Lenovo Legion Y740S requires additional external GPU for gaming

Lenovo may once again be touting their new Lenovo Legion Y740S laptop as their “thinnest and lightest” yet, but their newest gaming-focused device requires some external help to get the job done.

Revealed as part of the company’s CES 2020 lineup, Lenovo’s newest product is an impressively powerful device on paper.

Inside the thin-and-light chassis, users can expect a 10th Generation Intel i9 with clock speeds up to 5Ghz, 32GB of DDR4 memory, and a 1TB PCIe SSD to run the show.

Of course you also get Lenovo’s new “bouncy” keyboard tech and a great-sounding 600-nit peak brightness Dolby Vision HDR screen at either 4K or 1080p resolution.

Unfortunately, for those who like to have their gaming experiences compact inside a singular device, you may have noticed that something is indeed missing from the list of necessary components for AAA gaming: a GPU.

While the Lenovo Legion Y740S does have Intel Integrated graphics capable of running most games from around 2005 without the help of an external GPU, those who wish to play PUBG, Modern Warfare, Star Wars Battlefront 2 or anything that released in the past year will have to resort to the additional BoostStation add-on.

Connectable via a Thunderbolt 3 port, there’s a fair number of options for external GPUs that Legion Y740S users can choose. There’s a GeForce 1660Ti, an RTX 2080 Super, a Radeon RX 5700 XT.

Each BoostStation can also be used as a form of external port hub. It adds a Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, a single USB 2.0 port and a HDMI port. You can’t game without it, so it might as well have bonuses.

While the Lenovo Legion Y740S may need the additional GPU to play any games – despite being touted as a gaming laptop – it isn’t a cheap addition. With the laptop itself starting at $1100, the BattleStation without an included GPU costs an additional $250.