Lenovo Legion 7 Gen 6 (AMD) Review

Lenovo's flagship 16-inch gaming laptop comes in both Intel and AMD flavors. The Intel version tested in October 2021—the Legion 7i Gen 6—is a real barn-burner, producing some of the best gaming benchmarks we've seen from any notebook. The AMD-powered Legion 7 Gen 6 (minus the i) reviewed here isn't quite as fast and misses out on Nvidia G-Sync and Thunderbolt 4 without colossal cost savings—it starts at the same $1,439, though at $2,649 our test configuration is some $600 under the 7i we tested. But it's still an exceptional performer, and more than doubles the Intel laptop's battery life to ultimately be the more practical of the two. The Legion 7 Gen 6 claims our Editors' Choice award among deluxe 16-inch gaming laptops.

The Best of Team Red and Green

The Legion 7 Gen 6 is one of the rare high-end gaming laptops that offers an AMD processor; Lenovo deserves a nod for the effort alone. Our $2,649 review model from Lenovo.com couples AMD's strongest mobile CPU, the eight-core, 3.3GHz (4.6GHz boost) Ryzen 9 5900HX, with a 16GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, 32GB of memory, and a 1TB solid-state drive. It's reasonably priced for such an elite component loadout.

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The $1,439 base model is also well-equipped, with an eight-core Ryzen 7 5800H, a 6GB GeForce RTX 3060, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. You can get an RTX 3060 for less in the MSI Katana GF66 or HP Victus 16, but those are plastic budget machines; the Legion's metal build and superior features put it in a different league. In addition, the Lenovo's RTX 3060 is rated for a hefty 130 watts, considerably higher than usual. (See our primer on why GeForce RTX wattage matters.)

(Photo: Molly Flores)

When it comes to features, however, the Intel version's addition of an Nvidia G-Sync-enabled screen, Thunderbolt 4, and a faster PCIe Gen 4 SSD can make it more compelling, though top-end Core i9 units cost more. Nonetheless, the absence of these extras from the AMD system is only really worthy of complaint because the Intel version offers them, although AMD's latest mobile platform does support Gen 4 SSDs, so it would have been nice to see one.

As the AMD and Intel Legion 7 Gen 6 rigs are physically identical, much of what we say here about design will be a repeat of what we said a few months back. The laptop's metal build is well-crafted and feels remarkably solid. Its Corsair iCUE-driven LED lighting makes it quite the attention-grabber (though the LEDs aren't switched on in our photos). The lighting spans every edge, the lid, and the keyboard.

At 0.93 by 14 by 10.3 inches (HWD), the Legion is thick but otherwise not much larger than its 16-inch, 16:10 aspect ratio display. Trimmer 15- to 16-inch gaming laptops can be found, namely the Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model, but not if you want the kind of performance the Legion offers.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

All AMD versions of the Legion 7 Gen 6 have the same 2,560-by-1,600-pixel screen. It's a beauty; as measured with our Datacolor SpyderX Elite, it covers 100% of the sRGB color gamut and delivers a high peak brightness of 437 nits. It also has a high refresh rate of 165Hz and an anti-glare surface.

The 720p webcam over the display is nothing special, though it does have a physical cutoff switch on the laptop's right edge. Unfortunately, the Legion has neither a face recognition camera nor a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello logins. The laptop's speakers, which fire from under the palm rest, produce loud and full sound.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

The Legion's tactile keyboard makes long gaming or typing sessions a real pleasure. Its buttonless touchpad is large and clicks nicely, too.

Physical connectivity is excellent despite the absence of Thunderbolt 4. Two USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports on the left and rear edges almost make up for the omission, offering ample bandwidth and support for DisplayPort over USB-C. The rear port even supports power delivery, though you must use the included AC adapter, which also connects around back, for the laptop to achieve full performance. The AMD Legion also deviates from its Intel counterpart in that it uses a MediaTek MT7921 rather than Intel AX201 wireless card, but it supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 all the same.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Remaining ports along the back edge include Ethernet, three USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 (one supports device charging while the laptop is off), and HDMI 2.1 video output. These locations keep cables out of sight, and I like that the port symbols are backlit for easy visibility. You'll also find a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port on the right and a headset jack on the left.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Testing the Legion 7 Gen 6: Fast, But Not the Fastest

For our benchmark charts, I compared the AMD-based Legion 7 Gen 6 not only to the Intel model, but to several other high-end gaming laptops including the Alienware x15, the XPG Xenia 15 KC, and the all-AMD MSI Delta 15. You can see their basic specs in the table below.

The real battle, of course, is between the Legions. The GeForce RTX 3080 is rated for an impressive 165 watts in both laptops. 

In case you're wondering how the Legion 7 Gen 6 behaves while gaming, our FLIR One Pro shows the system getting a little toasty during a 3DMark Time Spy stress test in the thermal image below. The area above the keyboard registered 106 degrees F, but that's not overly hot—if anything, it's a few degrees below what I saw from the Intel version. The areas where you would normally put your hands are cool enough.

(Photo: Charles Jefferies)

The Legion's fans aren't quiet, but the AMD model's seem to be better behaved than the Intel machine's, with less peak noise. Gaming with this laptop in a family room shouldn't create a disturbance.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive. The Intel-based Legion 7i led the pack, though the AMD version proved no slouch (anything over 4,000 points indicates excellent productivity). However, the Intel system scored much better in the storage test, thanks to its PCIe Gen 4 SSD. 

Three other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Our final productivity test is Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters. 

The AMD Legion's Ryzen 9 5900HX predictably proved faster than the Delta 15's Ryzen 7 5800H, but the Intel Legion wasn't to be caught with its Core i9-11980HK.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

For Windows PCs, we run both synthetic and real-world gaming tests. The former include two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Also looped into that group is the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which we use to gauge OpenGL performance. 

Our actual game testing involves the in-game benchmarks of F1 2021, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege, representing simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games respectively. On laptops, we run Valhalla and Siege twice at different image quality presets, while trying F1 with and without Nvidia's performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing turned on.

It's clear that the Intel Legion outpaces its AMD cousin, though by how much correlates with CPU involvement. The Intel machine dominates in the CPU-limited Rainbow Six Siege and 3DMark Night Raid, but the differences are minimal in the GPU-heavy Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Remember, both Legions boast a 165Hz screen refresh rate, so unless you're hooking up an even faster external monitor, it's hard to place much value on frame rates over 165fps. In that sense, the Intel version's edge is somewhat hard to appreciate.

Battery and Display Tests

PCMag tests laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with screen brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting are turned off during the test. 

We also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its brightness in nits (candelas per square meter) at the screen's 50% and peak settings.

In a clear win for the AMD Legion, it more than doubled the battery life of the Intel model. Five and a half hours is about the minimum we expect from a high-end 15- to 16-inch gaming rig. Strangely, though Lenovo rates both Legions' max screen brightness at 500 nits, I measured the Intel model as nearly 25% brighter. The AMD system nonetheless offers plenty of brightness and vivid color and contrast.

Maximum Performance and Decent Battery Life

The Lenovo Legion 7 Gen 6 is an excellent high-end gaming laptop in both AMD and Intel guise. Top-notch quality, comfortable input devices, and ample connectivity are but a few of its many upsides. Given their similar price points, your choice will come down to what's different.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Though the Intel version has more compelling features—an Nvidia G-Sync-enabled screen, Thunderbolt 4, and a faster solid-state drive—plus marginally better gaming performance, the AMD model cures its cousin's only real deficiency, brief battery life. That's enough for the AMD Legion 7 Gen 6 to earn our equally enthusiastic recommendation.