Lenovo LOQ Tower Gaming Desktop Review: Budget(-ish) Alternative to the Legion

1 week ago 4
Lenovo LOQ Tower

Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 Desktop Review

Pros

  • Decent 1080p performance
  • Quick and snappy for everyday computing
  • Compact, 20-liter design

Cons

  • Very limited upgrade options
  • Limited airflow
  • Few ports

The Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 is an interesting gaming desktop proposition. On one hand, it's rather small, with just under a 20-liter volume. Inside, it has similar hardware to the larger Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 26IRB8 I reviewed, and like that desktop, it has a respectable 1080p gaming performance. On the other hand, Lenovo doesn't provide a lot in the way of high-quality ports, there are limited upgrade pathways and there is an uncertain overall value. 

While the price can be decent, with my test configuration sometimes falling below $900, it can also swing as high as the price of the altogether superior and aforementioned Legion Tower 5i, which also occasionally has its own deep discounts. So unless you're really hurting for space, I'd skip the LOQ and grab the Legion Tower instead.

A lightweight... but respectable performance for the price

Lenovo LOQ Tower
Josh Goldman/CNET

The Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 has a starting price of $899, but Lenovo fairly constantly discounts its listed prices, so I've seen this tower starting as low as $599. That price is for a base configuration with an Intel Core i5-14400F CPU, 16GB of DDR5-4800 memory, 512GB PCIe SSD and a 6GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card. Beyond that, there's only one other listed configuration, which bumps the graphics card up to an 8GB RTX 4060. This upgraded configuration, tested here, has a list price of $1,149 but has seen discounts as low as $835 during my testing. It's also available at Walmart with a list price of $949.   

The Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 isn't geared for high-powered gaming or demanding content creation, but its modest internals do offer solid performance. Across all our gaming benchmarks, the little desktop cranked out framerates in excess of 100fps at 1080p. Of the desktops I tested last year, it was admittedly the slowest, but it was also by far the cheapest. 

Lenovo LOQ Tower
Josh Goldman/CNET

The little LOQ did nip at the heels of the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 26IRB8, which had a snazzier design and better I/O but was otherwise similarly configured. The small performance advantage of the Legion model could be attributed to its more substantial cooling. Given how modest the cooling components are in the LOQ Tower it's impressive it managed to keep up as well as it did. Its performance was stable, passing 3DMark's stress tests in Steel Nomad and Time Spy Extreme. It even remained fairly silent thanks to its closed design, reaching just a faint hum under full load. 

CPU performance is perhaps where the LOQ left the most on the table. It didn't fall too far behind in Cinebench R24, but in Geekbench 6, the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 pulled ahead by more than 20% despite using the same CPU and, by the looks of it, very possibly the same CPU cooler as well. 

A little too plain

Lenovo LOQ Tower interior
Josh Goldman/CNET

Lenovo's LOQ brand emphasizes budget, whereas its Legion sub-brand leans more toward performance. So I didn't expect too much from the Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9. Even so, I was still surprised at how basic it is. The case is quite small, measuring just 6.7 inches wide, 14.8 inches tall and 12 inches deep for a 19.4-liter footprint. Popped open, it's very similar to the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 26IRB8, with a basic CPU cooler, a tiny, single-fan graphics card and very little customization. Then again, it doesn't need to be pretty inside since the case is entirely black. There's no clear side panel like many gaming PCs. It's also incredibly plain, save for a herringbone-looking vent along the front panel.

Lenovo LOQ Tower interior
Josh Goldman/CNET

While the interior looks can be ignored, there's still plenty to see that's disappointing. Just a single, tiny intake fan pulls fresh air into the lower half of the system, where the 500-watt power supply (which, impressively, is 80 Plus Platinum certified) and the graphics card will see most of it. The CPU gets a little fresh air. Another small exhaust fan sits beside the CPU and its heatsink/fan. There's not a single 120mm to be seen, nor is there any dust filtration, so hopefully the limited ventilation will limit how much dust gets in. 

The system also doesn't offer a lot of potential upgrade options. There's only one M.2 slot on the motherboard, and it comes filled. A 3.5-inch hard drive bay with a little sled sits at the bottom of the system and is wired for use, but that's it. Even if you had a spare drive to use the second free SATA port on the motherboard, there's no second SATA power cable coming from the power supply. The power supply also has just one 8-pin connector, though it probably wouldn't have the power headroom to juice up a more demanding graphics card anyway. 

Lenovo LOQ Tower back panel
Josh Goldman/CNET

One upgrade Lenovo does permit has a flipside: memory. There's a free memory slot, which means you can easily upgrade to 32GB of RAM without having to ditch the original memory. This is possible, though, because Lenovo shipped the system with single-channel memory. 

And then there are the ports. It's not too bad from the front, with three 5Gbps connections: two USB-A and one USB-C. There's also a headphone/microphone combo jack there. While the graphics card offers the standard array of DisplayPort connectors and an HDMI port, the motherboard's I/O would have been disappointing a decade ago: just four USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet jack and a VGA connector. There's simply not a lot of connectivity. Even the Wi-Fi wasn't quite right, as Lenovo listed Intel Wi-Fi but included a Realtek Wi-Fi card. This worked fine, though.

Lenovo LOQ Tower front panel
Josh Goldman/CNET

So the reasons to skip the Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 stack up, especially given that the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 26IRB8 doesn't suffer so many of the same pitfalls. In spite of all that, though, the Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 is still a strong little budget machine. That is, as long as it stays at the more competitive price of $879. It's a good value for its performance and hardware at that price. But at $1,149 it lags behind the all-around better Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 26IRB8.

Geekbench 6 (single-core)

Alienware Aurora R16 3092Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 3062Dell XPS 8960 2948Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 2833HP Omen 35L 2656Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 2427Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 2273

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

Geekbench 6 (multi-core)

Alienware Aurora R16 19924Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 18735Dell XPS 8960 18699Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 16959HP Omen 35L 12745Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 12091Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 9947

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

Cinebench 2024 GPU

Dell XPS 8960 27034Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 26537HP Omen 35L 25725Alienware Aurora R16 18063Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 11444Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 10474Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 10038

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

Cinebench 2024 CPU (multi-core)

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 1896Alienware Aurora R16 1806Dell XPS 8960 1554Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 1431HP Omen 35L 961Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 783Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 749

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

3DMark Steel Nomad

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 6636HP Omen 35L 6445Dell XPS 8960 5239Alienware Aurora R16 3659Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 2878Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 2366Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 2335

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

3DMark Fire Strike Ultra

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 17565Dell XPS 8960 17525HP Omen 35L 16426Alienware Aurora R16 9927Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 7277Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 6232Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 6007

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

PCMark 10 Pro Edition

Alienware Aurora R16 9778Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 9720Dell XPS 8960 9539HP Omen 35L 8732Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 8533Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 8128Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 7531

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

Guardians of the Galaxy (High @1920 x 1080)

Alienware Aurora R16 219Dell XPS 8960 213Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 207Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 184HP Omen 35L 146Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 144Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 129

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

The Riftbreaker GPU @1920 x 1080

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 560Dell XPS 8960 550HP Omen 35L 523Alienware Aurora R16 354Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 269Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 243Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 235

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest @ 1920 x 1080)

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 255Dell XPS 8960 250Alienware Aurora R16 226Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 174HP Omen 35L 174Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 148Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 142

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

3DMark Port Royal

Dell XPS 8960 18402Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 18139HP Omen 35L 17936Alienware Aurora R16 10736Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 7868Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 6186Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 5985

Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

Systems configurations

Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) Dell XPS 8960 Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti HP Omen 35L Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) Alienware Aurora R16
Microsoft Windows 11 Home; 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-144400F; 16GB DDR5 RAM; 8GB Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics; 1TB SSD
Microsoft Windows 11 Home;3.4GHz Intel Core i7-14700K; 21GB DDR5 RAM; 16GB Nvidia RTX 4080 Super graphics; 1TB SSD
Microsoft Windows 11 Home; 2.2GHz Intel Core i9-14900HX; 32GB DDR5 5,600MHz RAM; 8GB Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics; 1TB SSD
Microsoft Windows 11 Pro; 4.2GHz AMD Ryzen 7 8700G; 64GB DDR5 3,600MHz; 16GB Nvidia RTX 4080 Super graphics; 2TB SSD + 1TB SSD
Microsoft Windows11 Home; 3.2GHz Intel Core i9-14900KF; 32GB DDR5 4,400MHz RAM; 16GB Nvidia RTX 4080 Super graphics; 1TB SSD
Microsoft Windows 11 Home; 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-144400F; 16GB DDR5 5,600MHz RAM; 8GB Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics; 1TB SSD
Microsoft Windows Pro; 3.2GHz; 3.2GHz Intel Core i9-14900KF; 32GB DDR5 5,600MHz RAM; 12GB Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics; 1TB SSD
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