Lenovo has just updated its current-gen Legion 7a 16-inch gaming laptop with a new GPU config: the 12GB version of the RTX 5070 mobile. Previously, the laptop 5070 was limited to just 8GB of VRAM, but Nvidia recently overhauled it, splitting the 5070 SKU into two distinct variants. Lenovo is one of the first vendors to feature the 12GB 5070 in a retail device, but it doesn’t come cheap — this new Legion 7a is listed for a whopping $3,375 on Best Buy right now.
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.
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