We challenge all systems’ graphics with a quintet of animations or gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark test suite. The first pair, Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K), uses the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. The second two, Steel Nomad’s regular and Light subtests, focus on APIs more commonly used for game development, like Metal and DirectX 12, to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. Last, we turn to Solar Bay to measure ray tracing performance in a synthetic environment.
Our real-world gaming testing is based on the in-game benchmarks for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and F1 2024. These three games—all benchmarked at the system’s full HD (1080p or 1200p native) resolution—represent competitive shooters, open-world games, and simulation games, respectively. If the screen supports a higher resolution, we rerun the tests at the QHD equivalent of 1440p or 1600p.
We run the Call of Duty benchmark at the Minimum graphics preset—aimed at maximizing frame rates to test display refresh rates—and again at the Extreme preset. Our Cyberpunk 2077 test settings aim to push PCs to the limit, so we run it on the Ultra graphics preset and again on the all-out Ray Tracing Overdrive preset without DLSS or FSR. Finally, F1 represents our DLSS effectiveness (or FSR on AMD systems) test, demonstrating a GPU’s capacity for frame-boosting upscaling technologies. The capacity of these frame-rate boosts varies with the version of frame generation tech available: DLSS 2 and 3 stitch one AI-generated frame between every pair of originally rendered frames, while the latest DLSS 4 inserts up to three additional frames. (FSR can generate up to four new frames per original, while XeSS can only stitch in one new frame per original frame.)
In synthetic benchmarks, the Legion 5i, Alienware, and LOQ delivered close results—no surprise, given their shared RTX 5060 GPU—though the Legion 5i often pulled slightly ahead. Meanwhile, the RTX 5050-powered Katana marked a clear performance dip, with the RTX 4050 Victus landing another notch below.
We tested the Legion 5i and Alienware systems using real-world game benchmarks at 1200p, compared with 1080p for the other contenders. The Alienware showed a modest edge over the Legion, likely due to its more potent CPU, while the LOQ also reported competitive results, possibly because of the slightly lower resolution.
Only the Legion 5i and Alienware participated in our higher-resolution 1600p benchmarks, where the Alienware retained a slight lead overall. While the Legion 5i experienced a noticeable dip in frame rates at this resolution, the gameplay remained consistently smooth and playable.
