In the commercial notebook market, the Lenovo Zhaoyang series, which was born in 1995, is one of the top performers. The Lenovo Zhaoyang series has been active in events such as the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, the Shanghai World Expo, the Beijing Olympics, and the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, becoming the official designated commercial notebook for these major events. With the arrival of the second-generation AMD AI PC processor, the all-new Lenovo Zhaoyang series of notebooks "ride" the AI PC trend, bringing many AI features. So, how does the performance with the AI processor? Let's take a simple experience through the recently launched Lenovo Zhaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition business notebook.

Product Specifications

Operating System: Windows 11 Home (64-bit)

Main Screen: 14-inch IPS matte screen (1920x1200@60Hz, 180° opening)

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 8845H (8-core 16-thread, maximum boost frequency 5.1GHz)

Memory: 32GB DDR5 5600 dual-channel memory

Hard Drive: 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD (dual hard drive slots, upgradable to 4TB SSD)

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon 780M (12 CU, 2700MHz)

Battery: 60Wh

Dimensions: 313mm x 222mm x 16.9mmWeight: Approximately 1.38kg (excluding power adapter)

Reference Price: Not available at the moment

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Powerful Core and Display

To fully meet the needs of business elites who require on-the-go performance, a business laptop must be equipped with a powerful processor to avoid any interruptions during work. The Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition is the "little cannon" among the Xiaoyang series of notebooks. This laptop is equipped with the AMD Ryzen 8040 series standard voltage processor, with the option to upgrade to the AMD Ryzen 7 8845H processor. The test model we have is the Ryzen 7 8845H version.

The AMD Ryzen 7 8845H processor features the new Zen 4 architecture and an advanced 4nm production process. The upgrades in architecture and production process not only bring a leap in performance but also offer a more excellent energy efficiency ratio. In terms of specifications, the AMD Ryzen 7 8845H processor adopts a full large-core design, equipped with 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base frequency of 3.8GHz and a maximum boost frequency that can reach 5.1GHz, making it capable of handling daily tasks or running large games with ease.

As a member of the second generation of AMD AI PC processor family, the Ryzen 7 8845H processor also sees an enhancement in the specifications of its built-in Ryzen AI NPU. Its NPU computing power reaches 16 TOPS, a 60% increase compared to the Ryzen 7040 series mobile processor. This means that the processor's efficiency in handling AI tasks is higher, such as significantly improving the speed of running local large language model applications. In addition, the CPU and integrated graphics also have certain computing power, and with the NPU's computing power, the overall computing power of the AMD Ryzen 7 8845H platform can reach up to 38 TOPS, laying the foundation for better AI application performance.

In terms of graphics, the AMD Ryzen 7 8845H processor is also not to be underestimated. This processor comes with the Radeon 780M graphics card, which is highlighted by its use of the RDNA 3 architecture, the same as the AMD Radeon 7000 series discrete graphics cards. It is equipped with 12 CU units, 768 stream processors, and a graphics frequency of 2700MHz. It has built-in AI acceleration units, supporting AV1 hardware encoding and decoding, as well as FSR, ray tracing, and other technologies, providing an ultra-strong work and entertainment experience.

The AMD Ryzen 7 8845H processor is paired with 32GB of DDR5 5600 dual-channel memory. According to the test results from the AIDA64 software, the memory read speed of the machine we tested reached 60962MB/s, the write speed reached 85653MB/s, and the latency was 89.3ns. Such performance is excellent, indicating that the memory specifications of this machine are sufficient to meet the productivity application needs of mainstream business users.

How does the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition perform? We set the system performance mode to the highest and manually allocated 4GB of video memory to the Radeon 780M graphics card in the BIOS to ensure it remains in the best state during testing and actual application. In the CINEBENCH R23 processor rendering performance test software, this machine achieved a single-thread score of 1723pts and a multi-thread score of 14577pts. Such overall performance is in the upper-middle range among business laptops with similar configurations, and the strong processor performance can help business users complete work tasks more efficiently.In the 7-Zip compression/decompression benchmark test, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition achieved a total score of 99.114 GIPS, which is an excellent performance for a 14-inch business laptop with integrated graphics. It is only about 7% slower than gaming laptops equipped with the Ryzen 9 7940H processor. This means that in scenarios where business professionals often encounter the need to compress and decompress files, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition can provide efficiency comparable to that of gaming laptops.

Can this notebook handle 3D rendering tasks? We imported a "BMW27" BMW car project file in Blender 2.93.0 and used the laptop's processor to render the image. The Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition completed the task in just 2 minutes and 52 seconds, a speed that is essentially acceptable. If there is a need to complete 3D rendering tasks on the fly in the workplace, this machine is also capable of handling it.

In terms of graphics, the Radeon 780M graphics card equipped on the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition scored 3018 in the 3DMark Time Spy test based on DX12 and 1440p resolution. This performance is quite impressive for a business laptop, leading the GTX 1650 Max-Q dedicated graphics card (with a score of around 2900) by about 4%.

In the 3DMark Fire Strike test scenario based on DX11 and 1080p resolution, this machine's graphics card score reached 8643, leading the GTX 1650 Max-Q dedicated graphics card (7800 points) by about 11%. It can be seen that the graphics performance of the Radeon 780M integrated graphics has surpassed that of entry-level dedicated graphics cards, which is significant for integrated graphics business laptop products. With the Radeon 780M graphics card, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition has real strength in graphics processing and creative acceleration.

We used two popular online games to verify the actual graphics performance of this machine. In "Overwatch: Return" at 1080p resolution, with the "High Quality Preset" setting, this machine achieved an average frame rate of 87.07 fps, and the game画面 was very smooth. In the recently public-tested popular game "Jue Qu Ling," at the default resolution of 1728x1080 and high quality, this machine achieved an average frame rate of 71.36 fps. Such data indicates that under high-quality settings, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition can easily play popular online games, which also confirms the strong performance of the Radeon 780M graphics card.

AI Application Experience

The Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition is equipped with the AMD Ryzen 7 8845H processor, which has an NPU powered by Ryzen AI technology, with a computing power of 16 TOPS, a 60% increase compared to the Ryzen 7 7840H. Therefore, with the new NPU, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition brings a different AI application experience.

On the functional level, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition fully supports Windows Studio Effects driven by the NPU. This feature, launched by AMD and Microsoft, allows users to apply certain filters and effects to the system's camera to improve the image during video calls. After we enabled this feature in the system's "Camera" settings, the system's camera will support background blurring, eye correction, automatic framing, and other functions, helping users to have a better and more natural experience during video calls. Even if you later use other third-party video call applications, the above features do not need to be set up again, which is very user-friendly.

Combined with the built-in "Lenovo Smart Meeting" software, users can also more conveniently change video backgrounds or perform beauty enhancement settings such as beautification and skin smoothing. Moreover, the "Lenovo Smart Meeting" software also provides a "Temporary Avatar" function—if you need to temporarily leave a video conference, you can use this function to generate a virtual avatar to attend the meeting on your behalf. It must be said that such a feature is really practical for business professionals.In addition to video image enhancement, the NPU with Ryzen AI technology also supports many mainstream productivity applications, such as Photoshop for image editing, Premiere Pro for video editing, Lightroom for batch image editing, and BlackMagic DaVinci Resolve for video color grading and editing. Currently, there are over 100 AI features supported to run on the AMD Ryzen AI solution.

We understand that on the Ryzen 7 8845H platform, AI computing power is not only present in the NPU but also in the CPU and GPU, which also have strong computing capabilities. Therefore, with the synergy of the computing power of CPU, GPU, and NPU, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition can easily handle popular AI-generated content (AIGC) applications, such as Stable Diffusion or deploying large models locally.

We briefly experience the charm of text-to-image generation through the Stable Diffusion Web UI. From actual testing, in DirectML mode, this machine can accelerate the generation of an image with a resolution of 512x512 using the GPU in just 52 seconds.

We feel the performance of running AI applications on the local side through the "AMD Ryzen AI Assistant." The "AMD Ryzen AI Assistant" is developed based on the self-optimized inference tool chain MLGuider launched by Qinghao Intelligence for large models, and is developed and run on the AMD Ryzen 7040 and 8040 series AI PC platform. It can load various types of large models on the local side and quickly experience generative AI functions without the need for an internet connection.

This machine can deploy and run the large model of Baichuan 2-13B-Chat through the "AMD Ryzen AI Assistant," with the processor occupancy rate being about 68% and the memory occupancy rate about 48% when running this model. From the test results, the Baichuan 2-13B-Chat large model, after all, has a parameter specification of up to 13 billion, so its answer accuracy is very high, and the overall response speed is also very fast, with answers displayed in a few seconds.

When running the Zhi Pu Qingyan ChatGLM3-6B large model with a smaller parameter scale (6 billion), the processor occupancy rate is about 69%, and the memory occupancy rate is as low as 27%. Since its parameter scale is smaller than that of Baichuan 2-13B-Chat, its overall response speed will be even faster, and the accuracy of the answers is also guaranteed.

Through the Bian Que-2 medical large model, users can conduct routine medical consultations.

CodeGeeX2-6B is a lightweight open-source code generation large model that can automatically generate multiple programming languages, with strong capabilities in code generation and completion, adding comments, code translation, and technical Q&A. After being deployed locally on a laptop, it can accurately answer questions like "implement quicksort in C/C++" even in an offline environment.

Customizable, reliable, and highly expandable to meet the needs of commercial users.

As a professional business laptop, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition supports comprehensive customization. The product specifications can be customized as needed, and enterprises can also customize exclusive content according to their preferences, such as appearance customization, boot logo customization, BIOS setting customization, and specified hard drives, truly helping enterprises to create exclusive products.On the other hand, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition also inherits the reliable and stable genes of the Xiaoyang series products. It has passed multiple quality and durability tests and has been certified with an average MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) of 800,000 hours. This product has also passed the rigorous tests based on the American MIL-STD-810H standard, which includes 12 major and 26 minor items, ensuring stable operation under various harsh conditions. At the same time, Lenovo can provide full lifecycle services, from early product customization to installation and deployment, device management, maintenance and repair, to additional modifications and asset disposal, Lenovo can provide services at every stage.

In terms of expandability, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition can also meet the usage requirements of commercial customers. This product features dual memory slots inside the body, meaning that memory can be upgraded and replaced. In addition, this product also comes with dual M.2 SSD expansion slots, allowing for the installation of two SSDs, with a maximum total SSD capacity upgradeable to 4TB, a specification that can meet the needs of commercial users.

The machine we tested uses a Hikvision 512GB PCIe SSD, achieving a sequential read speed of 5040.82MB/s and a sequential write speed of 4645.27MB/s in CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4, which can meet the usage requirements of most office users.

Overall Performance and Productivity Performance Test

Next, let's look at the overall performance and office performance of the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition.

In the comprehensive benchmark test PCMark 10 Extended, which is designed for modern office use, this machine scored a total of 7163, placing it in the upper-middle range among similarly configured models. The PCMark 10 Extended test includes four parts: basic tasks, productivity, digital content creation, and gaming, which can well reflect the overall performance of the machine. From the test results, the comprehensive strength of the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition is commendable.

In the UL Procyon Office Productivity (office) test, this machine scored a total of 5945, a performance that is also at the top level among 14-inch thin and light laptops, and running office applications with this machine is effortless.

Similarly, in the UL Procyon photo editing test, the test program will call the installed PS, Lightroom software on the computer to actually edit photos and finally give a score. The Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition scored a total of 8004 in the test, indicating that it can easily handle medium and light photo editing tasks.

Battery Life Test

The Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition features a 60Wh battery, so how is its endurance?We tested this machine in "Power Saver" mode and "Best Battery Efficiency," with 50% screen brightness and in airplane mode using PCMark 10, achieving a score of 9 hours and 39 minutes in the "Modern Office" scenario of PCMark 10. Such performance can meet the usage needs of most users, and this machine also supports PD fast charging, allowing for a quick "recovery" even when the battery is depleted.

Design Overview

The Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition adopts the classic business design style of the Xiaoyang family, with a dark obsidian black color scheme and a simple A-face design, giving a low-key and steady impression. Moreover, both the A and D faces of this machine are made of metal materials, adding a sense of quality to the entire device while also reducing fingerprint marks, leaving a good impression during daily use.

As a business laptop, the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition also features a thin and light design, with the entire machine weighing only about 1.38 kg and the thinnest part of the body being approximately 16.9 mm. Coupled with the 14-inch "small frame," it is very easy to carry around daily. More importantly, despite the thin and light design, this machine does not compromise on interface configuration.

Specifically, the left side of the machine is equipped with two full-function USB-C ports (one is USB 3.2 Gen2 specification, and one is a USB4 40Gbps interface), one USB-A 3.2 Gen2 port (supporting charging while shut down), one HDMI port, and one 3.5mm audio interface. The right side of the body is equipped with a multi-in-one card reader slot, one USB-A 3.2 Gen2 port, and one Gigabit RJ-45 Ethernet port. Such an interface configuration is very comprehensive for a thin and light laptop, supporting everything from connecting an Ethernet cable, external monitors, keyboards, to inserting card readers.

The screen specification of the Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition is customizable, with the highest option being a 2.8K resolution with 100% sRGB color gamut. The machine we tested this time features a 14-inch IPS matte screen with a screen resolution of 1920x1200, and a 16:10 display ratio that is more user-friendly for daily office scenarios. Additionally, the screen of this machine supports a 180° opening, making it more convenient to share screen content with colleagues and clients during meetings.

The Lenovo Xiaoyang X5-14 Ryzen Edition features a full-size keyboard with a moderate key travel, providing a comfortable typing experience. What's rare is that this machine also has status indicator lights on keys such as F1 (mute) and F4 (mute microphone), making it convenient for business people to quickly identify. Functions like keyboard backlighting and power button fingerprint unlocking can also be customized as needed.

In summary,The Lenovo Zhaoyang X5-14 Ryzen edition is a reliable and stable professional business laptop. It has undergone a series of rigorous tests to ensure stable and reliable operation, which is a unique quality of business laptops. Additionally, this notebook also has excellent expandability, with both the hard drive and memory being upgradable, and it comes with a comprehensive set of interfaces. Coupled with full customization options and the full lifecycle service provided by Lenovo, the Lenovo Zhaoyang X5-14 Ryzen edition is a very good business laptop for corporate customers. More importantly, the newly upgraded second-generation AMD AI PC processor not only brings powerful performance and higher energy efficiency but also endows this machine with outstanding AI capabilities. Whether it's video image enhancement, AI creation, or running local large models, the Lenovo Zhaoyang X5-14 Ryzen edition has the characteristics of an AI PC, allowing business laptop users to enjoy the charm of AI. For enterprise users, the Lenovo Zhaoyang X5-14 Ryzen edition is highly recommended.