PC World - USA (2020-12)

78 PCWorld DECEMBER 2020

REVIEWS LG ULTRA PC 17

The Ultra took about an hour to encode a large

video file in Handbrake. Other Core-i7 laptops

are faster.

HandBrake Encode 0.99.0

H.264 (Android tablet)

Seconds

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3Core i7-1065G7

MSI Prestige 14 (Balanced)Core i7-10510U

Lenovo Yoga C740-15Core i7-10510U

LG Ultra PC 17Core i7-10510U

LG Gram 7Core i7-8565U

HP Env y 17tCore i7-1065G7

SHORTER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

2,973

4,079

3,437

3,192

4,278

3,584

Ultra PC 17 starts to falter. While it excelled at

single-threaded performance—the kind that

comes in handy for document editing and

basic web browsing—it falls well short of

some other laptops with Core i7 CPUs in

multi-threaded performance.

For a real-world example of the multi-

threaded performance gap, let’s look to our

HandBrake test, which involves encoding a

large video file. The LG Ultra PC 17 got the

job done in about 59 minutes and 44

seconds, far slower than several other

laptops with comparable CPUs.

HandBrake imposes a heavy load on the

CPU, which inevitably leads to heat. In the

course of our testing, we noticed the

laptop’s keyboard becomes quite warm

under heavy loads, and the area just above

the keyboard becomes hot to the touch. At

the same time, the system’s fan doesn’t seem

overly loud or powerful, and the only

noticeable air vents are underneath the

laptop. It’s likely that LG is throttling the CPU

to keep temperatures under control.

The same might also be true with the

GPU, given that 3D Mark’s Sky Diver

benchmarks are far below what we’ve

seen in some other laptops with Nvidia

GeForce GTX 1650 graphics. The LG Ultra

PC 17 scored 12,045 in this test, versus a

score of 17,406 for MSI’s Prestige 14,

which carries the Max-Q version of the

GTX 1650.

In practice, you’ll still be able to enjoy

1080p resolution and 60 frames per

second in a wide range of games, but in

Multi-threaded performance is where the Ultra

starts to sag. A score of 616 in Cinebench is far

from ideal.

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 Core i7-1065G7

Lenovo Yoga C740-15 Core i7-10510U

MSI Prestige 14 (Balanced) Core i7-10510U

LG Ultra PC 17 Core i7-10510U

HP Env y 17t Core i7-1065G7

LG Gram 17 Core i7-8565U

726

177

554

173

182

751

187

731

189

616

188

579

Multi threaded Single threaded

Cinebench R15.038

Multi-/single-threaded performance