The Windows PC I recommend to professionals and creators alike is not the one you’re thinking of

Lenovo Legion T5 gaming desktop

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 is on the market now for $1,880.
• This desktop excels at a variety of duties, from gaming to 3D picture rendering and graphic design.
• Nevertheless, due to the PC’s squat design, some customers could have issue discovering a cushty place for it.

extra shopping for decisions

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Constructing a gaming PC could be tough in the event you’re new to the interest. Happily, pre-built desktops take away a lot of the guesswork; you’ll be able to anticipate them to ship dependable efficiency straight out of the field. Particularly since gaming desktops include more and more aggressive {hardware}. 

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Lenovo’s Legion Tower 5 (or T5 for short) is a primary instance of a strong prebuilt desktop. It’s a gaming laptop, however as I found over the couple of weeks of my testing, it’s versatile sufficient to achieve content material creation. Permit me to elucidate. 

Desktop footprint 

Fashionable PC circumstances usually have a vertically tall design, a mode of laptop known as a “tower.” This form is widespread for a wide range of causes: they facilitate airflow for cooling parts, however extra importantly, they take up much less bodily house. 

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The Legion T5 does issues a bit totally different. As an alternative of increasing upward, it is stout. It measures 8.31 x 19.31 x 16.3 inches. Beneath is a picture of the Legion T5 subsequent to my Maingear MG-1 (16.88 x 19 x 8.12 inches) beneath my desk. Each computer systems within the picture under are in step with one another. Discover simply how a lot the Lenovo laptop stands out (and the way a lot decrease it’s).

Discovering an area for the Legion T5 could show tough due to its stout body — at the least it was for me. I swapped out my private PC with the Lenovo desktop for a time, and infrequently discovered myself bumping the facet of the pc with my legs and chair. Fortunately, the perimeters and corners of the desktop are rounded, so I prevented something too painful. 

All concerning the aesthetics

The selection between stout and tall tower PCs comes down to non-public desire. Admittedly, the Legion T5 appears fairly cool. I actually appreciated the bumpy warmth vent on the prime. I requested Lenovo if this design had any sensible functions, they usually instructed me it was only for aesthetic functions. Both approach, it was an excellent name on their finish.

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Port choice is surprisingly restricted. A bulk of the inputs are positioned across the again of the desktop. Simply to spotlight a number of, you may discover three DisplayPort inputs, an HDMI 2.1 for outputting 4K video at 60Hz, and three totally different audio ports. That is all nice to have, however I actually would’ve appreciated it if the entrance had extra as a result of it solely has three: a 5Gbps USB-C enter, a 5Gbps USB-A port, and an audio jack. 

At finest, you may have sufficient room for a pair of headphones, a controller, and one accent. Extra ought to’ve been out there inside arm’s attain, as there’s loads of room. Lenovo’s Legion Tower 7i, for instance, has three USB-A inputs on the entrance.

One other neat factor concerning the Legion T5 is its ARGB lighting. The “A” stands for “addressable,” which is Lenovo’s fancy approach of claiming customizable RGB lighting. By way of the Legion House app, customers can activate lights over sure parts, just like the rear fan or GPU. You’ll be able to combine and match no matter you prefer to create enjoyable gentle arrays.

Dynamic desktop

Underneath 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 easy, even when operating demanding titles. This configuration allowed fast-paced shooters like “Name of Obligation” and stylized motion video games like “Hades 2” to run with no hitch, retaining framerates constantly excessive. I used to be capable of keep centered on matches as a substitute of worrying about sudden dips in efficiency. Any gamer will inform you that having good stability makes a world of distinction.

The highly effective {hardware} brings out the visible options that make fashionable video games shine. Lush environments, like these present in “Monster Hunter Wilds”, felt lifelike. Particle results had been explosive, and in-game lighting regarded true to life. The Legion T5’s means to help a number of visible enhancers and nonetheless get principally easy efficiency permits the desktop to separate itself from the common prebuilt laptop.

I say “principally” as a result of I bumped into some visible glitches taking part in “Ultimate Fantasy 15” at its peak settings. Characters would spaz out, limbs flailing round as the sport struggled to run at such a excessive decision. To be honest, it is seemingly these glitches are the results of some kind of driver subject, not essentially the {hardware} struggling to maintain up. 

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Nonetheless, I needed to spotlight this second as a possible state of affairs you may encounter. Whereas the {hardware} is definitely highly effective, you’ll be able to at all times run into a number of efficiency troubles.

Past gaming, the Legion T5 proved to be a powerhouse for inventive duties. Workloads like 3D rendering in Blender profit significantly from the highly effective {hardware}. They scale back rendering wait instances, permitting customers to fast hop between preview renders and tasks. The workflow hurries up significantly. On Adobe Premiere Professional, video enhancing felt seamless. I uploaded my very own 4K recording, and because of the {hardware}, I used to be capable of seamlessly navigate by way of the video timeline, making use of varied results with out slowdown.

My predominant gripe with the {hardware} is that it solely comes with 1TB of storage. After putting in seven video games from Steam, I used up a lot of the SSD. At present’s AAA video video games take up dozens of gigabytes of house, so 1TB simply does not fairly reduce it. Should you do not thoughts paying a bit further, I like to recommend buying an external drive.

ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation

Lenovo’s Legion Tower 5 is at present out there at Finest Purchase for $1,880. That is a reasonably good value. I used to be actually anticipating to be over $2,000. Should you want the additional house, you’ll be able to head over to Lenovo’s web site and buy the Tower 5i Gen 10, which has a 2TB SSD for $1,980. It has the identical graphics card, though the Tower 5i swaps out the AMD processor for an Intel Core Extremely 7 265F CPU.

For avid gamers on the go, I like to recommend the 10th-generation Lenovo Legion Pro 7i. It is a gaming laptop computer with barely higher {hardware} and a vibrant 16-inch 250Hz OLED display.