Lenovo launches Legion gaming desktops with mobile CPUs
Better price, less upgradability.
Lenovo has released its first desktop based on a mobile platform. This hybrid is called Mobile on Desktop (MoDT) and has been used by Chinese companies for several years. It was typically limited to smaller brands which might have not had official partnerships with Intel. Lenovo, the largest PC maker in China, definitely has such a partnership. This means that Intel is now officially supporting such unusual configurations and might see more of such systems in the future.
The Legion 7000K is based on Intel’s 14th Gen Core Raptor Lake-Refresh. The company is using two SKUs specifically: Core i9-14900HX (24 cores) and Core i7-14650HX (16 cores) . The Core i9-14900HX, which can boost up to 5.8 GHz, is reportedly supporting TDP up to 190W, while the Core i7-14650HX goes up to 160W and 5.2 GHz.
14th Gen Core HX platform, Source: Lenovo
These systems use a custom desktop motherboard with the CPU pre-installed and unupgradable. The CPU has no IHS, which Lenovo claims is an advantage, given that some enthusiasts already do that themselves through delidding on proper desktop CPUs. The cooler is supposedly capable of dissipating up to 190W of power, while the CPU can be unlocked up to 253W, it is said.
LEGION 7000K Cooling, Source: Lenovo
Lenovo is sharing some benchmarks showing that the 14650HX can beat the 14700F or 14600K in multi-core Cinebench R23 tests, while the 14900HX is faster than the 14900KF and 14700KF running Intel Baseline profiles (also quite interesting to see Baseline specs in benchmarks).
14th Gen Core HX platform, Source: Lenovo
Lenovo Legion 7000K MoDT Pricing
- Core i9-14900HX + RTX 4070Ti SUPER + 32GB RAM + 1TB SSD: 14999 RMB (~$2356 USD)
- Core i7-14650HX + RTX 4070Ti SUPER + 32GB RAM + 1TB SSD: 13999 RMB (~$2198 USD)
- Core i7-14650HX + RTX 4070 SUPER + 32GB RAM + 1TB SSD: 11999 RMB (~$1884 USD)
- Core i9-14900HX + RTX 4060Ti SUPER + 32GB RAM + 1TB SSD: 10499 RMB (~ $1649 USD)
- Core i7-14650HX + RTX 4060 Ti + 32GB RAM + 1TB SSD: 9499 RMB (~$1494 USD)
- Core i7-14650HX + RTX 4060 + 24GB RAM + 1TB SSD: 8299 RMB (~$1303 USD)
Various desktop GPUs are available with this system, but there is no version featuring the RTX 4080/4090, which is currently exclusive to the full desktop platform featuring up to the i9-14900K CPU. Options include the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, RTX 4070 SUPER, RTX 4060 Ti, and RTX 4060 models. Prices vary and range from $1303 to $2356. Sadly, it is not a cheap system, which somewhat defeats the purpose of this idea.
LEGION 7000K MODT, Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo