When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .
For that money, you're getting a flagship Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 CPU, 32GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory, and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. Not to mention a gorgeous 2560 x 1600 OLED display with a 240 Hz refresh rate, solid build quality, and a plethora of cutting-edge I/O. This laptop is also the perfect recipient for the upgrade since its GPU topped out at a measly RTX 5060 before, making it less powerful than the last-gen Legion 7a devices.
Now, that RTX 5060 variant was almost $600 cheaper than this new 5070-equipped model, but it's actually expanded to a $1,000 delta right now because the 5060 SKU is on sale at the moment. When Nvidia first announced RTX 50-series laptops, it said RTX 5070 devices would start at $1,299; even if you consider the upgraded VRAM, you're paying just about double of what was initially promised to you.
In all seriousness, the Legion 7a is a premium gaming laptop with all the bells and whistles so it naturally commands a higher price, AI boom or not. The RTX 5070 in here is also rated at a 115W TGP instead of the 100W baseline Nvidia has set for the GPU. Regardless, you can still find cheaper laptops kitted with the new 12GB RTX 5070, such as Lenovo's own Legion 7i with a Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor.
The extra 4GB of VRAM in these devices, gained by swapping from 2GB GDDR7 modules to 3GB ones, should help improve performance in modern titles and AI workloads, especially where ray tracing is involved. Customers have already complained about Nvidia's insistence on packing 8GB video memory pools with various GPUs for years, and at this point, if you're buying a new GPU (or laptop) with that spec, you're killing any chances of future-proofing.
Nvidia quietly launches 12GB RTX 5070 laptop GPU
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/lenovos-legion-7a-gaming-laptop-now-comes-with-an-rtx-5070-12gb-gpu-option-but-it-costs-usd3-375-paired-with-a-ryzen-ai-9-cpu-sku-was-previously-limited-to-rtx-5060#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/subscription
- Ingenious father fixes dead RTX 3070 with a jerry-rigged capacitor from an old radio — Saves worried son $120 in repair costs, GPU 'works better than before' no
- How Open Models Are Driving AI Research
- Claude Meets Blackwell Ultra: Anthropic’s Models Now Run on NVIDIA GB300 in Azure
- This 3D-printed electric motorbike folds into your luggage — creator warns it is 'super fast… way too fast'
- AI Innovators Adopt NVIDIA Vera — Why Max Single-Threaded CPU at Scale Matters
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.