Best Buy's 12GB RTX 5070 Lenovo Legion 7a listing hides its actual price, but even then these GPUs are going to struggle to stay relevant

Lenovo is one of the first brands to adopt the new 12GB RTX 5070 mobile chip, and its debut rig hit Best Buy's shelves last week... alongside a pretty shocking price tag. Listed at a $3,374.99 MSRP, this machine is more expensive not just than an RTX 5070 Ti rig, but a few RTX 5080 machines when on sale as well.

Of course, this isn't the price we'll actually be paying for the Lenovo Legion 7a refresh. Like many of the best gaming laptops, this is a rig launching at an absurd MSRP to give its brand space to make discounts look flashier. And we're already there. Hiding in the the listing for the black model is a white version, with a $575 "saving" already applied.

The resulting $2,799.99 price tag is still monstrous considering RTX 5080 gaming laptops would have sank below this rate during discounts last year, but it's far less of a surprise overall. It does, however, sit slightly higher than I'd expect it to, for a 12GB RTX 5070 gaming laptop to make sense right at this very moment it would need to come in at a $2,552.62 MSRP (we'll get to those numbers in a minute). And we're not talking MSRP, we're talking "discounted".

This is only the first 12GB RTX 5070 gaming laptop to hit the shelves, but if prices continue on this line it's going to be seriously tough to take the GPU option seriously. What should have been a QHD bump for the more discerning mid-range buyer seems to have pivoted towards a strange premium no doubt being blamed on rising component costs.

Whether or not those memory prices have inflated the rates we see on these 12GB models, it all feels a little too little too late - especially with even inflated 8GB RTX 5070 and existing RTX 5070 Ti prices squeezing that middle model.

A search from today's selection of RTX 5070 Ti gaming laptop on sale at Best Buy (to stay inline with the Lenovo listing) reveals that the average MSRP or, as Best Buy likes to say, "Comparative Value Price" in the wake of rate increases sits at $2,621.19. That's taken from the first 19 results listed on Best Buy's site, excluding bundles and open box offers. That's more than $100 less than the $2,799.99 rate Lenovo looks set to stand by on its 12GB RTX 5070 Legion 7a.

When we look at the actual prices these things are selling for (allowing today's discounts into the picture), you're looking at an average of $2,491.46 for an RTX 5070 Ti gaming laptop with a 140W full wattage, 192-bit bus, and a 1,447 boost clock. $308.53 cheaper than the weaker 12GB RTX 5070.

Average MSRP: $2,621.19

Average Actual: $2,491.46

Things don't get much better when we look at the existing 8GB RTX 5070 options either. Without the extra spec upgrades of the RTX 5070 Ti, the 12GB RTX 5070 needs to sit only slightly higher than the base mid-range price to make sense. Considering the average MSRP of an RTX 5070 model in today's market is $2,484.05 (and the average rate you'll actually pay is $2,209.05) we're a far cry from a small boost.

Average MSRP: $2,484.05

Average Actual: $2,209.05

Taking those four average figures together, 12GB RTX 5070 gaming laptop would need to sit directly in the middle (if we're being generous) of 8GB RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti prices. At MSRP, that means we'd need it to be at $2,552.62 to be in any way relevant to the market right now, roughly $800 cheaper.

When the discounts roll in, these machines will need to be hitting at around $2,350 to stack up against the rest of the lineup.

Taking the 2026 goggles off for a moment, it would have been ludicrous to accept an RTX 5070 gaming laptop on sale for that amount of cash last year. While we've all grown accustomed to these inflated prices in the last few months, the early days of the 12GB RTX 5070 launch certainly feel a little tone deaf.

For recommendations on the laptops we'd recommend prioritizing in your search, check out the best Asus gaming laptops and best Razer laptops on the market.