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There’s a new budget CPU that’s made its
way into some cheaper gaming laptops.
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But there’s a catch. It doesn’t
have any integrated graphics,
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which means battery life
is probably going to suck.
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It’s AMD’s Ryzen 7 7435HS processor, and
I bought it in this Lenovo LOQ with RTX
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4060 graphics to find out if it’s worth buying!
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Alright first we need to understand
what AMD has done to the 7435HS.
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It’s very similar to the popular 7735HS,
which is just a rename of the 6800H from
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early 2022. They all have the same amount of
cores, threads and cache, but the 7435HS has
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slightly lower base and boost clock speeds and
it’s completely missing the integrated graphics.
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They’re all based on AMD’s Zen 3+ architecture,
so technically the 7435HS is not new. With Zen 5
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launching any day now, technically this
architecture is 2 generations old. But
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we’re only just now starting to see it pop
up in cheaper gaming laptops like this one.
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So why would AMD make a laptop
processor without integrated graphics?
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Well the 7435HS chips were likely originally
intended to be a higher SKU like the 7735HS.
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But as it turns out, teaching sand
how to think is a tricky process.
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There are failure rates when it comes
to making CPUs. AMD must have ended up
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with a bunch of chips that had defective
GPUs, but rather than scrapping them and
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turning them into waste they’ve found
their way into cheaper gaming laptops.
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No integrated graphics means that everything
is going to run on the more powerful Nvidia
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discrete graphics, which in my case here is
the RTX 4060. So even with the laptop just
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sitting here right now doing absolutely
nothing, it’s burning more battery than
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it otherwise would with integrated graphics. So
let’s find out what this means for battery life.
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Sure enough, battery life isn’t great, lasting for
just 3 hours and 24 minutes in our YouTube video
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playback test. But at the same time, other
LOQ laptops that we’ve tested that do have
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integrated graphics only lasted for 48 minutes
more, which isn’t really a huge difference,
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though some lasted longer than others. Those
other LOQs all have Intel processors, based on
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our other Ryzen results that do have integrated
graphics, battery life is usually quite good, so
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a LOQ with AMD processor and integrated graphics
would likely do better than our Intel results.
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The whole point of a laptop is to be mobile
and have portability, so the 7435HS kind of
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defeats that purpose by not having integrated
graphics and giving us poor battery life.
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But here’s the thing, companies
making these laptops know this,
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so in many cases they’re selling
them at lower prices in order to
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compensate for that, hoping that you’ll
buy a laptop with one of these chips.
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So let’s see how the 7435HS actually performs.
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Multi core performance is basically the same
as the 7735HS in ASUS’s TUF A15, or the 6800H
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in Lenovo’s Legion 5 from a couple of years ago,
which makes sense, they’re basically the same chip
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as discussed. Although the 7435HS only recently
started appearing in gaming laptops, at the
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end of the day the chip offers performance from
early 2022. The newer Zen 4 chips that came out
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in 2023 score 18 to 25% higher in multicore, but
laptops with these chips usually cost more money.
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Performance doesn’t lower too much if we unplug
the charger and run off of battery power, though
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you won’t be doing that for as long without
integrated graphics. It’s still basically the
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same as the 7735HS and 6800H, and the Zen 4 chips
are still ahead by a similar margin as before.
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So CPU performance is exactly
where expected. It’s ok,
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but not super impressive compared to what newer
processors offer. But how does it affect gaming?
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We’ve tested the LOQ in 3 games with these
settings at 1080p and 1440p to find out.
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Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with our own custom
test run, and I’ve got the LOQ shown by the
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red highlight. It’s not actually all that
different compared to the 2023 LOQs that we
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tested with RTX 4060 graphics, despite those
having newer Intel processors. The processor
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matters less at higher resolutions like 1440p,
as the GPU starts to stretch its legs. The
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Legion laptops with newer Zen 4 processors were
actually slightly behind now, but honestly the
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difference between most of our RTX 4060 results
are close together and within the margin of error
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range - it’s only a small difference that
you wouldn’t actually notice when playing.
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Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s
benchmark tool. At 1080p our cheaper LOQ with
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7435HS is close to the 2023 models with the same
GPU but newer Intel CPUs. Those Legion laptops
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with newer Zen 4 processors are ahead, but again
this is margin of error stuff that you’re not
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going to notice. The 4060 results are even closer
together at the higher 1440p resolution, with
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some of the higher tier 4070s in thinner
laptops not doing too well in this game.
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The 7435HS LOQ was doing great in Control at
1080p. It’s one of our highest RTX 4060 results,
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at least in terms of average FPS. The laptops with
newer Zen 4 processors all have higher 1% lows,
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so they’re just a bit more stable with smoother
gameplay, which is honestly preferable given
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the average FPS is already near 100 without
upscaling. The CPU matters less at 1440p,
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and ultimately the performance from
the 7435HS laptop is perfectly fine
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in this game. Even the 1% low is matching
one of our more expensive Zen 4 laptops.
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This laptop does not have a MUX switch,
but that’s only because it doesn’t need
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it. There’s no integrated graphics to swap away
from. The display always connects directly to
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the Nvidia graphics no matter what, as that’s
the only option. So game performance is always
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going to be optimal by default, there’s no
integrated graphics acting as a bottleneck.
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That said, the total system latency wasn’t that
impressive. This measures the amount of time
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between a mouse click and when a gunshot
fire appears on screen in Counter-Strike
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2. It’s nowhere near as bad as Gigabyte’s
cheaper G6X, despite that having a newer CPU,
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or Lenovo’s LOQ with Intel’s worse, but cheaper
A530M graphics. But there are other 4060 laptops
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with newer Zen 4 processors and faster
screens that are a bit more responsive.
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Surprisingly, the 1080p screen mine came
with has G-Sync, but it’s not very bright,
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topping out at just 282 nits at full brightness
- below the 300 nit baseline that I want to see.
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This makes it one of the dimmer screens we’ve
tested, however the LOQ we tested 7 months earlier
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had the same panel and was a little brighter,
so there is some variance between panels. Color
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gamut was fine for gaming, the only downside of
the screen is the brightness, it’s a little dim,
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but that’ll be less of an issue if you’re
playing inside and can reduce ambient lighting.
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My LOQ’s screen response time isn’t great. For a
144Hz panel we want transitions to occur within
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the 6.94ms refresh window, and all of them are
slower than this. Still, it’s faster compared to
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a number of other gaming laptops in the budget
category, but depending on how sensitive you
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are you might notice a little blurriness in
fast paced games - I can’t say I did though.
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Alright, but how hot does a
laptop with the 7435HS get?
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Well it depends on the performance
mode you’re using. As usual, the LOQ
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has 4 different performance modes, which from
lowest to highest are quiet, balance, performance
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and custom mode. Custom mode lets you customize
the fan speed or set them to maximum, customize
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temperature and power limits, or just set extreme
mode to let it work out what’s best for you.
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The LOQ runs quite cool, with low temps and
quiet fans at idle. The rest of the results
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are from combined CPU and GPU stress tests, which
aim to represent a worst case full load scenario.
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But temperatures are what I’d consider to be
ice cold in a laptop in this workload, there’s
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no problem at all. Custom mode was a little warmer
than performance mode, and we’re able to lower the
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temperatures 2 to 3 degrees Celsius with the
cooling pad, link to that can be found below.
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Temperatures don’t really change with the lid
closed, so no problems with docking the laptop.
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Clock speeds don’t really change in custom mode
with the fans maxed out, or extreme mode in use,
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or with the cooling pad or lid closed, because
thermals are nowhere near close to being a limit.
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The CPU is able to run with 45 watts of
power while the GPU runs at around 95
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watts. Technically the Nvidia control panel
says that the GPU power limit of this laptop
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goes up to 115 watts with dynamic boost,
but in practice 95 watts is the real limit
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due to Nvidia’s voltage limit. Unfortunately
there was some battery drain during testing,
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but only in custom mode where it’s pumping
the most power into the CPU and GPU.
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The 170 watt charger can
only provide so much power,
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but I only saw a 1% dip to battery charge
every 10 to 15 minutes or so, and the fact
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is many games won’t max out both the CPU and
GPU fully like this, so your mileage will vary.
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CPU performance wasn’t really that different in
the lower performance modes, and neither was game
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performance, so you could probably avoid battery
drain in a lower mode without much fps loss.
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Here are the 3DMark results, and the content
creator results look lower than most of the
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others that we’ve tested, but unfortunately
we just don’t have too many results,
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as older data gets cleared out when
we swap to newer software versions.
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Wi-Fi performance is the lowest we’ve measured
so far on our new router setup, but at the end
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of the day this isn’t that far off from gigabit
speeds, so it’s probably fine for most people.
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Many people on Reddit and in
the comments of my own videos
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asked about the motherboards on LOQ laptops dying.
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So I asked Lenovo about it and as of
today on July 23rd they said based
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on the service requests they’ve received
there hasn’t been an increase in issues
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with the LOQ compared to their other products.
But they’re keeping an eye on the situation,
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so if you have had any problems
then contact their support team.
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The unfortunate fact is laptops from
any brand can just randomly die one day,
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whether we’re talking Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, Dell,
MSI, Alienware, Razer, everyone. All hardware has
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failure rates, but they’re usually very low
and that’s why things like warranty exist.
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Is the issue with the LOQ actually
widespread? Honestly I’ve got no
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idea outside of the people that have
reported it. If it’s something that
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you’re concerned about you can get other
laptops with the Ryzen 7 7435HS processor,
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like ASUS’s TUF A15, which should
also be available as a cheaper option.
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Which leads me to the next point, how much
does this thing cost and is it worth buying?
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Prices will of course change over time,
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so check the link below the video
for updates and current sales.
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And if the LOQ has a good sale we’ll be sure
to add it to our gaminglaptop.deals website.
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We update that every day to include all
of the latest sales, so make sure that
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you check it out regularly to save money on
your next gaming laptop with that link below.
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At the time of recording in late
July, the LOQ is on sale at Best
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Buy for $800 USD. Honestly that’s not too
bad for an RTX 4060 gaming laptop right now,
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but our deals site has Dell’s G15 with newer
Zen 4 processor and a higher refresh rate screen
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for $35 less which is just a better deal.
Not to mention it has integrated graphics.
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Based on that, I think it would be nice if the LOQ
with 7435HS went down to $750 or so, because we’ve
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had other 4060 laptops that do have integrated
graphics at around that $800 price point before.
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Ultimately, we want to see laptops with
the 7435HS priced lower than those with
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integrated graphics in order to justify the
battery life compromise. Otherwise there’s
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just no point buying one of these laptops
over one that has integrated graphics.
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As the 7435HS is basically a 7735HS
just without integrated graphics,
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CPU performance is much the same, and
performance in games was often just
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as good as other laptops with the
same GPU but with newer processors.
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It really comes down to how important battery
life is for you. Lower battery life might not
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be the end of the world if you’re someone
that only uses the laptop with the charger
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connected. In that case maybe you don’t
care and you’re happy to get the discount.
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So if a laptop with a 7435HS is cheaper and you’re
primarily gaming with the charger connected,
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then sure go for it. But for most people
who probably care more about battery life,
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you would want to avoid this CPU.
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Pretty much everything else about Lenovo’s LOQ
laptop from build quality to the screen to the
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keyboard, touchpad, and ports is all the same as
the original review that I did earlier this year,
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so check that one out next if you want
any further details about Lenovo’s LOQ.
