the machine remains fairly quiet but runs a smidge hotter than I'd like (still not "hot" hot though - but I don't have notes on the exact temps for new BIOS under load). Given the choice I definitely prefer the second, but only if I have that undervolt applied to keep temperatures reasonable!
Anyone have suggestions for a $2k aud gaming laptop?
There was the Dell G7 deal not too long ago.
Ebay
Dell G7 17 Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7-10750H 16GB 512GB SSD RTX 2070
Promo PCLAPL20
I sadly missed that one. A prefer a legion aswell, any chance lenovo is gonna have a good sale like the DELL one?
Which city do you live in? I have a spare G7 if you're interested.
@F1ProjectOne: Sorry I'm not interested in buying a G7, just wanted to know if Lenovo is perhaps having a sale sometime this year.
@David1484: Looks like ya missed a bunch of Legion sales, and honestly they were kinda slim this year, even with EOFY, the best I saw were estimated over 12 weeks wait
If you want a Legion, you're lookin at a gtx 1660 at that price range currently, unless you're cool to wait
There's also a decent price from JB-HiFi currently, it's a 10th gen i5, 16gb ram, 512gb, 144hz screen, but sadly only a 1650ti, might be good depending in your usage
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/lenovo-legion-5i-15-00c1-…
Don't know if it's worth an add on OzB, I've never really posted any deals, but looks pretty decent.
Edit: I know this is/could be a worse deal than OP, but really depends on what you're looking for, if a bigger SSD, higher refresh rate screen, and newer processor are what you're looking for, and you aren't lookin at playing the newest games on the market at the highest graphics settings, this might be more appealing
@David1484: Lowest the Y540 seem to have been is $1440. If you really want a Lenovo, I would either get this or the AMD one depending on your usage as it's about as low as it will get. The Lenovo maybe has better cooling but there are many ways to improve it through undervolting, cooling pad or repasting. That Dell deal was a great deal, better screen… etc, so I am happy to deal with the cooling compromises.
@David1484: They have a 3 month wait time which is obviously totally unacceptable for electronic products which change so quickly, they’re released obsolete.
You would either want something with a 10thGen i7 or wait for the decent new Ryzen’s to start trickling out late September/early October
Meh
300NITS 60hz
I would like to buy this lenovo but 256mb hdd is too small. I want 1 tb ssd boot drive or 512mb.
Does anyone know if this unit can be easily upgraded and if that will violate the warranty.
I would like to put in a larger ssd boot the moment i get the unit.
Put the old unit back in if you send it back to Lenovo for warranty.
Upgrading the storage should be relatively simple, and is unlikely to violate the warranty.
I'd recommend you look up a disassembly guide (Lenovo has an official disassembly manual, but there are 3rd party written and video guides as well which you might be easier to follow).
Is this laptop worth to buy? Is there any recommended laptop with the same price? Thanks.
Saw the same deal last August without 1tb hdd