Graphics and Storage Performance

The performance of the X1 Carbon here is not surprising. As most Skylake and Kaby Lake U-series processors include the same GPU, the Core i5-7200U performs roughly the same as other Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs in GPU-limited workloads. The HD Graphics 620 GPU is suitable for rendering apps and basic 3D items at 1080p, though it's not powerful enough for much else.

Gaming, for example, is largely not possible on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Tomb Raider can be played at above 60 FPS, but only on 720 low settings, and I doubt many gamers will really want to game at below the display's native resolution. Civilization VI on its lowest settings at 1080p can't be played at reasonable frame rates, and struggles to hit 20 FPS.

The 256GB Samsung MZVLW256 NVMe PCIe solid state drive, which is essentially an OEM version of the Samsung 960 Evo, provides excellent performance in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Sequential read and write speeds were fantastic, both exceeding 1 GB/s, while random performance was also very solid.

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