Lenovo Legion C730 Dice Evaluation
“The C730 is a succesful gaming system that’s finally restricted by its personal graphics card.”
1080p gaming is easy crusing
Minimalist aesthetics with strong construct
Abundance of ports
Inner parts are simple to entry and improve
Moveable design aided by high deal with
Restricted storage capability
Giant footprint for compact desktop
No USB-C or Thunderbolt three
Right here’s a query you’ve in all probability by no means requested your self: What in case your gaming PC appeared much less like a standard pc and extra like a beer cooler? Lenovo’s newest compact gaming PC, the Legion C730 Dice, is as near that as we could ever see.
The C730 Dice not solely appears to be like the half, but it surely additionally retains its internals cooled ships with its personal six-pack within the type of Intel’s hexa-core processor. Alongside that succesful processor, you get the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 for graphics — in addition to a novel carry deal with for straightforward transportation.
Beginning at $1,300, the C730 Dice represents Lenovo’s distinctive method on balancing efficiency, worth, and portability, however is that this Coleman-inspired gaming PC the proper device to your subsequent gaming battle?
Not your father’s cooler
In contrast to its rivals, Lenovo took a extra muted method in designing the Legion C730, and that’s not essentially a nasty factor. Except you reside, breathe, and play PC video games 24-7, the C730 will slot in regardless of the place you set it up in your house. It’s minimalist matte black end — which Lenovo calls iron grey — helps it transition between a piece horse in your house workplace, a house theater PC in your lounge, and a strong VR-capable gaming rig.
Opponents within the class, just like the ASUS ROG Huracan and MSI Trident three, include extra aggressive, angular designs and crimson accents that do little to hide their gaming roots. Although these desktops could instantly catch your eye, they’ll begin to really feel misplaced when utilized in a extra grown up dwelling workplace area.
However the C730’s extra grown-up vibes include its personal prices — the system isn’t probably the most compact. Whereas rival methods occupy as little desk actual property as doable — ASUS’s ROG Huracan G21 has a smaller footprint at 5.11 x 14.66 x 14.41 — Lenovo designed the C730 round portability. At 9.09 x 13.07 x 9.53, the C730 takes up extra desk actual property, however the carry deal with makes it simpler to maneuver.
To maximise using accessible area, the C730 comes densely packed, contributing to the unit’s heft. Weighing simply shy of 20 kilos, the C730 is inside vary of different compact gaming desktops.
Like different gaming desktops, you gained’t discover any scarcity of ports.
At that weight, it’s not one thing you’ll need to carry in all places, but when it’s essential transfer it, the highest carry deal with helps. And, in case you’re involved that lengthy gaming periods can result in a sedentary life-style, simply take a break and elevate and carry the C730 between rooms for some prompt energy coaching.
The surface surfaces are principally constructed of a sturdy plastic, however there’s an inside metallic cage to maintain issues bolstered. The 2 detachable plastic facet panels are additionally lined with metallic sheets.
Up high, you’ll discover a carry deal with and a transparent plastic window helps you to rapidly establish the C730’s gaming heritage — when the unit is powered on, full RGB lighting illuminates the highest of the unit, and the clear window provides you a peak on the graphics card — our overview unit is powered by Nvidia’s GPU and exhibits off the GeForce GTX branding. RGB lighting, CPU overclocking, and guarantee assist are all dealt with via the bundled Lenovo Vantage app.
The lacking hyperlink
Like different compact gaming desktops, you gained’t discover any scarcity of ports, that are distributed between the entrance and the rear, and there’s a detachable rubber strip on the again for cable administration. In complete, you’ll discover eight USB ports (two USB three.zero, 4 USB three.1, and two USB 2.zero), an Ethernet connector, headphone jack, mic enter, audio output, DVI port, three DisplayPort connectors, and single HDMI port. Dolby Atmos can be supported, for an immersive audio expertise.
Chuong Nguyen/Digital Traits
Whereas there are ample USB ports, the C730 doesn’t include USB-C or Thunderbolt three assist. Together with these ports would have made the rig extra future-proof and permit customers to attach an exterior GPU. Each MSI and ASUS included a USB-C port on their compact gaming desktops, permitting avid gamers to attach newer drives or screens to their methods.
Wi-fi connectivity is supported by 802.11ac Wi-Fi with 2×2 MIMO and Bluetooth four.2.
The one factor that connects the C730 to your private home outlet is a medium size energy cable.
All configurations of the C730 additionally ship with a wired keyboard and optical mouse, although you devoted avid gamers could need to improve to a mechanical keyboard. The USB keyboard is responsive, however doesn’t include any backlighting results. The keys are accountable, have good journey, and key caps include a backside curve just like laptop computer keyboards on Lenovo’s IdeaPad and ThinkPad traces.
Our greatest grievance with the keyboard is that Lenovo made it a bit extra compact by squeezing within the conventional two-row, three-column space that’s dwelling to the Insert, Web page Up, Web page Down, House, Finish, and Delete keys right into a three-row, two-column format. This rearrangement additionally resulted in shifting the arrow keys over to the left, with the left arrow now positioned slightly below the proper Shift key. Whereas the configuration isn’t detrimental to the touch-typing or gaming expertise, it took us a while to regulate to the squeezed format.
Compartmentalized for cooling
The centrally positioned and vertically mounted motherboard inside helps to divide the C730 into two compartments, each of that are simply accessible by way of detachable facet doorways. One panel will be rapidly eliminated by way of a latch discovered on the rear, which supplies entry to probably the most heat-generating parts, just like the RAM, processor, and graphics card. Luckily, neither the RAM or GPU are soldered on, so each are upgradeable sooner or later. All C730 configurations ship with a single 16GB RAM module, however customers can add as much as three extra modules for a complete of 64GB.
Chuong Nguyen/Digital Traits
There are additionally three followers on this compartment which can be used for energetic cooling. One fan is discovered on the GPU, a second positioned on the motherboard, and a 3rd mounted on the rear to tug air from the entrance of the unit via vents with round bullet-hole cutouts. Usually, we didn’t discover warmth to be a difficulty, even throughout longer gaming periods. Fan noise was very delicate, and the low-pitched whirl of the fan blades wasn’t distracting.
On the alternative facet is a second panel that’s secured by two Phillips screws. Right here, you’ll discover the drive bay for the HDD together with the internally mounted energy provide. Luckily, not like the Huracan G21, you gained’t be saddled with exterior energy bricks; the one factor that connects the C730 to your private home outlet is a medium size energy cable.
Upgrading the exhausting drive or including an extra drive is straightforward, and Lenovo supplies useful movies so that you can navigate the C730’s internals. All of the parts are effectively organized, with cables tied collectively to maintain a tidy look.
Overclockable for efficiency
There are solely two configuration choices for the C730. The C730 isn’t constructed for high-end avid gamers who demand customizations at each step, and Lenovo is concentrating on avid gamers who want a fast entry into discrete graphics or VR capabilities with out having to take a position the trouble into constructing their very own rigs.
All configurations include a six-core, Intel’s Eighth-Technology processor and discrete graphics. The entry-level $1,300 choice comes with AMD RX570 graphics and a normal Intel Core i7-8700 CPU, whereas our upgraded overview unit comes with an overclockable Intel Core i7-8700Ok silicon and Nvidia GeForce RTX 1060 graphics with 6GB video RAM for $1,519. Regardless that Intel’s Ninth-Technology processors are incoming, this Eighth-gen CPU remains to be a robust piece of silicon that delivers ample efficiency.
The overclockable processor comes with a base velocity of three.70GHz that may go as much as four.70GHz with Turbo Enhance. Regardless of coming with the identical overclockable processor as this yr’s Falcon Northwest Tiki, the C730’s processing efficiency out of the field is extra just like the bottom Core i7-7800 processor. In our Geekbench check, the C730 generated a single-core rating of 5,331 — in comparison with the 6,228 rating on the Falcon — and its multi-score of 21,830 falls in need of the Falcon’s 28,413 mark. Regardless that the C730 couldn’t fairly sustain with the Falcon, its single-core and multi-core scores had been higher than the Velocity Micro M60, which is powered by AMD’s Ryzen 1800X processor.
Given the high-end processors, the variations between benchmarks from the C730, Falcon, and Velocity Micro could not even be perceptible in real-world utilization. For those who’re wanting to buy the C730 primarily as a basic computing machine for productiveness duties, these variations could also be extra related. Even then, when working in a number of browsers with a number of opened tabs or modifying photographs, the C730 saved up effectively, and we didn’t discover any lags.
And proving that benchmarks could not paint a full image of what a PC is succesful, the C730 was in a position to end our 4K video encoding check utilizing Handbrake in two minutes and three seconds. That’s near a full minute quicker than the time that it took the Falcon to carry out the identical process. In our testing, the video file was positioned on and encoded to the primary SSD, the system’s quicker of the 2 preinstalled drives.
Twin drives
To maintain prices down, the C730 ships with two drives. There’s a quicker SK Hynbix M.2 solid-state drive that comes with restricted 128GB storage and a slower 7200RPM Seagate exhausting drive with a 1TB capability. Customers will need to set up functions on the SSD and retailer bigger recordsdata on the HDD. Critical avid gamers will possible need to improve the HDD to a secondary SSD.
In our CrystalDisk Mark check, speeds of each drives had been slower than competing methods. Evaluating the 128GB SSD on the C730 to the Falcon’s 2TB SSD, the latter system posted quicker learn speeds and write speeds. The C730 averaged 1,607 MB/s (megabytes per second) on the sequential learn assessments and a sluggish 363 MB/s on the sequential write assessments, in comparison with the Falcon’s scores of two,687 and 1,504 scores, respectively.
And as anticipated with exhausting drives, even ones with quicker 7200RPMs, you’ll discover a lot slower sequential learn and write speeds. The secondary drive on the C730 posted common sequential learn and write scores round 200 MB/s.
Gaming Prepared, VR-capable
Our overview unit ships with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060, and in contrast to competing methods, there isn’t an choice to decide on an upgraded configuration with higher graphics. The Asus Huracan G21 tops out with an a GTX 1080 GPU, whereas the Falcon Northwest Tiki goes even additional with 1080 Ti graphics. The bottom C730 ships with an AMD RX 570 discrete graphics card.
Usually, until you’re pushing intensive video games with excessive graphics settings, the GTX 1060 chipset does job maintaining. Provided that Oculus requires a minimal of GTX 960 graphics or higher for digital actuality experiences with Rift, efficiency of the C730 is mostly nice.
We benchmarked the C730 utilizing VRMark’s suite of assessments, and the unit’s scores sit between the Oculus required minimal and a premium high-end PC. The C730’s rating of 6,628 on the Orange Room check compares favorably towards the Oculus minimal of three,716, however nonetheless falls in need of the 10,390 excessive from premium high-end methods. Equally, the C730’s Cyan Room rating of three,566 sits between the two,152 requirement on the baseline and eight,548 on the excessive finish.
Given the VR benchmark outcomes, gaming outcomes had been comparable, and although the GTX carried out effectively, its efficiency fell in need of extra highly effective models, just like the Falcon with its GTX 1080 Ti graphics, and the outcomes had been constant throughout our suite of recreation assessments.
At 4K decision, Civilization VI performed with 59 frames per second below medium settings, however efficiency rapidly dropped to 38 FPS when Extremely settings had been enabled. The Falcon, compared, had a much less dramatic drop, incomes scores of 106 and 81, respectively. With Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, scores generated by the C730 had been lower than half of what the Falcon is able to. The C730’s benchmarked efficiency with these video games had been in line with Dell’s Inspiron 5680, an entry-level gaming desktop with comparable GTX 1060 graphics.
The scenario improves for the C730 when taking part in the considerably older Battlefield 1. With older video games, the disparity between the C730’s 1060 GPU and the Falcon’s 1080 Ti GPU isn’t as pronounced at decrease 1080p resolutions. For instance, with medium settings, the C730 obtained 114 FPS (frames per second), in comparison with the Falcon’s 198. The disparity grows rapidly once more when you play the sport with ultra-high particulars or improve the decision. For example, below 1440p decision with ultra-high settings, the C730 scored 61 FPS, whereas the Falcon scored 143 FPS.
When in comparison with higher-end gaming PCs, just like the Falcon with its GTX 1080 Ti graphics, the C730’s GPU begins to point out its weak point while you push for greater recreation settings and improve the decision. As we noticed on our Deus Ex and Civilization VI assessments, at decrease settings on 1080p, the C730 was in a position to push near 60 FPS, however framerates rapidly dropped past that. When the settings had been elevated to ultra-high at 1440p, the C730 obtained about 30 FPS. Players who need to play with resolutions greater than 1080p and with quicker framerates will possible need to discover a system with a greater graphics card.
The restrictions within the GTX 1060’s efficiency had been additionally obvious on Fortnite. Although the sport carried out effectively on the C730 with no noticeable lags or stutters, when the settings had been pushed to the sport’s ultra-high “Epic” mode, framerates rapidly dropped. On our 4K show, the common framerate was simply shy of 30 FPS. In 1080p below the identical settings, the sport carried out a lot smoother, averaging 112 FPS. With 1440p, efficiency averaged 49 FPS. Whereas the sport was nonetheless greater than playable with 4K decision and wealthy particulars, these with discerning eyes who need quicker framerates at excessive resolutions will need to discover a higher graphics choice than what ships on the C730.
Software program
Although there’s comparatively minimal bloatware on the machine, one potential rationalization for the C730’s weaker processing rating is that it comes preloaded with a trial version of McAfee, which consumes some system sources whereas it’s working within the background. Even in case you don’t thoughts the marginally diminished CPU efficiency, the software program rapidly will get annoying when it nags you to subscribe.
The Legion C730 may be offered as a gaming PC first, but it surely’s obtained the appears to be like and the efficiency to again it up in case you want a well-rounded, all-purpose desktop throughout the day. The high-end Eighth-gen, six-core, overclockable CPU provides it loads of efficiency to deal with productiveness and basic computing duties, and the GTX 1060 makes it an acceptable gaming rig in case you’re not pushing the boundaries with detail-rich video games at ultra-high resolutions.
Are there any options?
Within the compact gaming desktop area, there are a selection of choices from ASUS, MSI, Falcon, Alienware, and others, however none include the comfort of a carry deal with that offers the C730 a novel tackle desktop portability. Excessive-end avid gamers will possible need to customized construct their very own rigs, however in case you’re extra of an off-the-cuff fanatic, you will get away with certainly one of these performance-packed rigs.
The ASUS Huracan G21, for instance, delivers extra gaming efficiency with its GTX 1080 graphics card, however you’ll be paying near $1,000 extra on Amazon presently. One in every of our favorites at Digital Traits, the Falcon Northwest Tiki, equally comes with a near-$1,000 premium for its upgraded efficiency, and better finish configurations will price you much more.
The C730 strikes steadiness between efficiency and worth for informal avid gamers who might have the high-end processor efficiency for computing duties, however who aren’t demanding top-specs within the graphics division.
How lengthy will it final?
Lenovo consists of a normal one-year producer guarantee with the C730. That is pretty commonplace, but it surely additionally implies that this Legion desktop doesn’t fairly have the shelf-life that the Falcon instructions with its three-year guarantee ought to something go flawed. The half almost definitely to fail on many computer systems is the exhausting drive, and fortunately, on the C730, that’s user-serviceable and replaceable.
What actually holds the C730 again is the shortage of extra trendy ports, like USB-C and Thunderbolt three, that will make the system extra futureproof. Including a Thunderbolt three port, for instance, would permit avid gamers to attach a more moderen Nvidia RTX sequence graphics card to an eGPU rig. This would offer an prompt improve to the system, permitting it to develop ought to your gaming wants change in a yr or two. Although RTX playing cards are new, and ray tracing isn’t a confirmed expertise but within the gaming area, missing the Thunderbolt three means you’ll possible want to purchase a brand new system if you wish to enterprise into Nvidia’s imaginative and prescient for the way forward for gaming.
Do you have to purchase it?
The C730 is a succesful gaming system that’s finally restricted by its personal graphics card. Whereas the GTX 1060 does an admirable job, it begins falling quick while you’re pushing the boundaries, and that’s a compromise that high-end avid gamers aren’t prepared to make. Entry-level avid gamers on the lookout for starter system who could not look after the C730’s portability issue can discover comparable efficiency for nearly half the price in Dell’s Inspiron 5680.
