IdeaPad Gaming 3: Reddit's Honest Verdict on the Budget Pick

Bro got a low-end gaming laptop and only complains that it runs 'hot.' Those are normal temperatures while in use for gaming.

You haven't locked to 99° on your cpu or gpu on a low budget laptop, now that is an achievement. There are more expensive laptops that do that. If you expect top performance from a 10xxx cpu and a Gtx gpu, then the problem is something located between the seat and the laptop.

This is a pretty good deal. Most other gaming laptops around this price point are going to have 8gb ram/1650's/somewhat slower processor etc. With that being said.. If you have a bit more money to spare, I'd recommend getting something with a better graphics card.

A 4GB VRAM gimped GPU. Hardware Unboxed on YouTube already reviewed it and it already has games that are running poorly due to pushing over the 4GB. And that's at 1080p. If you're okay with a ton of games being unplayable at high settings just because of the VRAM being low, have at it. Personally, I'm not a fan, and would rather fork out more for a 3060 or 1660ti.

You should be able to undervolt it using ThrottleStop.

OP just has to have a boring life to post on here that his laptop is hitting 85c under load oh no so hot. From my experience laptops have thermal suggestions set at 105c on Intel, 95-100c AMD, 100c Nvidia.

Those temperatures under load seem fine tbh. Honestly your GPU might be an issue here given it's not overly powerful, I'd check your ram usage under load too.

I have the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 with a Ryzen 5600h and RTX 3060. I usually run 70-75c on both, 80c on both without my cooling pad. The difference in the cooling system is huge. They split the fans to be on each side of the heat syncs and have the CPU and GPU in the middle. It causes temps to be much better spread out and easier to dissipate.

I have the intel version of this laptop and it has to be plugged in to play anything. You also need more than 8gb of ram since windows nowadays takes up 6/7 gigs alone.

This is a very very cheap gaming laptop. Willing to bet that hinge will break in 2 years of use. My cheap Ideapad has the same hinge design and it ripped the hinge mount points clean with 2 years of use.

The screen is just bad on this.

If all you care about in a laptop is the CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage specs, this is a good deal. However, a good laptop is a lot more than just those specs. They had to compromise somewhere to reach this price, and you should expect a poor performing, dim display, a cheap-feeling keyboard plagued with a large degree of deck flex due to low-quality chassis materials, very poor battery life, and possibly a sub-par, loud cooling.

With a budget of 42-43k, you'd really be much much better off looking at 2nd hand laptops. I've seen rtx 3060 legions (2021) and asus RoGs (2021) going for 37-43k in fb marketplace. But to answer your question alone, yeah it is better than msi thin in all aspects except weight and probably battery as well.

Even with it locked, you can most likely change the TPL limits (PL1 and PL2) in throttlestop and give less watts to your cpu. You can find guides about it on the internet. That can drastically bring down temps (as well as performance). Best to test it out with small decrements and find a balance. I suggest getting a basic stand or cooling pad.

I have the same laptop but with different specs (rtx 2050, ryzen 5 5500h, ddr4 8gb) bought it for 44k php and I've been using it for almost a year and there has been no issues so far. I've been using it for gaming, mainly minecraft with shaders, borderlands 3, and other games and so far it has been a decent experience for me (fps fluctuating around 70-100+ fps depending on configuration) and reaching 60° temps with performance fan option.

250nits, I believe.

RTX 3050 is terrible, borderline unusable for modern AAA games unless you're planning to play games from 10 years ago. Even worse: This laptop is an Ideapad, so the GPU will not be the full powered one.

This older model for the laptop is the reason why I almost didn't buy the Ideapad Gaming I have with me right now. Despite owning the newer model it still ran hot out-of-the-box. Two changes fixed it for me: changing my maximum processor state from 100 to 99 on power plan and lifting the back of the laptop with a book just lying around. Easily shaved 10C off my avg temps.

I have the 2022 AMD model. It feels nicer in-hand than the 2021, though it's harder to disassemble for upgrades and cleaning. The '22 has better quality of life features including display output and charging via USB-C, neither of which is supported on the 2021.

It's a great laptop. My brother has one with the gtx 1650 configuration. The only thing he complained about is the battery. It lasts 1.5 hours gaming at most and 4 hours or less on light usage.

notebookcheck says the 3050 should perform somewhere between the old gtx 1650ti and the 1660ti maxq. So if GPU performance is important to you, this probably isn't the one.

Cheap Asus TUF's and HP Victus has the same design and give the same temps as your laptop. This is a very very cheap gaming laptop. Willing to bet that hinge will break in 2 years of use. My cheap Ideapad has the same hinge design and it ripped the Hinge mount points clean with 2 years of use.

I owned this laptop but the amd version, feels good and strong. I bought this in 2021.

YES! I am literally using it to write this comment, it's really good!

The RAM upgrade should also give you dual channel, which is another boost on top of having more RAM in general. The two biggest upgrades for low end laptops are usually an SSD if it doesn't have one and at least 16GB of dual channel RAM (2x8GB). Even 2x4GB performs better than 1x8GB.

It's the best you'll get at that price. Thankfully it's packed with a 5600H instead of a quad-core 11300H. You'll likely want to upgrade to 16GB RAM, but otherwise it's a good offer.

If you are using it for graphic projects and also have the ability to game on free time I would recommend the ideapad gaming 3 the most. By buying a gaming laptop you are going to accept the fact the battery wouldn't hold for long periods but you get a really good gaming laptop that is cheaper than most on the market.

Ideapads are generally their budget lineup so don't expect greatness, you get most of the value from the parts and build quality and screen are left to the side.

I have this laptop same specs. I repasted with ptm 7950 and temps have been fine for 2 years now. You can't expect much from a 10300H and 1650, its quite old now. Make sure you have dual channel ram.

I would not pay almost 700€ for a laptop with 3050 in it. 3050 is entry level card not really meant for gaming.

Yeah it's pretty good for the price. If you can find a better chassis like a legion but which only has a 3050, go for it. 3050 ti isn't that much better than a 3050.

It's slightly below the 2060, 4 GB vram really slows it down.

As an IdeaPad Gaming 3 user, battery is ok for a gaming laptop, under normal use (YouTube, Reddit, etc) you should get at least 3-4 hours, the laptop is rated for 6 though, but I would take these manufacturer ratings as a mere reference, as that rating is not under real-world usage.

Ideapad Gaming is a 'gaming' laptop in a sense that cost cutting had to be made to make it a laptop that can run games.

I had that laptop before I upgraded to Legion 7. Its fine considering its price. The budget laptops from MSI and Dell are wayy worse.

I've the same laptop. I'm very much fine with it.

I am currently using this laptop since 2 years. Only differences: 11th gen cpu and the fans are wide apart from each other. I didn't face any heating issues. But do check if both your fans are working. I accidentally spilled some water once and it started to get hot. And then the culprit came out to be a dead fan.

One best thing I did to cut down temps on my single fan laptop is reduce the maximum cpu usage to 97% in power options and I enjoy overwatch 2 at 60 fps (before it used to throttle below 60 fps due to high temps now its consistent).

I managed to undervolt the CPU to reduce thermal throttling, applied better thermal paste, and added some thermal pads. Now, all I need is a cooling pad, and I'm seeing much more stable performance. Even Call of Duty: Warzone runs more smoothly at 1080p.

The Lenovo ideapad is a great deal and offers great stuff for its value. However Lenovo has lowered the tdp of the GPU on every model so you are using less of what you bought and has 45% colour coverage on the screen, also the Lan port can break easily and the cooling is not the best.

I vote ideapad easily, you get newer GPU card, I still have ideapad Z410 works normal and it is more than 11 years old and still going strong.

Get Dell G15.. better thermals and build. Also, you'll get higher tgp rtx 3050/3050Ti.