Lenovo Legion Y520 Tower - Review 2022

The Lenovo Legion Y520 Tower (starts at $809.99; $one,079.99 as tested) is a simple and affordable gaming desktop with modest components backed upward by an Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card. While it'due south not every bit powerful as the Editors' Choice Dell XPS Tower Special Edition (8930), our testing shows that it's more than upwardly to the challenge for HD gaming. Plus, information technology's configurable if y'all want to add more than oomph to your rig, and information technology takes up relatively petty desk-bound space, making it a worthy coin-saving pick for gamers playing in Hard disk drive.

Space-Saving Gaming

Outside of its reasonable price, the Legion Y520's compact size may exist its biggest strength. It measures just 15.84 by 18.42 by seven.xvi inches (HWD), a small footprint and short enough to fit in a desk-bound cutout or under a hutch. The blueprint is somewhere in betwixt the simplicity of the Dell XPS Tower Special Edition, and the aggressive expect of the MSI Aegis Ti3 desktop. The side panels are plain, and the elevation is ridged, while most of the panache is saved for the forepart console. It sports an angular design, with a V-shaped light (which strongly resembles a Battlestar Galactica Cylon'due south caput) sitting just above a tinted window. Through the semi-translucent window, you lot can see interior LEDs highlighting the example fans, which gives the desktop a little flair without existence over the height.

The Legion Y520 tin easily be opened by removing screws on the rear and pulling away the side panel. The inside isn't made to exist seen—in that location'due south not any visually exciting hardware or cooling included—but it'southward functional and fit for upgrades. There is a decent amount of open space in which to work as well, should you need to do some maintenance or bandy out a part.

The included power supply is 450W, which serves fine for the components as configured, but you may want to upgrade if you have plans to add together a more powerful graphics card in the future. The processor on this configuration of the Legion Y520 is a 3GHz Intel Core i5-7400, surrounded by 8GB of memory. Along with the GTX 1060, that'southward a small loadout, simply fitting for the toll.

There are two iii.5-inch drive trophy, one free and one occupied by a 1TB hard drive, while a 128GB M.ii SSD is besides installed. That'due south enough of storage for games, and the modest but quick SSD works well as the boot drive for faster Bone loading. In that location are other configurations available: You tin can switch to a Core i7 processor for $100 more, or really become all in for a $one,399.99 model with a 2TB HDD, 16GB of memory, and an 8th-generation i7 CPU. Alternatively, you could scale all the way down to a GTX 1050Ti and drop the SSD for $809.99.

There'due south a bones selection of ports on the Legion Y520's back side and front panel. The latter holds two USB 3.0 ports and the headphone and mic jacks. Around back, there are 2 more USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet jack, and audio lines. Other features include a DVD drive, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. The desktop is supported by a i-yr warranty.

Modest Speeds

It bears reminding when considering performance that this build puts upkeep first, while nevertheless striving for skillful HD performance. The Legion Y520's Cadre i5 processor led to a notably lower score on PCMark 8 than the XPS or the HP Omen Desktop. This pattern repeats on the multimedia tests: The Cadre i5 is capable, merely simply not as fast every bit an i7, peculiarly on multithreaded tasks. It is suitable for more full general piece of work, simply if you need a specialized machine for photo or video projects, this probably isn't the correct option for you.

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A Cadre i5 is perfectly serviceable for most gaming systems, and the GTX 1060 is a solid get at this price—comparably priced laptops would net yous a 1050 or 1050Ti. As expected, the Legion Y520's ability to play games at 1080p was strong, posting 67 frames per second (fps) and 78fps on the Heaven and Valley tests on ultra-quality settings. No, that'due south not a ton of headroom to maintain 60fps on more than enervating games, but again, it's proficient for a desktop at this price. The Omen and XPS pack GTX 1070s, and so the performance is of grade superior, merely they toll several hundred dollars more.

Affordable Gaming

For $1,079.99, this Legion Y520 Belfry configuration nets y'all a GTX 1060 and plenty of storage for your games, plus room to upgrade in the future. If your budget has some wiggle room and y'all know you'll play demanding games, or play at a resolution higher than HD, the more than expensive options, similar the Editors' Option Dell XPS Tower, are worth the investment. Alternatively, you can configure the Legion Y520 a bit college and add together in an i7 for but $100 more than. If the games y'all play are mostly less enervating and you don't demand to practice hobbyist or professional work on the side, this a neat coin-saving option.