Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 Gaming Desktop Review: A Solid Starting Point [CNET]

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Getting into PC gaming can be a hurdle, especially if you haven’t dug much into finding the best components or know how to build a PC. The Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 serves as a simple and economical entry point with the right blend of components, a reasonable price and a classy exterior to get gamers on their way to gaming without all the fuss.

At a base price of $1,149 before the many little discounts Lenovo systems usually see — at the moment the entry price is discounted down to $990 on Lenovo’s site — the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 is already a good bargain. For the money, you get a system that is ready to handle 1080p games with relative ease. It may not be a ray-tracing powerhouse or 4K workhorse, but the bread and butter of gaming is served up comfortably. 

As much sense as the base configuration makes, opting for any of the upgraded specs may come with diminishing returns, as some of Lenovo’s choices for internals (it doesn’t look as polished on the inside as we expect from a system with a glass side from a major manufacturer) aren’t likely to vary from one configuration to another. If you’re looking for the machine that’ll get you on your way to PC gaming, this is a good starting point, but if you’re looking for a higher-end system, then it might be time to do some research on PC building or budget gaming PCs.   

Covers the performance basics

The base configuration of the Legion Tower 5i is absolutely respectable for 1080p gaming. The Intel Core i5-14400F is no powerhouse, but it carries enough weight to keep frame rates fast in games that demand more from the CPU, and the RTX 4060 proved more than adequate in our benchmarks. In all of them, it hit well over 100fps at 1080p. In fact, for Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Guardians of the Galaxy, it pegged an almost spot-on 144fps average, which would pair nicely with the sort of budget 1080p or 1440p/144Hz monitor that’s likely to find its way onto a desk next to the Legion Tower 5i. 

With access to various DLSS technologies in the RTX 4060, it’s possible to push frame rates or resolutions even higher while still maintaining reasonable performance. And even though the RTX 4060 used is just a single-fan variant, its performance lined up reasonably well with an Asus Dual RTX 4060 we tested in other hardware.

Outside of gaming, the Legion Tower 5i really showed no signs of struggling with everyday computing. Its 8,127.5-point score in PCMark 10 was already a pretty strong indicator that it’d perform regular office tasks with ease, and actual use bore that out. 

A gorgeous exterior, but blah interior

Lenovo has designed some great-looking desktop cases, and the Legion Tower 5i has one of them. Its front has a three-dimensional pattern that looks awesome, especially with the Legion logo glowing in ever-shifting rainbow colors at one corner. That front panel could certainly stand to have more dust filtration though, in addition to the simple dual honeycomb-like metal cover, as two rainbow-illuminated fans sit behind it pulling in fresh air. 

Those intake fans spin quietly, blowing cool air over the CPU and GPU. I’ve seen plenty of desktops that look like their intake fans are aimed with little calculation for airflow, but Lenovo seems to have thought things through here. The intake fans are complemented by another rainbow fan venting out the back. All of the system fans working together keep the system running smoothly and quietly, with barely audible fan noise during a run of 3DMark’s Steel Nomad Stress Test, which the system passed with 98.5% stability. The case features a glass side panel and even has an LED light strip to further illuminate the inside.

All that illumination does little to make the system’s inside look anything beyond utilitarian. Lenovo hasn’t opted for the most exciting-looking componentry, and some of it might pose longevity concerns. The motherboard features an uncovered chipset without any cooling fins or so much as an integrated heat spreader. The memory also lacks any heat spreaders, and there are no heat sinks on the voltage regulator module. The CPU has basic heatsink with a small, 80mm fan (higher-powered configurations get different cooling solutions). The GPU is also a tiny, single-fan model with a basic, plastic fan shroud and no backplate. Lenovo has done decent enough cable management, but the insides don’t inspire awe.

On the plus side, there are some user-upgradable options inside. There’s an extra m.2 drive slot to fill and two empty memory slots. Hidden underneath the power supply shroud, Lenovo has included a hard drive cage and even prerouted two SATA data cables (though you’ll have to wrangle the power cables yourself).

The top of the case has a simpler but still slick-looking grille. There’s a small area where you can set down dongles or adapters, and there’s a pair of USB-A 5Gbps ports, headphone and mic jacks and a power button near the front of the lid. Around back, there’s nothing too exciting. The motherboard I/O is basic, with a handful of USB-A ports, a single USB-C port (at least offering 10Gbps speeds) and a 2.5-gigabit Ethernet jack. The motherboard includes three additional audio connections. Since the CPU lacks integrated graphics, the motherboard has no video outputs. Instead, those all remain on the GPU, which offers three DisplayPort connections and one HDMI port. For wireless connectivity, you get Wi-Fi 6E, which proved fast and stable connected to a Wi-Fi 6 router.

It’s not the flashiest or best performer, but the Legion Tower 5i isn’t a bad buy if you’re looking for a value entry point for PC gaming.

Performance