Lenovo Legion T5 Gaming Desktop
ZDNET Highlights
- The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 is available now for $1,880.
- It excels at a wide range of tasks, from desktop gaming to 3D image rendering and graphic design.
- However, due to the PC’s squat design, some users may have difficulty finding a comfortable spot for it.
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Building a gaming PC can be daunting if you’re new to the hobby. Fortunately, pre-built desktops remove most of the guesswork; You can expect them to deliver reliable performance straight out of the box. Especially as gaming desktops come with increasingly competitive hardware.
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Lenovo’s Legion Tower 5 (or T5 for short) A prime example of a solid prebuilt desktop. This is a gaming computer, but as I found in my few weeks of testing, it’s versatile enough to succeed at content creation. Allow me to explain.
desktop footprint
Modern PC cases often have a vertically tall design, a style of computer called a “tower”. This shape is popular for several reasons: they facilitate airflow for cooling components, but more importantly, they take up less physical space.
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The Legion T5 does things a little differently. Instead of spreading upward, it is thick. It measures 8.31 x 19.31 x 16.3 inches. Below is an image of the Legion T5 next to my Maingear MG-1 (16.88 x 19 x 8.12 inches) under my desk. Both computers are in line with each other in the image below. Note how much the Lenovo computer sticks out (and how little it sticks out).
Finding space for the Legion T5 can prove difficult due to its sturdy frame – at least that was the case for me. I replaced my personal PC with a Lenovo desktop for a while, and often found myself bumping the side of the computer with my feet and chair. Thankfully, the desktop’s edges and corners are rounded, so I avoided doing anything too painful.
all about aesthetics
Choosing between a sturdy and tall tower PC comes down to personal preference. Sure, the Legion T5 looks pretty cool. I really liked the bumpy heat vent on the top. I asked Lenovo if this design served any practical purpose, and they told me it was only for aesthetic purposes. Either way, it was a good decision on their part.
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The port selection is surprisingly limited. Most of the inputs are located on the back of the desktop. Just to highlight a few, you’ll find three DisplayPort inputs, an HDMI 2.1 for 4K video output at 60Hz, and three separate audio ports. This is all great, but I really would have liked it if there was more on the front as there are only three: a 5Gbps USB-C input, a 5Gbps USB-A port, and an audio jack.
At most, you’ll have enough room for a pair of headphones, a controller, and an accessory. There should have been more available within arm’s reach, as there is plenty of space. Lenovo’s Legion Tower 7iFor example, there are three USB-A inputs on the front.
Another nice thing about the Legion T5 is its ARGB lighting. The “A” stands for “addressable,” which is Lenovo’s cool way of saying Adaptation RGB lighting. Through the Legion Space app, users can turn on the lights on certain components like the rear fan or the GPU. You can mix and match whatever you want to create a fun light table.
dynamic desktop
Under the hood is an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card, and 32GB of RAM. Unsurprisingly, gaming on the Lenovo Legion T5 felt smooth, even when running demanding titles. This configuration allowed fast-paced shooters like “Call of Duty” and stylish action games like “Hades 2” to run without stuttering, keeping the framerate consistently high. I was able to focus on the matches instead of worrying about a sudden drop in performance. Any gamer will tell you that having good stability makes a big difference.
Powerful hardware brings out the visual features that make modern games shine. The lush environments, like those found in “Monster Hunter Wilds,” felt alive. The particle effects were explosive, and the lighting in the game looked true to life. The Legion T5’s ability to support multiple visual enhancers and still achieve mostly smooth performance allows the desktop to set itself apart from the average prebuilt computer.
I say “mostly” because I encountered some visual glitches running “Final Fantasy 15” at its extreme settings. As the game struggled to run at such a high resolution, characters were moving around, arms and legs moving around. To be fair, it’s possible that these glitches are the result of some kind of driver issue, not necessarily the hardware struggling to keep up.
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Still, I wanted to highlight this moment as a possible scenario you may encounter. Although the hardware is certainly powerful, you may always face some performance issues.
Beyond gaming, the Legion T5 proved to be a powerhouse for creative work. Workloads like 3D rendering in Blender benefit greatly from powerful hardware. They reduce rendering wait times, allowing users to quickly move between preview renders and projects. Workflow speeds up significantly. On Adobe Premiere Pro, video editing felt intuitive. I uploaded my own 4K recording, and thanks to the hardware, I was able to seamlessly navigate through the video timeline, applying various effects without any slowdown.
My main complaint with the hardware is that it only comes with 1TB of storage. After installing seven games from Steam, I used up most of the SSD. Today’s AAA video games take up dozens of gigabytes of space, so 1TB doesn’t cut it much. If you don’t mind paying a little extra, I recommend purchasing an external drive.
ZDNET’s shopping advice
Lenovo’s Legion Tower 5 Currently available at Best Buy for $1,880. This is a pretty good price. I was honestly expecting more than $2,000. If you need additional space, you can visit Lenovo’s website and purchase Tower 5i Gen 10Which has a 2TB SSD for $1,980. It has the same graphics card, although the Tower 5i swaps the AMD processor for an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F CPU.
For gamers on the go, I recommend the 10th generation Lenovo Legion Pro 7i. This is a gaming laptop with slightly better hardware and a vibrant 16-inch 250Hz OLED screen.
