Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I

First published in GRIND IV, pages 228–233.

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Well now, my little monsters, our eyes have seen plenty over the last 25 years, especially in tech, which remains our main passion. I know, things look settled now, although we're most likely standing at the start of a new era that will change everything (I'm talking, of course, about AI), but over the last 25 years we've witnessed events that irrevocably changed the field we work in, whether the changes in question were more or less obvious at first glance.

The emergence of smartphones, Nvidia's acquisition of 3dfx, ATI's acquisition by

X I

AMD, Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's Personal Systems Group, the birth and popularisation of gaming laptops, AMD's spectacular comeback in the processor segment, the rise and fall of Nokia, the rise and fall of HTC, LG or Huawei in the smartphone world, Apple and Samsung's stranglehold on the market, the birth of the big Chinese conglomerates that now own a large share of the smartphone brands...

All of this and plenty more has happened over the last 25 years, and beyond the technological revolutions whose long-term impact we can't yet assess, in each year we get novelties of greater or lesser importance that will change the market one way or another, sooner or later. For instance, Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's Personal Systems Group 20 years ago raised questions about the future of the ThinkPad series, yet nobody would have imagined that Lenovo would become one of the most important manufacturers in the gaming segment, through the Legion brand, 13 years later.

Of course, the process took a while, and it might just as easily never have happened, had the Asian giant not considered this market important enough.

Fortunately, Lenovo paid particular attention to the gaming segment, as the excellent Legion series launched over the last 7 years proves.

Similarly, somewhere back in the pre-Cambrian era of IT, more precisely in 1998, Intel launched the first dedicated graphics card in its portfolio, the Intel i740, whose purpose was to popularise the AGP slot at the expense of the PCI slot, which most manufacturers were using at the time. Well, the story of Intel's first graphics card is as delicious as it gets and involves names like GE Aerospace, Lockheed Martin and the defunct Real3D, the graphics card division of… Lockheed Martin. Honestly… the 90s in tech were mad…

What's certain is that the Intel i740 was a failure of colossal proportions, which is why Intel didn't build another dedicated graphics card for 25 years… until spring 2022, when it launched the ACM-G11 core, along with two products based on it, the Intel Arc A310 and Intel Arc A380.

The ACM-G10 core arrived on 14 October 2022, built into three cards, namely the Intel Arc A750, the Intel Arc A770 8GB and the Intel Arc A770 16GB; a year later (10 October 2023) came the slightly tamer Arc A580.

None of this is news to LAB501 readers, since the Arc A580, A750 and A770 alike were tested on LAB501 last year. Fewer enthusiasts may know, however, that between 2022 and 2023 Intel also launched three series of discrete graphics cards for laptops, namely Arc 3 (A350M and A370M, launched in March 2022), Arc 5 (A530M – Q3 2023, A550M – Q2 2022 and A570M – Q3 2023) and Arc 7 (A730M and A770M, launched in Q2 2022).

Of those, only the A370M made it into a handful of HP, Dell and MSI laptop models with 12th-generation Core processors.

As you can probably tell, the success of these models was absolutely "thunderous", which is why most of you have probably never even heard of them until now. Well, at the end of last year Intel decided it was time to change strategy, approaching one of the biggest gaming laptop manufacturers, namely Lenovo, in order to launch together a range of gaming laptops with an unbeatable price-to-performance ratio, built on the newest addition to Intel's portfolio, specifically the Intel Arc A530M. We're talking about the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9, already available in Romanian shops for prices between 3099 RON and 3599 RON, depending on the memory or storage fitted.

Intel Arc

A530M

Both Intel's desktop graphics cards and those intended for laptops are based on one of the three Alchemist cores (G10, G11 or G12), built on a 6nm process in TSMC's fabs. In the case of the Intel Arc 5 A550M model, we're dealing with the ACM-G12 core (DG2-256), made up of 12 X2 cores, 192 XMX units and 12 raytracing units, with a configurable TDP of between 65 and 95W.

The Intel Arc 5 A530M can be fitted with 4GB or 8GB of GDDR6, addressable by the graphics core over a 128-bit bus (the model integrated in the Lenovo is the 4GB version). What's genuinely interesting is the AV1 encoding support, which GeForce RTX 3000 series and Radeon RX 6000 series cards don't have.

Although they lack NVIDIA's experience when it comes to upscaling technology (DLSS is already on its third major revision), Intel has developed XeSS, a technology meant to compete with DLSS and FSR, already implemented in several titles on the market. What's more, Intel's solution for real-time ray tracing is also already in a number of games released over the last 2 years.

Specifications: the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is equipped with an Intel Core i5 12450HX processor, made up of 4 P-cores and 4 E-cores, for a total of 12 threads and a maximum frequency of 4.4GHz. As I was saying, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I uses an Intel Arc A530M graphics card, with the processor and graphics card backed up by 16GB of Samsung-made DDR5 4800 and a 512GB or 1TB NVMe SSD from Solidigm.

The display is based on an IPS panel with a 15.6" diagonal, Full HD resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate, offering 100% coverage of the sRGB colour space.

The stereo sound system, in turn, consists of two 2W speakers and a Realtek ALC3287 codec, while network connectivity is handled by a Realtek 8852BE wireless solution + Bluetooth 5.2 and Realtek Gigabit LAN.

On the connectivity front we have 3 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port (PD 140W, DP 1.4), 1 HDMI 2.1 port, 1 audio in/out jack and 1 RJ-45 port, while for video calls there's a 1080P camera with an e-Shutter.

Last but not least, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is equipped with a 60Wh battery

(3887 mAh) and ships with Windows 11 preinstalled, with versions shipped without an operating system also available in the shops.

So the version with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage is on a special offer at 3099 RON right now, while the 1TB version is also on a special offer these days at 3399 RON.

Build and features: the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I comes in a compact box, inside which we find the laptop and a 170W power adapter. The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is built from plastic, but at first glance you wouldn't say so; the build is solid, and the matte finish is reminiscent of the anodised aluminium on the Legion series. What's more, the keyboard contributes fully to this impression, with keys offering the same 1.5mm travel as its bigger siblings in the Legion series.

The connector layout is familiar, with a USB port, a USB-C port, the audio jack and the webcam shutter button arranged along the right-hand side, while the rest of the ports sit in the middle of the rear edge, just like on the Legion series.

Under the bonnet: we're dealing with a solid cooling system, thanks to the oversized ventilation grilles. The fans draw cool air in through the bottom of the chassis, with the hot air expelled through the rear, where the areas dedicated to this purpose are generously cut out. The cooling system consists of 3 impressively thick heat pipes, 2 heatsinks and two centrifugal fans, with the power delivery stage, the chipset and the memory also protected by dedicated heatsinks.

On the other hand, the NVMe SSD is quick to reach, and can be swapped out with ease. There's also an unpopulated M.2 2230 slot, and if we need it, the BIOS battery is easy to get at as well. The only thing I could hold against Lenovo is the use of a battery smaller than the space available.

Tests: the Intel Core i5 12450HX is a balanced, modern processor, offering enough computing power even for the most demanding users, considering the price bracket we're discussing.

For its part, the SSD made by Solidigm turns in middling performance for an NVMe drive, yet comfortably ahead of any S-ATA SSD, and more than enough for most home users.

On price, notebooks fitted with an Intel Arc 5 A530M are around 600-900 RON cheaper than equivalent notebooks (same processor, same display) fitted with an RTX 3050 4GB, an absolutely significant difference in this category. The problem is that I have never had a notebook with an RTX 3050 in my hands and could not find a single sample anywhere, which is why I tested a Lenovo LOQ fitted with an RTX 3050 6GB by way of comparison.

Mind you, there is a considerable gap between the RTX 3050 4GB (2048 CUDA cores) and the RTX 3050 6GB (2560 CUDA cores), both in shaders (~25% more) and in price, so the comparison is a little forced. On top of that, the cooling system on the Lenovo LOQ is one of the strongest in this price bracket, so not every RTX 3050 6GB implementation will post the same numbers. Even so, in synthetic tests the Intel Arc 5 A530M comes out ahead in most cases, and the raw power on show is impressive.

Sadly, raw power is not enough in games: Nvidia has a clearly better story on drivers and on working with game developers, which hands the RTX 3050 6GB an advantage of more than 20% in games over the Intel Arc 5 A530M. Below I have run two scenarios, using 5 games from our graphics card test platform. In the Ultra scenario I used the same settings as on the graphics card test platform, while in the Medium scenario I dropped the detail to get a higher framerate.

As you can see in the images below, the RTX 3050 6GB comes out on top against the Intel Arc 5 A530M, though neither of them manages an average of 144 fps, the sort of figure you would need to make the most of the 144Hz display. That means that if AAA titles are what we are after, we will have to drop the detail to minimum, or buy a notebook with a graphics card from another price bracket entirely, such as an RTX 4060.

On the other hand, when we are talking about titles such as Diablo 4, World Of Tanks, League of Legends, DOTA or WoW, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I with its Intel Arc A530M can hit that framerate without trouble on medium quality settings, which makes for an excellent quality-to-price ratio, bearing in mind that we are talking about a notebook that costs

~3000 RON.

Last but not least, since I did not have a notebook with an RTX 3050 4GB to hand, I have also included at the end the reference results Intel themselves obtained in an internal comparison, where you can see both an edge over it in most of the titles tested and a significant advantage in AV1 encoding, which is for that matter one of the strong suits of the Alchemist architecture.

Battery life, temperatures, noise level. To measure battery life I first ran a long-usage scenario (Productivity in PowerMark) with the Power Saver profile in Windows, 50% brightness and Wi-Fi on. This test simulates the kind of office work that means browsing and office applications (Word, Excel). I then ran PCMark 8 Creativity, at 100% brightness, High Performance profile and WiFi On. Last but not least, I played World Of Tanks on the same settings. All the tests started with the battery at 100%, each one finishing once the battery had discharged by 81-84%.

The manufacturers' strategy of recent years is fairly clear, at least for products above a certain level of quality.

So cooling systems get more and more solid, but not in order to keep temperatures as low as possible, quite the opposite: to allow the thing to run for as long as possible as close to throttling as it can, which is how mobile processors have behaved in recent years. And the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is no exception to that rule, the processor peaking at 95 °C after the whole battery of tests. Admittedly, in the processor tests alone its temperature does not go past 89 °C.

At the other end of the scale, the Intel Arc A530M never goes above 70 °C throughout the tests, making it a thoroughly well-behaved graphics core on that front. And when we take the notebook away from the mains we get a pleasant surprise, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I serving up over 11 hours of light work, or 4 hours of heavy work.

The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is available in Romania in the right configuration for this price segment, fitted with an FHD panel with a 144Hz refresh rate, and the panel made by CSOT (TCL) turns in good results for the class, with a white level of 315 cd/m2 and very high contrast. Colour reproduction and uniformity are no slouch either, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I delivering optimal performance on that front too.

Conclusions. Well then, my dears, I could say we have a first on our hands, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I being the first notebook with a discrete graphics card made by Intel that I have tested so far. Whether we are looking at a turning point for the IT industry or not... honestly, I could not tell you right now. Because Intel has gone about both the desktop and the notebook segments in a distinctly odd way, and how the discrete graphics card range develops depends entirely on them.

Experience and R&D money are there, but it depends strictly on Intel whether they will invest enough in this product line to become a competitor to Nvidia and AMD or not. For now, the American giant has contented itself with aiming at the gaps the two big manufacturers left in the market, or with offering far more affordable alternatives at a similar level of performance, which is exactly what the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I does with its Intel Arc 5 A530M against the models fitted with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 4GB.

What is certain is that, judged strictly as the product tested today, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I offers an excellent quality-to-price ratio: a capable processor, a roomy SSD, enough RAM, a good-quality display, a solid cooling system and build quality better than most models in this price bracket, all with a graphics card that copes happily with eSports titles, and even with slightly more demanding ones, if we drop the detail significantly.

Is it a true gaming monster? Clearly not, but then we could not have expected that in the 3099 - 3599 RON bracket. On the other hand, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is an all-rounder that has plenty to offer for the price it sells at, whether we are talking about school, photo or video editing, or gaming in popular titles such as LoL or Diablo 4. Hardware AV1 encoding is an advantage over equivalent Nvidia models too, the solid cooling system is already a Lenovo trademark, and the price at which we can get this performance is unbeatable right now. A true bang for the buck, to use a phrase popular in the Anglophile world...

MONSTER

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