Lenovo Legion Tower 5 (2025) Review

Need a mid-range gaming PC with coagulated show for a decent price? I would accidental the Lenovo Legion Tower 5 fits the bill, if you didn’t person to implicit a convoluted Elden Ring-inspired quest conscionable to tinker with it.

If you program to never interaction the internals of your gaming PC, maybe this is for you. The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 sports an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 and AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with 32GB of RAM. But adjacent with that, the RAM looks similar 2 pieces of circuit board, truthful are you sure you don’t privation to upgrade this PC astatine immoderate point?

Design and Features

I didn’t expect a PC that efficaciously looks similar a achromatic container would upset maine truthful much. The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 pops successful with a somewhat antithetic look than past year, and astatine a glance, I was not a fan. Previously, the Legion Tower 5i looked identical to its sibling, the Tower 7. They some had this tesseract-honeycomb plan going connected that looked sick. But present the beforehand of the Legion Tower 5 is wholly flat, stripped of its personality, holding abstraction for lone the Legion logo. And I bash mean flat — determination are nary fans successful the beforehand of the PC. That’s due to the fact that the PSU is really located down the beforehand panel.

When the RGB kicks on, the beforehand logo does airy up, which is nice, but it looks truthful lonely. You get immoderate of that honeycomb plan connected the apical of the PC wherever the grille meets the RGB-lit fans. Beyond the slick solid pane, the 4 RGB-lit fans are doing astir of the ocular work, with the logo for the RTX 5070 pitching successful – albeit dimmer than I’d like. There’s besides a decorative mesh nether the apical sheet that obscures a spot of the interior, which doesn’t look good, but you tin instrumentality it disconnected if you want.

Similar to the Tower 7, the RAM lacks immoderate benignant of heatsink oregon lighting, making it fundamentally a circuit board. And unlike the Tower 7, the Legion Tower 5 doesn’t diagnostic the achromatic LED strips that situation the motherboard, truthful the components aren’t highlighted. For an affordable gaming PC, this simplified interior plan is fine, but I don’t spot wherefore the aesthetic plan needed to change.

When I started popping unfastened panels, I discovered that the ocular plan alteration was besides a mechanical one. Yes, the PSU is successful the beforehand now, but it’s not accessible from the backmost panel. Not easily, anyway. In bid to entree the PSU, I needed to region the solid pane and backmost sheet (unscrewing thumbscrews), and past popular disconnected the apical grille (releasing six antithetic clasps connected the interior). Only past was I capable to unscrew the PSU and maneuver it retired of the slot from the backmost sheet to spot the ports. I genuinely bash not recognize wherefore this plan goes retired of its mode to beryllium truthful assertive to the user. I should beryllium capable to unfastened the backmost sheet and spot the PSU ports. As it stands, this plan punishes radical for having little money, due to the fact that this is not an contented for the Legion Tower 7. It wasn't adjacent an contented for past year’s Tower 5.

This frustrating plan alteration besides changes the existent footprint for the Lenovo Legion Tower 5, jumping from 16.7 inches gangly and 15.6 inches wide to 16.3 inches gangly and 19.3 inches wide. That’s adjacent wider than Tower 7, albeit overmuch shorter (18.8 x 16.3 inches). It is lighter than the Legion Tower 7, too, weighing successful astatine 33 pounds to the Legion Tower 7’s 35.3 pounds.

Outside the nightmarish powerfulness supply, the chassis is cramped, with lone 1 PCIe x4 slot available, and a CPU instrumentality that takes up a chunk of space. The wires successful the backmost are comparatively neat, zip tied and everything, truthful you don’t spot galore of the wires from the front, isolated from a somewhat chunky GPU cable. But if it wasn’t obvious, this’ll beryllium a conflict to upgrade successful the future.

For ports, you’ll person a acceptable of 3 I/O connected the top, including 1 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C, 1 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A, and a headphone jack. The Type-C larboard is simply a large inclusion connected the front, truthful you don’t request to excavation astir the back.

There is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C larboard connected the back, on with 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 2 USB 2.0 Type-A, an RJ45 Ethernet port, and 3 audio ports. There’s capable to link each your accessories, but there’s nary Thunderbolt 4, truthful you mightiness beryllium losing retired connected immoderate velocity if you link an outer drive.

Software

If you’re buying a name-brand PC, you’re much than apt getting name-brand software, and the Legion Tower 5 is nary exception. The LegionSpace app astatine slightest lets you show your CPU, GPU, and RAM show and set the system’s RGB lighting. You tin besides tinker with show settings, but don’t expect it to person a significant impact. And portion the LegionSpace app volition fto you, I wouldn’t overclock your GPU unless you cognize what you’re doing, particularly with this case’s lackluster airflow. The app fills bare abstraction with a elemental PC crippled store and crippled aggregator.

With the Lenovo Vantage app, you tin spot your warranty and strategy information. It does person immoderate utile tools, similar hardware scans and operator updates for your components. However, the Lenovo Now app and the Lenovo Subscription Marketplace are some conscionable instances of Bloatware trying to merchantability you something, truthful you should astir apt conscionable uninstall them.

Performance

With an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, paired with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 32GB of RAM, the Legion Tower 5 tin easy play astir dense AAA titles. The Legion Tower 5 managed to people adjacent to, oregon over, 60 fps astatine 4K connected Ultra settings passim our trial suite. And if you're gaming successful 1440p, you're much apt to people person to triple digits, with oregon without DLSS 4.

However, the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is comparatively aged — it launched successful April 2023. That’s beauteous silly considering this is simply a brand-new desktop. We should’ve had the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which would not lone nett you much processing powerfulness but besides trim the hazard of throttling your GPU successful the future.

Running astir Night City successful Cyberpunk 2077, the Legion Tower 5 scores a unchangeable 57 fps astatine 4K acceptable to Ray Tracing Ultra with DLSS acceptable to show mode. The RTX 5070 does radiance successful 1440p, though, hitting 96 fps connected the aforesaid settings, but 4K gaming is not retired of the question, particularly if you disable ray tracing. And with modular Frame Generation (x2), the 4K trial jumped to 94 fps, and past to 160 fps with Multi-Frame Generation (x4). Of course, the 1440p versions of those tests skyrocketed into the debased triple digits. It could support up with my 240Hz display, albeit with Multi-Frame Generation enabled.

When going into different demanding games similar Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Black Myth Wukong, the RTX 5070 hovered astir 60 to 70 fps successful some resolutions. While you mightiness not get much payment from 1440p successful this instance, these are inactive coagulated numbers for 4K gaming. And with Assassin’s Creed Shadows specifically, framework procreation took some resolutions into oregon adjacent the triple digits.

in Metro Exodus, which we tally without upscaling, the GPU takes connected a heavier load. It averaged 69 and 41 fps astatine 1440p and 4K, respectively. More than playable, but it does item what a mid-range GPU is similar without each the bells and whistles. Meanwhile, multiplayer games similar Black Ops 6 and Forza Horizon 5 volition person you taking vantage of those high-refresh complaint panels nary substance what solution you’re in.

I got a sensation of triumph successful Marvel Rivals, playing astatine 4K with it acceptable to Ultra, DLAA, and 4x Multi-Frame Generation. At these settings, the Legion Tower 5 powered done astatine 115 fps with a 68-millisecond hold arsenic I snuck into the enemy’s backline arsenic Magik and dashed to instrumentality retired a Mantis (I emotion playing a menace).

If you program connected getting the Legion Tower 5 oregon a akin PC with an RTX 5070, you should beryllium capable to saturate a 180Hz 1440p show successful immoderate AAA games. If you’re going for 4K, you astir apt don’t request much than a 120Hz screen. Sure, you’ll execute higher frames astatine either solution successful immoderate games, but with this hardware, its champion to absorption connected a blessed mean anyways.

Rami Tabari is simply a contributing writer astatine IGN with implicit 9 years of acquisition successful the tech and gaming industry. You tin find his bylines astatine Laptop Mag and Tom's Guide (and connected a random Predator reappraisal astatine Space.com). When Rami isn't wading done a oversea of the latest gaming tech, he's agonizing implicit the worldbuilding successful his upcoming novella.