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For eager PC gamers who don't have the time and patience to build their own gaming desktop, the Lenovo Legion Tower line is an excellent product to consider. I love laptop gaming, but I have always been enticed by Legion desktops for a few reasons. Like other pre-built rigs, they offer plenty of value and some features that you see on more premium custom-made systems, all without the need to build it yourself. You get ARGB lighting effects, the latest RTX graphics, plenty of Intel or AMD CPU power, and some small levels of customization should you want to upgrade your system later on.
All of that, plus new and improved cooling features, make the newest Legion Tower 5i a great gaming desktop. It's a really capable system that can power you through 4K resolution gaming without any issues. It's a gaming desktop I would certainly buy myself — if my budget allowed it.
About this review: Lenovo sent me the Legion Tower 5i for this review and did not have any input into its contents.
Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8)
The Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 is a really capable pre-built gaming system. It not only looks great thanks to the colorful ARGB and glass see-through panel, but it performs well enough when gaming in 4K.
- Brand
- Lenovo
- Memory
- 2 x 8GB UDIMM DDR5-5600 (4 DDR5 UDIMM slots)
- Graphics
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB GDDR6X
- CPU
- 13th-generation Intel Core i7-13700F
- Storage
- 1TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0x4 NVMe
- Ports
- Top: 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 1 x Headphone (3.5mm) 1 x Microphone (3.5 mm)/ Rear: 1 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (supports data transfer and 5V @ 3A charging) 4x USB 2.0 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 3x Audio connector (3.5mm) 1x Lighting switch 1x Ethernet (RJ-45) 1x Power connector
- Networking
- Wi-Fi 6, 802.11ax 2x2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5.1 / 2.5GbE Realtek RTL8125GB Gaming Ethernet
- Great design with see-through glass side, RGB
- Performs well for 4K gaming
- Can upgrade components if need be
- Clean cable management system
- Built-in McAfee Software can ruin gaming experience
- Could use a few more ports
Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8): Pricing and availability
The model of the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i used for this review was originally announced back in January 2023. It's a higher-end model featuring the 13th-generation Intel Core i7-13700F CPU and RTX 4070 graphics. I don't see the model that was sent to me for sale at Lenovo.com, but it's available at Best Buy for $2,000.
Outside of Best Buy, the highest specification model you can buy right now at Lenovo.com costs $1,740. It comes with the Intel Core i7-13700F, 16GB RAM, a 1TB SSD, and the RTX 3060 Ti GPU. The lowest tier option comes in at $1,300, and it includes the Core i5-13400F CPU, 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD, and RTX 3050 graphics.
Lenovo also sent me another model with the Intel Core i5-13400F CPU and the older RTX 3060 graphics card, along with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. This model costs $1,650 at Lenovo.com. You also get a standard wired Lenovo keyboard and mouse included in the box. It's nothing too fancy, but it is appreciated.
Case and design
Plenty of RGB and improvements for airflow
The highlight of the Legion Tower 5i is certainly the design. Like a lot of pre-built and custom gaming rigs, like the HP Omen 40L, there's RGB lighting onboard and a glass panel on the left. You can remove two thumbscrews at the back of the casing and slide off that glass panel to access the internal components for upgrades. The panel on the right side, meanwhile, can be slid out for routing cables. The corners of the tower are also a bit rounded and aren't too pointy, helping this desktop to blend in with any environment. Even the mesh bezel on the front grille is nice, featuring a see-through effect and an ARGB Legion Logo.
Generally, the tower is still reasonably sized at about 8.07 inches long, 15.62 inches tall, and 16.77 inches deep with a 26L form factor. It's only slightly bigger than the Gen 7 model, which measured 15.57 inches tall and 16.54 inches deep.
The highlight of the Legion Tower 5i is certainly the design.
That's all pretty much standard, though. New this year in the Legion Tower 5i are the added fans and room for other cooling peripherals. The previous generation featured three fans by default, but you now have a total of five possible locations for fans, although Lenovo sends it with four. You get one on the rear, one next to the GPU, and two on the front. Air cooling fans of up to 150W are supported, and if you please, you can add a larger VRM heat sync, though the one included is quite adequate.
Those fans even have ARGB lighting, which is different than RGB since it allows for individual control of each LED. You can go into the Lenovo Vantage app and tweak things to your own liking. There's also a switch on the back of the tower that lets you turn things off. I love this level of customization.
Ports
I wish there were more
The connectivity on the Legion Tower 5i could use some improvement. The front has two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a headphone and microphone jack, and a power button. The rear has four USB 2.0 ports, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port, two USB 3.2-A Gen 1 ports, an RJ 45 jack, and three audio connections. The graphics card supplies three DisplayPort 1.4a ports and an HDMI 2.1 port.
I wish there were more ports at the top of the casing, maybe a USB-C port for connecting devices like an iPhone or an Android phone. Routing USB-C cables to the back of the system was slightly annoying, but also the available ports filled up way too quickly since two went to the keyboard and mouse, and one went to the webcam on the monitor. It's not too surprising, though, since gaming rigs like this do have limited front connectivity, and the way the front bezel is aligned would not have allowed for more ports anyway. I just used a USB-C hub.
Customization
Lenovo leaves lots of room for upgrades
This might be a pre-built gaming rig, but the system still has some room for upgrades, which is a huge plus if you want to buy a new GPU or add a fan later on. There's one PCIe 4.0 x16 expansion slot, another PCIe 3.0 x 4 expansion slot, and three M.2 slots onboard: one for the WLAN and two for the SSD. The bottom also has two HDD sleds, and Lenovo even includes SATA cables for you. It's always appreciated to have room for extra storage, especially when you consider that games are getting bigger all the time.
Plus, Lenovo includes 16GB total RAM here. Dual channel is supported, and there are four RAM slots, but two are used for the two 8GB DDR5-5600 sticks that Lenovo includes. You can always add more to the empty slots.
If you want, you even can pull out the panel on the right side to help route cables. Lenovo did a good job here zipping certain components in, but if you add more components, you can use those slots in the chassis to route to your liking.
Performance
Play any game you own at 4K or 1080p
The Legion Tower 5i that I reviewed comes with the 13th-generation Intel Core i7-13700F CPU ($350) and RTX 4070 graphics ($600). I also have 16GB UDIMM DDR5-5600 RAM (about $115). If you add up the cost of those components and compare it to the cost of the Tower 5i, you'll save quite a bit of money. The specs you get help make the system pretty capable for 4K gaming and masterful at 1080p gaming.
The 13th-generation Intel Core i7-13700F CPU onboard this system has 16 cores total — eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores. This isn't Intel's most powerful desktop CPU by any means, but it sits in the middle of the lineup and is still plenty capable of supporting any kind of gaming or video editing. The RTX 4070, meanwhile, packs in 12GB of GDDR6X memory, making it a mid-range, cost-effective GPU. You can see the performance of this combination, along with the Core i5/RTX 3060 build I received from Lenovo below.
Test (Higher is better) | Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8) Intel Core i7-13700F,RTX 4070 | Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8) Core i5-13400F, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | HP OMEN 45L DesktopCore i9-12900K, RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|---|
PCMark 10 | 8,609 | 7,011 | 9,012 |
3DMark: Time Spy | 17,174 | 9,013 | 18,734 |
3DMark: Time Spy Extreme | 8,424 | 4,121 | 9,594 |
Geekbench 6 (Single/Multi) | 2,745/15,969 | 2,409/11,784 | N/A |
Geekbench 5 (Single/Multi) | 2,409/11,784 | 1,675/10,890 | 1,921 / 15,723 |
Crossmark (Overall, Productivity, Creativity/ Responsiveness) | 2,096/1,927/2,377/1,847 | 1,782/1,651/1,982/1,627 | N/A |
Cinebench (Single/Multi) | 1,997/22,407 | 1,701/12,123 | 1,894 / 23,659 |
Direct X Raytracing Feature Test (3DMark) | 51.11 FPS | 19.37 FPS | N/A |
Nvidia DLSS Feature Test (3D Mark, Performance Mode) | 22.74 DLSS Off/83.50 DLSS On (DLSS3 3840 X 2160) | 10.75 DLSS Off/29.98 DLSS on (DLSS2 3840 X 2160) | N/A |
This system comes close in performance to a gaming desktop with an older top-end 12th-generation Intel Core i9 CPU and RTX 3090 GPU. With a few exceptions, the scores across all the categories are nearly 1,000 points lower, which isn't all too bad when you consider that the CPU and the GPU inside this desktop aren't even the top-end Intel 13th-generation or Nvidia RTX 40-series parts.
And when you compare the Legion Tower 5i that I reviewed to one that has an Intel Core i5 CPU and RTX 30-series graphics, you can see where the benchmark scores are nearly twice as high. The RTX 40-series really makes a difference here, especially when it comes to ray tracing and DLSS3 performance. This new generation of RTX 40-series graphics cards and 13th-generation Intel CPUs make this a powerful desktop.
This new generation of RTX 40-series graphics cards and 13th-generation Intel CPUs make this a powerful desktop.
But benchmarks don't always reflect real-world usage, so what about actual gaming performance? I took my favorite games for a spin, including Forza Horizon 5, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2, and GTA V, and the performance was top-notch across the board. I'm talking about between and sometimes above 90–110 FPS in 4K on medium settings, and 50–60 FPS on ultra settings. Being the demanding game that it is, Microsoft Flight Simulator did seem to struggle a bit, as the game only hit about 60–70 FPS in 4K and about 100 FPS in 1080p and 1440p. All the other games ran at 120 FPS or higher in 1080p. It's crazy good how games played on this system.
Outside of gaming, this desktop sped through tasks in Photoshop, which also booted right away. I never had to wait while filters or corrections were applied. The SSD that Lenovo includes is also fast. If anything, the only complaint I had was with the cooling. When gaming at 4K, this desktop gets loud. Even sometimes, I noticed that time included McAfee software was running in the background when just browsing the web unnecessarily and was causing the fans to spin up and bring temperatures up to a level where the side of the casing was pretty warm to the touch. I ended up uninstalling it out of anger.
Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8): Should you buy?
You should buy the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8) if:
- You want a great pre-built gaming desktop
- You want a gaming desktop with fancy ARGB lighting effects
- You want a gaming desktop that can be upgraded in the future
You shouldn't buy the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8) if:
- You're on a budget
- You have a lot of devices that you connect to your PC tower
The Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8) is absolutely worth the money if you buy the model that I have here. It's not a high-end system when you compare it to other pre-built rigs or even custom rigs, but it's more than capable of 4K gaming and even 1080p gaming. The Legion Tower 5i itself is also great to look at, with bright ARGB lighting effects, a sleek case with a glass panel, and rounded soft corners. Just be prepared to uninstall McAfee when you buy this system, and have a dock handy for connecting multiple accessories.
Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8)
The Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 is a really capable pre-built gaming system. It not only looks great thanks to the colorful ARGB and glass see-through panel, but it performs well enough when gaming in 4K.