The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Review: OLED and LCD Tested
by Brett Howse & Brandon Chester on September 29, 2016 11:30 AM ESTGPU Performance
Once again, since this is likely the last Skylake Ultrabook to be tested here, it’s also likely our last look at Intel’s HD 520 GPU. It’s been a nice improvement over Broadwell, even though the elusive Iris version has not made it’s way here. With 24 EUs in the GT2 GPU, it ends up being reasonable for low end games, and Intel seems to be promoting integrated GPU performance with more effort recently.
The X1 Yoga was run through the standard GPU suite, with a few synthetic tests, as well as Dota 2 for a low end game that can be played on an iGPU.
3DMark
Once again, there are no surprises with the HD 520, and the X1 Yoga falls in-line with the other Skylake GT2 units.
GFXBench
Much like 3DMark, the X1 Yoga scores similarly to the other Skylake devices tested.
Dota 2 Reborn
Valve recreated Dota 2 with a new gaming engine, which limits our selection of devices to compare against since the new Reborn version was launched. As an online game, it is also constantly updated.
The X1 Yoga outscored the Razer Blade Stealth in the lightest test, but was unable to pass it in the higher quality tests. Due to the nature of it being an online game, with frequent updates, this could be due to game engine changes as well as driver differences between the tests (typically notebooks are only short-term review units, so it can be difficult to maintain consistency). The margins are not huge though, and although the game is somewhat playable on our medium test, it really can only be played well at the lightest settings.
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Ej24 - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
Nope. There are at least two or three 15w "U" processors with Iris 540 and one 28w U processor with iris 550. The 580 graphics are only reserved for HQ (35-45w) and S (65w) processors. I'd love just to have iris 540. The typical 520, 4400, or 4000 Intel graphics are hardly good enough for light gaming at 720 or heavier loads during hardware decode/encode or the 50/50 software hardware hybrid pipelines Intel has been using.Ro_Ja - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
All of the GeForce with *40 and below are just a waste of good money now since the Iris HD 580 can stack up against even a 940M. I can hardly find a laptop in our country without any horrible AMD EXO Pros and NVIDIA's crappy entry-level cards. I just want less heat on the laptop I want to use.spikebike - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link
I have a NUC with the Iris 540. It's pretty nice, handles the occasional light gaming, WebGL games, Minecraft, http://slither.io, and related much better than the non-iris graphics.forgot2yield28 - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link
CAD. Not a huge niche, but Iris will outperform standard intel integrated GPU. Sometimes architects/engineers want to get work done on the road. The small footprint and lightweight of an ultrabook still has appeal.Byte - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
Would love to get this, but all the Yogas i've had had tons of hardware bugs that were near impossible to fix. Just getting the touchpad right took a few days of fiddling. If only they can get things working.Samus - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
Working in IT, I can back you up on one thing for sure. These machines are hell to work on. I've had to replace two fans in Thinkpad Yoga 12.5's and they are, in traditional Lenovo fashion, not detachable from the heat pipe (which is why they failed in the first place...the bearing is in direct-contact with the source) so the whole assembly needs to be needlessly replaced, instead of just popping the cover off with a latch and unscrewing two screws like you do in just about any modern HP Elitebook.The real insult to the Thinkpad Yoga line is the dreaded history of the battery "non-recall" that caused the Yoga 14 machines to hard power off if bumped in the front right corner where the battery is connected. This connection is very sensitive and the only way we found to help prevent this anomaly was to insulate the battery connection internally on every model we came across.
Routine repair by Lenovo would result in a machine returned with the same exact problems. Dealing with Lenovo support is like dealing with a car dealership. They don't listen to your problem and the mechanic runs their standard tests, says its ok, and returns it to the customer. They don't seem to have a system in place to diagnose specific issues.
Brett Howse - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
It already throttles GT2. Going to GT3e would help because of eDRAM but likely throttle even more.ajp_anton - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link
Sure it throttles, nobody would expect an Iris 540 to go full speed at 15W. But with double the EUs and half the frequency, you get the same performance but at lower power (lower frequency allows for lower voltage). Wider GPUs generally have higher performance per watt because of this, at the expense of higher cost.Senti - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
I expect USB type-C in what you call "premium notebook" today. And better than Intel HD 520 graphics...It's sad to see that OLEDs are still "not quite ready". Battery life with web browsing was the last nail in the coffin.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
It's not bad hardware, but it does seem overpriced. Given the GPU choice, the panel resolution is too high for the graphics card to effectively drive it. 1080p is a stretch for the 520 doing anything intensive. Lenovo should offer a lower resolution & cheaper option. I can't see the usefulness of the hinge design either. Desktop operating systems work a lot better with access to a keyboard and mouse (or touchpad) so owners are probably paying for a novelty feature they'll rarely put to use.