Although funds gaming desktops aren’t as wallet-friendly as they was once, the efficiency per greenback they serve up has by no means been better. Lenovo’s Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 exemplifies this. Lenovo presents it direct with a 10-core Intel Core i5-13400F and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 in its $1,319.99 base mannequin. Our evaluation unit is a greater deal for those who have a look at simply record costs; a Greatest Purchase-specific mannequin, it goes for simply $1,249.99 however contains an RTX 3060 card as a substitute. Spectacular customary options and AAA-acing efficiency apart, although, we nonetheless desire the NZXT Participant: One to this Legion as a result of it offers much more energy for its value. However don’t depend the Legion out: This can be a well-rounded tower that does little incorrect and solely wants a sale to set it hovering.
Design and Configuration: Finances Worth, Mid-Tier Options
The no-frills funds gaming desktops of yesteryear are a far cry from what you will get as we speak. The Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 elevates itself with premium options, together with a tempered glass (not plastic) aspect panel and multi-zone addressable RGB lighting.
You may discover not one however two 120mm followers behind the aggressive entrance airflow grate, with yet another on the rear, which creates a number of breeze. A white LED inside strip illuminates all the pieces inside.
The entrance followers, the rear fan, the LED strip, and the illuminated Legion entrance emblem characterize 4 lighting zones; fashions outfitted with non-obligatory 150-watt (W) CPU air cooling get a fifth zone from one other 120mm fan on that cooler. Our mannequin made do with a low-profile CPU cooler that doesn’t look spectacular however dealt with thermals simply advantageous. I seen little noise from this tower all through my testing, even throughout gaming exams.
As at all times, the Lenovo Vantage app allows lighting-zone configuration: All zones have brightness adjustment, whereas the RGB zones (that’s, all however the inside LED strip) have superior results, comparable to respiration, coloration biking, and even a reactive mode that varies coloration primarily based on CPU temperature. Vantage additionally offers fundamental GPU overclocking and entry to Lenovo help, and it might probably examine for system updates. You may discover three profiles for storing settings.
Lenovo’s official measurements state that the Legion Tower 5i is 16.77 by 8.07 by 15.63 inches (HWD), however I discovered it was 17.4 inches tall together with its rubber toes—however the ballpark dimension for a mid-tower. Entrance ports embody two 5Gbps USB-A ports and separate 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks. Having no USB Sort-C port here’s a obvious omission, notably for VR headsets and different equipment. The facility button is on the precise.
Round again, the motherboard contains many USB ports (one 10Gbps USB-C, two 5Gbps USB-A, and two legacy USB 2.0) and a trio of three.5mm audio jacks (microphone, line-in, and line-out). Networking choices embody Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6E, with Bluetooth 5.2. The wi-fi antennas are constructed into the case.
The Legion’s tempered-glass panel comes off after undoing two thumbscrews, revealing a spacious and fairly well-wired inside. The MicroATX (9.6-by-9.6-inch) motherboard is all that matches; you may discover no standoffs for putting in a bigger motherboard down the road. The board doesn’t skimp on enlargement, although, with two M.2 slots and 4 DDR5-5600 RAM slots. The Legion-branded heatsink on the included M.2 drive reveals consideration to element. You may additionally get to make use of an open PCI Categorical x4 slot.
The opposite aspect of the tower homes the 500W energy provide, which isn’t modular, however its cables are tied off neatly sufficient. Its detachable mud filter is commendable. You may additionally discover two 3.5-inch drive bays right here, every with a toolless caddy and close by energy cables.
Naturally, the Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 has some preloaded bloatware, notably a McAfee safety software program trial and the same old preloaded Home windows 11 apps, together with Spotify and TikTok. That is at all times disappointing, although uninstalling them takes minutes. Lenovo backs the tower with a one-year guarantee and its uprated Legion Final help.
Testing the Legion Tower 5i Gen 8: Ample 1080p Energy
The $1,249.99 Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 we’re testing from Greatest Purchase features a Core i5-13400F CPU (six Efficiency and 4 Environment friendly cores, as much as 4.6GHz), 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060. This model of the GPU has 12GB of video reminiscence as a substitute of the 6GB that saddles lesser variations of the cardboard. A fundamental USB keyboard and mouse are included.
As famous, Lenovo begins the pricing by itself retailer at $1,319.99 ($989.99 on sale) with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050, a still-capable however quickly growing older GPU that can wrestle in demanding video games. Even the GeForce RTX 3060 is getting lengthy within the tooth, although Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 desktops are nonetheless outdoors of what we’d contemplate funds territory. The Legion Tower 5i can truly be had with as much as an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, however these fashions push up previous $1,500.
You can even purchase this tower with AMD silicon because the Legion Tower 5 (no “i”) Gen 8; Greatest Purchase had it with an AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and a GeForce RTX 3060 for $899.99 on the time of writing. A sale like that will do wonders for our Legion since NZXT’s Participant: One delivers a GeForce RTX 3060 for $949.
For efficiency comparability, the Legion Tower 5i will face the NZXT Participant: One with a GeForce RTX 3050 (the corporate has since upgraded it to a GeForce RTX 3060) and a number of other higher-end towers, as we haven’t examined many entry-level gaming towers currently. They embody the Dell XPS Desktop (8950), the iBuyPower Gaming RDY Y40BG202, and the older Asus ProArt Station PD5. The Dell’s Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti can also be accessible in pricier Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 configurations.
Productiveness and Content material Creation Exams
We run the identical basic productiveness benchmarks throughout each cell and desktop methods. Our first take a look at is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a wide range of real-world productiveness and workplace workflows to measure general system efficiency and likewise features a storage subtest for the first drive.
Our different three benchmarks concentrate on the CPU, utilizing all accessible cores and threads, to fee a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a fancy scene, whereas Geekbench 5.4 Professional from Primate Labs simulates standard apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease instances are higher).
Lastly, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Programs, which makes use of the Artistic Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to fee a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia purposes. It is an automatic extension that executes a wide range of basic and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.
PCMark’s foremost take a look at noticed the Legion doing in addition to it may have been anticipated to do, slotting in between the NZXT and the Dell. Its 512GB SSD additionally was closest to difficult the iBuyPower within the storage take a look at chart.
The Legion’s Core i5-13400F was clearly no match for the iBuyPower’s liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-13700K, however its actual competitors was the NZXT’s Core i5-12400. Each chips have six Efficiency cores, however the Core i5-13400F additionally tacks on 4 Environment friendly cores, which gave it leads of roughly 15% and 43% in Cinebench and Geekbench, respectively.
Graphics and Gaming Exams
For gaming desktops, we run each artificial and real-world gaming benchmarks. The previous contains two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, the extra modest Night time Raid (appropriate for methods with built-in graphics) and extra demanding Time Spy (appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We then run two OpenGL workouts, rendered offscreen by the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which permits for various native show resolutions; extra frames per second (fps) means greater efficiency.
Our real-world gaming benchmarks are these constructed into F1 2021, Murderer’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege, examined at greater resolutions and high quality settings. These three characterize simulation, open-world action-adventure, and aggressive/esports shooter video games respectively. We run Valhalla and Siege twice every at Extremely high quality (at each 1080p and 4K), whereas F1 2021 is run at 4K solely, with and with out AMD and Nvidia’s performance-boosting FSR and DLSS options turned on.
With such extensively various configurations, these desktops elude precise comparisons, however the Legion’s RTX 3060 predictably produced scores above the RTX 3050 NZXT and beneath the RTX 3060 Ti Dell. It simply surpassed 100fps at 1080p, which couldn’t be mentioned for the NZXT, and it even dealt with 1440p with playable body charges.
Entry gaming towers aren’t as low-cost as they was once, as I famous, however a minimum of you gained’t must compromise on visible high quality settings to get pleasure from video games at 1080p, which has been the entry-level customary for a number of years now.
Verdict: A Tremendous Finances Gaming Tower (If It’s on Sale)
Lenovo’s Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 is a dependable performer and delivers a lot of promise for a funds gaming tower, together with a tempered-glass door, multi-zone RGB lighting, and quiet operation. All we will actually criticize is its value: Not being on an even bigger sale at evaluation time with an RTX 3060 damage its enchantment subsequent to the NZXT Participant: One, which stays our Editors’ Selection award holder amongst funds gaming desktops. That mentioned, this Legion can go toe to toe with the NZXT if the value is correct, and don’t neglect Lenovo sells an AMD model that’s typically even cheaper.
