Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 Desktop Review: Mighty Good Value, if a Little Quirky

8.4 / 10

Score

Cnet Score

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Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10

Pros

• Exceptional 1080p performance
• Quiet operation
• Slick design
• Great value as tested

Cons

• Disappointing port selection
• Unique design poses customization challenges
• A removable dust filter would be nice

The Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 might not be the top-of-the-line for Lenovo, but don’t sleep on this midranger. A smart combination of components makes it a truly potent 1080p gaming system, and one that also has the chops to run games at 4K. The heart of its speed in our test configuration was the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which can help it blow past otherwise much more powerful Intel-based systems at 1080p, even when they have the faster RTX 5080 over the T5’s 5070.

The system is routinely discounted to $1,449, and to see a bargain gaming PC square up against desktops double the price is always a joy. Those high-end systems have their place, but for high-speed, competitive-on-a-budget gaming, this one passes muster and delivers with great value. It could use a better port selection and has an unusual internal layout, but none of that stopped it from performing admirably, consistently and quietly. This is just a great machine and worthy of its Editors’ Choice award.

The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 (30AGB10) I tested comes as configured above. It appears to be a Best Buy exclusive, and has a listed value of $1,879 but it’s consistently discounted to $1,449. That price is a strong value when you look at the price of the individual components, as well as the quality of the build and the performance of the whole package.

At the time of writing, buying from Lenovo directly, there was one additional step-up configuration which featured an upgraded Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, double the storage and an RTX 5070 Ti. This had an «Est. Value» of $2,969 but was discounted to $1,949 in typical Lenovo fashion. Micro Center has a lower-spec version with a Ryzen 7 7700X processor and RTX 5060 Ti for $1,499 ($100 off at the time of writing). At any given time, you could expect more options to turn up, as Lenovo lists quite a few different component options in the specification sheet, many of which it simply weren’t available in the US during my testing.

Lenovo also offers Intel-based systems under a different name: Legion Tower 5i Gen 10.

Zippy with a clear edge at lower resolutions

The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 is a strong midrange tower, making great use of its CPU. The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is neither the latest AMD has to offer nor is it top of the line when it comes to single- and multicore performance. In Geekbench and Cinebench testing, it’s dunked on by CPUs such as the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, Intel Core i9-14900KF and even Intel Core i7-14700K. What those tests don’t show is the serious performance the Ryzen 7 delivers, specifically with gaming. Time and time again, AMD’s X3D chips simply flip the performance script, and that’s the case here.

At 1080p, the Legion T5 was able to pump out 240 frames per second in Guardians of the Galaxy on the game’s High graphics preset. For the same test, the much more expensive Legion Tower 7i Gen 10 only managed 183fps. The results for Shadow of the Tomb Raider were impressive as well, hitting 289fps compared to the more expensive Legion’s 247fps. The T5 beat the Alienware Area-51 by similar margins in those tests. And remember, that’s with an Nvidia RTX 5070 going up against systems with RTX 5080s.

The gaming advantage thins out as resolutions increase, and the GPU bottleneck gets tighter. At 4K, the Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 still proves impressively capable, maintaining average frame rates above 100fps on all of our game benchmarks. In these tests, though, the RTX 5080 systems pull back into the lead. It’s still a great showing for the Legion Tower 5 Gen 10, which demonstrates that the right choice of components applied to the right tasks can make all the difference. If you’re after fast-paced 1080p and 1440p gaming, the Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 will be a proper beast.

It even held up well in stress tests, with the system remaining over 99% stable (not to mention quiet) across two runs of 3DMark’s Steel Nomad and Time Spy tests. With just a single tower cooler for the CPU and already heated air coming off the back of the GPU, the processor can struggle with heat a little if it’s loaded up. 3DMark’s Night Raid test shifts more load to the CPU, and in that stress test, the Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 only managed 86.5% stability. To be fair, that meant it went from a high of 715fps down to a still-high 618fps, and the CPU temps leveled off in the mid-70s Celsius (whereas they usually peaked in the low 70s). Still, Lenovo could have really done it up with a 240mm all-in-one or dual-towercooler.

Stylish at the cost of easy alterations

The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 is a gorgeous desktop with a fun 3D grille on top, some nice handles for easy carrying and a smoky glass side panel to show off the abundant RGB fans inside. There’s even a funky hexagonal lattice running up one side to hide some unsightly areas of the interior. It’s a slightly compact system, though don’t let the «30» in the name fool you into thinking it’s a 30-liter case. Its 9.3-by-8.3-by-16.3-inch dimensions add up to 43 liters. It’s still on the small side, and Lenovo has opted for an mATX build. The efforts to make an interesting and compact design, however, may create some headaches down the line when it comes to upgrades.

It’s also an unusual system in that a lot of things aren’t where you’d usually expect. The front of the case is closed completely: No intakes or exhaust vents. The power supply is actually tucked in there vertically. Wall power still comes in from the back of the PC, but Lenovo uses an internal extension cable to run that power to the modular, 850-watt, 80 Plus Gold power supply. That modularity probably won’t mean much when there’s so little space around it. I couldn’t immediately find a way to remove the power supply either, so swaps or upgrades could prove difficult.

Cables are cramped underneath the power supply and motherboard. The only room for upgrades back there is a 3.5-inch drive bay. There are no 2.5-inch drive mounting points. Lenovo prewired SATA power and data, though even getting to these is difficult.

On the motherboard, there are free DIMM slots to upgrade the system memory. The current memory Lenovo uses has boring, bare PCBs with no heat spreaders. There’s an open M.2 slot just below the graphics card, and technically a PCIe x4 slot as well, though anything installed there would block the graphics card’s fans. The GPU card itself is 2.5-slot width and not terribly long, which is notable as there isn’t much space for longer graphics cards. This, too, could limit upgrade options in the future.

The airflow of the system is unusual. Since the front is blocked off, the bottom of the case handles all the air intake. Thankfully, it has a decently fine grating to keep a good deal of dust out. A finer, removable filter would have been easy to add and probably should have been. From the bottom, the air flows up into the case, directly into the graphics card. Some of the fresh air may get around to the CPU, which has a simple, single-fan tower cooler. There are two exhaust fans at the top of the case and one at the rear, ensuring all the hot air can be dispelledquickly. The power supply pulls in air from the inside of the case and exhausts it out the top of the case.

With just two intake fans and three exhaust fans (or four if you include the power supply), the system is likely to see negative internal pressure and thus pull in air (and dust) through any gaps. Fortunately, there isn’t much in the way of gaps other than the vents at the bottom, which are, as mentioned, decently filtered. Normally, I’d worry about this kind of airflow, but in my testing, the cooling proved adequate.

The port selection is rather poor for a desktop PC. The graphics card has its usual assortment, and the motherboard does offer 2.5GbE, but that’s about all the credit the system gets. The motherboard has six USB-A ports and a single USB-C port, but none of them go above 10Gbps. There’s no HDMI or DisplayPort on the motherboard to support integrated graphics, which limits troubleshooting opportunities if anything ever goes wrong with the graphics card. The front of the case, at the top, has just one USB-C 5Gbps port and one USB-A 5Gbps port alongside an audio combo jack. If you want to use this system with external storage or docks, the bandwidth is lacking — no USB4 or even 3.2 Gen 2×2. At least the system has Wi-Fi 6E for fast internet.

For a stylish midrange gaming PC, the Legion T5 gets the important things right, though, especially the price.

Note: Lenovo’s LegionSpace software offers different performance profiles. I tested both the Performance and Balanced profiles and against expectations, the system consistently performed the same or better using the Balanced profile.