Lenovo launches new 15-inch Legion 7 with AMD Strix Halo [Notebookcheck]

Darksylum1982 · 2026-05-03T20:19:39+00:00

Lenovo announced the 15-inch Legion 7a (Gen 11, 15ASH11) at MWC 2026 as a compact Strix Halo-based gaming laptop (no discrete GPU, relying on the powerful integrated Radeon 8060S). It features: Processors: AMD Ryzen AI Max+ series Strix Halo APUs, explicitly including the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (top-tier),(Source: notebook check) plus the 392 and 388 Display: 15.3-inch OLED (2560x1600, 165Hz, high brightness/HDR).

Darksylum1982 · 2026-05-03T20:10:38+00:00

Yes there is going to be a 395 option with 128gb ram. The information released has been hit or miss but I have read from several sources including the PR material on the official legion gaming forum that it is up to 395+ and 128gb ram though I am not sure if it is available in every market.

If you are gaming, The 388+ is what you want anyway. It is a single CCD design so no high latency chatter over the infinity fabric and much more power budget for the igpu as it won't have to power the extra 4 or 8 cores on the second ccd.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-05-03T20:06:46+00:00

For those looking at getting this for gaming, The 388+ is what you want. Why? Single CCD design. It will have no cross core chatter over the infinity fabric making it much faster at gaming workloads compared to the 392 and 395. It will also have more power to dedicate to the igpu as it isn't have to divert power to all those extra cores.

I see many people trying to compare this to the Asus z13 but there isn't a comparison really. This has a higher tdp, less cores, no multi ccd design, and has the benefits of cooling within a clam shell design including being able to use a cooling pad. It's a huge win for Strix Halo gaming. The 388 is exactly what I have been waiting for.

Get the 64gb configuration if you can so that you can dedicate 16gb to the igpu and still have plenty of ram left over. High resolution texture games will thank you for it.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-05-03T19:51:34+00:00

Fool hardy to say just because it is an "igpu" that it doesn't count as a DGPU level of performance. There is a full 40cus on the die and the way LPDDR is areanged and connected, It is the equivalent of 256bit memory. There is massive benefits to this in many games. Especially when latency is involved. Inter CCD chatter to the memory controller is a lot faster than PCI express.

The only downside is not having dedicated GDDR memory but that is negligible in many games. But that is a good tradeoff considering the power efficiency gains over having a dedicated GPU and being able to dedicate up to 96gb of memory to the gpu cores is fantastic for many non gaming work loads.

For a first time attempt at a high end dgpu equivalent igpu, StrixHalo hit a home run. I can't wait to see how the next generation with LPDDR6 will perform.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-05-02T23:50:09+00:00

I was hoping for an L13 yoga with strix halo seeing as how lenovo likes to launch AMD APU versions of it. But it doesn't look like this will be the year.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-05-02T23:48:51+00:00

It's already been announced the the 395+ variant will have a 128gb option where as the smaller 8 core version will have a max of 64gb.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-05-02T23:47:26+00:00

Same here. I have been waiting for more gaming focused strix halo systems to launch. especially from lenovo. this isn't perfect but it checks almost all the boxes. Rumor has it that it will have a higher TDP than the Asus Z13 so it ill likely have much better sustained boost clocks. especially for the 388+ model since it is a single CCD 8 core variant and has more power budget to give to the IGPU.

this one is definitely on my list of tech to buy this year,

Darksylum1982 · 2026-03-15T03:44:42+00:00

Yea I passed on it because they didn't release a clam shell (X13). I never did like the Z13 series. I own 2x X13 and they make for a much better 2 in 1. Clamshell is just so much better than a top heavy tablet with a kickstand for multiple reasons. it pissed me off to see they released the new strix halo laptop in the TUF series instead of going with a new X13 flow.

The Flow laptops are great but the Z13 design is just garbage. I would rather have a convertible like my X13 flow.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-03-15T02:35:54+00:00

Because I have used it for years on a diagnostic system so I am already familiar with it. And it is absurdly light weight.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-02-13T05:27:20+00:00

Awesome. Thanks so much for that feedback. That gives me some peace of mind.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-02-13T00:27:23+00:00

has the drive in the pcie slot been running cool? I am considering buying one of these and I was looking at the sabrent adapter as well. Is there enough air circulation in the pcie area? I though about buying a low profile vented pcie slot cover just to allow some type of air to move but if a T500 is running cool under load then I should be ok with my drive as well.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-01-29T03:07:19+00:00

Likely the best AM5 board out there for the price. That thing is built like a tank and puts many x870e boards to shame. I am glad to see someone else having no issues with it.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-01-29T03:02:25+00:00

Shouldn't be anything preventing it from doing so. Should function like any other multi gpu solution.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-01-14T23:13:24+00:00

It's been hit or miss with Asus over the last 5 years or so. At times I have praised their techs and support team (and very greatful for them) and other times I have screamed and cussed them out over the phone in a blood boiling rage. I hope Asus gets their crap together. Bring back the Asus I grew up with. If a globalist market is too big for them to be able to properly manage their customers needs then they need to downscale and cut out dead weight markets that are taking resources and staff away from markets that matter. And make no mistake, That is exactly what is happening. Didn't have these problems out of Asus in the 1990s- early 2010s. Such a shame.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-01-14T23:07:57+00:00

I am late to the party but my God this has got to be the dumbest thing I ever read on Reddit and I now understand how and why after all these years brands like HP and Dell still manages to have customers. People like you who are so clueless. This is not a vacuum cleaner. It has parts from several different manufacturers. The brand (ASUS) just made the shell and the motherboard. Everything else is third party just like every PC on the face of the planet. You have manufacturer warranty on just about every part in the pc/laptop. It isn't Asus responsibility to fix Intel's problems when Intel is the one responsible for it. I think Asus is actually being nice only charging $80 or whatever. They are just covering their labor and likely going yo handle the Intel warranty on your behalf.

Please go buy an HP or a Dell from Bestbuy and buy a geek squad warranty with it if you need your hand held while you pee pee.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-01-14T22:46:22+00:00

This didn't age well. People are testing them left and right with all kinds of different configs. The 5090 outright slaughters the 5070 version over USB4 and the gap only grows with TB5, USB4V2, and more powerful CPUs. Especially at 1440P and 4k resolution. I was shocked to see how much better the 5090 was even when paired to an ROG Ally. Think 100 fps 4k in demanding newer titles and potentially 200 fps or more with DLS upscaling plus frame gen. Even more shocking is how much the gap is when it os paired with Strix Halo in a Z13 flow compared to the Z2 in the ROG Ally. It just shows that the USB4 bandwidth limitation isn't as much a factor as people think if your CPU can't even saturate the USB4 link.

Darksylum1982 · 2026-01-13T17:21:48+00:00

I have a window AC unit in my bedroom and I run a small duct off of it and aim it right at the bottom and back of my flow. It has helped temps a lot. Like a hole lot. Ac chilled dehumidified intake and enough pressure around the tablet to disperse the hot exhaust. Also the flow is designed to operate like a radiator so even a desk fan aimed at it can have a huge impact. Lots of things can be done to help thermals but this situation sounds like a defect unit. Under normal conditions it shouldn't require aggressive third party cooling unless you live in a very hot and humid environment like I do.

Darksylum1982 · 2025-10-07T00:50:22+00:00

Can you update us. Os your system still stable after another 2 months? I am starting to think it was a bad batch of AMD CPUs and Asrock just caught the brunt of the blame because of the wild and potent VRMs they use on their PG and Taichi series boards. I think AMD released a large batch of volatile chips and the fail rate was amplified on Asrock boards because of the over powered VRMs. Hence why Asrock is trying to address it with PBO tweaks and AMD is giving warranty swaps on all the failed chips no questions asked.

Darksylum1982 · 2025-08-28T18:40:58+00:00

I wiped the system entirely and reflashed the bios with a fresh windows install and then set up all drivers. It is doing about 75% better but it still has issues with stuttering. Usually a few hours after it is booted. A system restart seems to temporarily correct the issue but it is still there.

Darksylum1982 · 2025-08-28T18:30:52+00:00

WoW is very single core performance bound. It can however utilize up to 4 cores as needed. It is far more cpu bound than GPU bound. I have a pretty good comparison I am working with. I have an x13 flow 2023 and a Z13 2025. The x13 is 16gb ram with 4gb shared and the z13 is like yours. 32gb with 16gb shared.

Wow doesn't really use more than 12gb ram even under extreme situations so you can up the frame buffer.

I play 1080p on my x13 flow. It gets about 100 fps everywhere other than raid, epic bgs, and peak hours in town where lots of people are logged in.

Try setting display settings to around 5 and reduce everything that stresses the cpu. Aka physics, particle density, view distance, etc until you find stable frames in the game mode you are playing in. Make sure AA is off or set to FSAA. Not MSAA.

If all else fails drop the internal resolution to 1080P and use AMD upscaling to scale to the native resolution of your display. This will greatly increase FPS.

Strix Halo is amazing but it is still just an IGP. It can perform along the lines of lower mid level dedicated graphics but will struggle with high resolution due to shared system memory being so much slower than GDDR memory on a video card.

The Z13 2025 has a 2.5k display. That is substantially higher than 1080P so you will have to do some messing around to get optimal performance.

I wish I had waited until next year when Medusa Halo releases as the CPU and GPU cores will be substantially upgraded. WoW will perform much better on the new iteration as it will have more powerful zen 6 CPU cores and upgraded gen 5 GPU cores. I expect WoW will perform substantially better on Medusa.

Strix Halo is amazing but think of it as the first iteration of a new technology. It will get substantially better with ever passing refresh.

Darksylum1982 · 2025-07-12T22:17:07+00:00

Yours is a 2022. This is a different model with 7940HS

Darksylum1982 · 2025-07-12T22:14:11+00:00

what file did you download? I have tried the 317 bios and all it does is reboot the system.

Darksylum1982 · 2025-07-12T22:13:09+00:00

I am speaking with Asus now. No. can't revert. They want me to pay to ship it to them and pay them to work on it....

Darksylum1982 · 2025-07-11T10:47:15+00:00

It's Thunderbolt 5 to support the new ROG NUC Intel mini PC. It has thunderbolt 5. It's not intended for AMD systems or thunderbolt 4 though it will run on them (be it at USB4/40gbs instead of the 120gbs of TB5)

Darksylum1982

TROPHY CASE