Lenovo’s Legion gaming PC is solid, but not an exciting system to kick off your PC gaming experience. It probably sounds like I’m alluding and blaming them, but if you’re looking for your first gaming PC, buying a complete system from a reputable company is probably what you want. and the Lenovo Rig represents a platform you can trust. Build on the future. But no, we’ll start with the most exciting component list.
As the world’s leading supplier of systems, Lenovo uses many parts that aren’t always widely available when building a PC from scratch. With a number of suppliers under contract, the end result will be a fairly bare-bones memory module from Chinese companies Ramaxel and Samsung’s non-consumer SSDs.
it should mean you Parts should be fairly cheap, but in reality, the prices you pay for things like Lenovo and the likes of NZXT and iBuyPower machines are very similar.
That said, its purchasing and manufacturing power means that the current price of this AMD Legion Tower 5 sits around $1,400, which is a lot to pay for an RTX 3060 based system. Lenovo machines are sold regularly. There are other similarly spec Legion rigs I’ve found online at discounted prices, but you’d be surprised that this isn’t selling at the $999 mark any time soon.
Legion Tower 5 Specs
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800
GPUs: NVIDIA RTX 3060
sheep: 16GB DDR4-3200 Ramaxel
Motherboard: Lenovo B550
Storage: 256GB Samsung PM981a SSD, 1TB WD HDD
Front I/O: 2x USB 3.0 Type-A, 1x 3.5mm mic input, 1x 3.5mm audio output
Rear I/O: 4x USB 3.0 Type-A, 1x USB 3.0 Type-C, 1x LAN, 1x 3.5mm mic input, 1x 3.5mm AUX, 1x 3.5mm audio output
networking: LAN, Wi-Fi5
Power supply unit: 650W
OS: Windows 11
guarantee: mail for 1 year
price: $1,400 (opens in new tab)
The key specs, a Ryzen 7 5800 with an RTX 3060 CPU and GPU combination, are pretty standard in this price range, but not that compelling. Its AMD processor is an 8-core, 16-thread chip that is very powerful in terms of its productivity. But if you’re looking for top-notch gaming performance, the single-core power of Intel’s 12th and 13th gens means that even low-spec 6-core CPUs offer great gaming chips.
The RTX 3060 itself is a decent mainstream GPU, but after some digging around, I see much more powerful RTX 3060 Ti for almost the same kind of GPU, such as Newegg’s ABS Master and Build Redux (DigitalStorm’s mainstream brand) is found to be provided. price. Unfortunately, we have yet to find a system builder who eschews GeForce GPUs in favor of more powerful AMD cards in the same price range.
If Lenovo had packed the RX 6700 XT into this build instead of the RTX 3060, it would have been about the same retail price today, and much more performance than the Legion Tower 5 could offer here.
game performance
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system performance
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Our benchmarks confirm it, with the CPU core showing good multi-core performance, but well underperforming on the single-core list. What this means is that the RTX 3060 isn’t really overtaking other machines with similar specs, it’s clearly lagging behind machines with better graphics cards installed.
It’s a little toasty with the single fan tower CPU cooler installed, but it wasn’t too loud while gaming or under productivity loads.
But while CPUs and GPUs are inevitably important, they don’t tell the whole story. Storage is one place many pre-assembled gaming PCs fail, and system builders seem to think they can save a little cash. Lenovo’s 256GB Samsung SSD offers solid performance, but the drive is too small to run modern gaming PCs. 75GB is already used from the moment I take it out of the box. Sure, you can take a 1TB data drive, but it’s a spinning platter hard drive and shouldn’t be running that old-tech game in 2023.
Other systems offering 0.5 terabyte drives and even full 1 TB models such as the WD Blue SN570 we’ve seen on NZXT and iBuyPower rigs are no excuse these days. (opens in new tab) we tested.
There’s also no excuse for the lack of connectivity from the basic B550 Lenovo motherboard at the heart of this thing. Makes me feel utterly miserable. The huge gap in the backplate looks comical.
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However, the actual build quality is very good. Clean, well laid out and lots of space for upgrades. And, of course, there’s his RGB illumination inside, but interestingly, it ships in stealth mode, so you’ll have to turn it on via the Vantage software installed. There’s a bit of bloatware there, but it’s not too intrusive and you can always uninstall McAfee.
The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 is one of those prebuilt PCs that works great as a “first gaming PC” because it comes from a reputable manufacturer. However, for the $1,400 hardware, the one-year mail-in warranty (you pay for shipping to Lenovo and Lenovo pays for the return shipping) feels a little weak.
Despite some Lenovo branding, the unnamed motherboard, RAM, and GPU components inside are all standard parts. Unlike Alienware systems, once you’re confident in your identity as a PC gamer, you can upgrade parts little by little without struggling to fit your unique system.
If it’s cheaper than the competition, that’s fine, but Legion machines maintain similar pricing to more boutique PC builders. So stick with our recommendation that the best way to get into the hobby, especially those who like to tinker, is with his beloved NZXT DIY BLD kit. (opens in new tab)And even if you’re familiar with building PCs, they’re a great buy: they’re ultimately higher gaming specs, and you might just learn something new.
