We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and Blender – Classroom, which resulted in similar findings to what we explained above (140W limit for Turbo, 110W for Performance, 70W for Silent).

 

 

We also ran the 3DMark CPU test on the Turbo and Turbo UV profiles.

 

 

Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time.

This review unit passed the test with both the laptop on the desk and with it on a raiser stand, in order to favor airflow into the fans. The raised score is higher, which means that the system heats up with longer loads, but not in any way that leads to notable performance throttling. We’ll further discuss this in the Gaming section below.

 

 

Next, we ran the entire suite of tests and benchmarks, on the Turbo profile with the GPU set on the Standard mode (MUX on Advanced Optimus), and with the screen set at the native QHD+ resolution. The CPU runs on stock voltage for these tests.

 

Here’s what we got:

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 8254, 16 – 7638, 8 – 5927, 4 – 3670, 2 – 1916, 1 – 967;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike (DX11): 26492 (Graphics – 30882, Physics – 28583, Combined – 12177);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal (RTX): 7355;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy (DX12): 12083 (Graphics – 12190, CPU – 11512);
• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way (DX12 Ultimate): 2948;
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 7070;
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 21717;
• PCMark 10: error;
• GeekBench 6.2.2: error;
• CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 2792 cb, CPU Single Core 261 cb;
• CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 6926 cb, CPU Single Core 665 cb;
• CineBench R23: CPU 18157 cb (best single run), CPU 17261 cb (10 min run), CPU Single Core 1668 cb;
• CineBench 2024: GPU 11735 pts, CPU 991 pts (best single run), CPU 984 pts (10 min run), CPU Single Core 103 pts;
• x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 23.66 s.

And here are some workstation benchmarks, on the same Performance profile:

• Blender 3.4.1 – BMW scene – CPU Compute: 2m 15s;
• Blender 3.4.1 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 17.22s (CUDA), 8.58 (Optix);
• Blender 3.4.1 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 5m 43s;
• Blender 3.4.1 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute: 32.37s (CUDA), 18.57s (Optix);
• Blender 3.6.5 – BMW scene – CPU Compute: 2m 18s;
• Blender 3.6.5 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 16.73s (CUDA), 9.70 (Optix);
• Blender 3.6.6 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 5m 45s;
• Blender 3.6.5 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute: 31.33s (CUDA), 17.53s (Optix);

• PugetBench – DaVinci Resolve: 1353 points;
• PugetBench – Adobe After Effects: tbu;
• PugetBench – Adobe Photoshop: tbu;
• PugetBench – Adobe Premiere: tbu;

• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 97.32;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 65.70;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo: 92.80;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy: 42.35;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 384.70;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical: 39.72;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 22.55;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 270.50.
• V-Ray Benchmark: 12885 – CPU, 1301 – CUDA, 1826 – RTX.

The CPU scores are higher in single-core and short duration multicore tests than on the i9-13900HX configuration of the Legion Pro 7i models we’ve tested. But the sustained CPU multithreaded performance is a little lower, due to the CPU running at lower power in the 9i.

The GPU performance is on par with other full-power RTX 4080 laptops we’ve tested.

The RTX 4090 configuration will score up to 20% higher in regular benchmarks, and up to 25% higher in RT tests. The 4090 also comes with extra vRAM, which will make an impact in certain loads.

nces between these platforms.

 

Turbo Mode vs. Performance, Silent

But first, let’s touch on the Performance and Silent profiles offered in Armoury Crate.

Those Turbo-mode results are mind-blowing, but the laptop runs at up to 48-49 dB on the Turbo profile, which you might find noisy. Thus, if you’re willing to sacrifice the performance to some extent in order to keep the fans quieter, the Performance and Silent profiles should be of interest.

Here’s how this 2023 Scar 18 performs on the Performance profile, which limits the fans to around 42-43 dB at head level.

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 7221, 16 – 6808, 8 – 5292, 4 – 3587, 2 – 1953, 1 – 973;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike (DX11): 24148 (Graphics – 27680, Physics – 29129, Combined – 10911);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal (RTX): 4660;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 10854 (Graphics – 10732, CPU – 11667);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 6095;
• CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 6850 cb, CPU Single Core 678 cb;
• Blender 3.41 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 6m 06s.

The CPU and GPU run at slightly lower power on this profile, hence the scores take a slight hit. Nothing significant, but you should be aware that the internals are also running at slightly higher temperatures in combined loads in this mode. We’ll discuss more about this aspect in the Gaming section further down.

You can also opt for the Silent profile, in which case the fans won’t go over 35 dB. Here’s what we got in this case:

Both the CPU and the GPU end up significantly power limited in this mode, but still perform competitively given how quietly the laptop runs.

Speaking of, I noticed some coil whining when launching demanding loads on this Silent profile, just before the fans start to spin. Something to carefully look into on your units.

All in all, it’s up to you whether the performance/noise balance is justifiable on this Silent profile. I for one prefer keeping Asus laptops on Silent pretty much all the time, even when running games. As long as Silent mode works properly, of course.

Gaming performance

Let’s see how this RTX 4080 configuration of the Lenovo Legion 9i handles modern games.

We tested a couple of different types of games on the various available profiles at 3.2K, QHD+ and FHD+ resolution, all with the MUX manually set on the dGPU mode and the GPU on the Overclocked mode.

Here are the results:

• Battlefield V, Cyberpunk, Doom, Witcher 3 – recorded with Fraps/in-game FPS counter in campaign mode;
• Far Cry 5, 6, Metro, Red Dead Redemption 2, Tomb Raider – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities;
• Red Dead Redemption 2 Optimized profile based on these settings.

Those above are rasterization tests, and here are some results for RTX – Ray Tracing performance, with and without DLSS.

This configuration runs smoothly in all these modern games at QHD+ resolution and Ultra settings. RT performance is also impressive for this 4090 variant, especially with DLLS3 in supported titles.