The Lenovo desktop PC I'd actually use at the office – even if it's for gamers
Lenovo’s Legion series is positioned as the company’s flagship gaming laptop line. However, in recent years, the company has expanded into mid-range hardware with the LOQ series. Most entries are laptops; however, a desktop representative is the LOQ Tower 17IRR9.
Desktops may seem passé, given how strong mobile computing is nowadays. In response to this, you should reconsider that notion because rigs like the Tower 17IRR9 offer a level of utility that laptops can’t match.
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The LOQ Tower 17 is small for a desktop, measuring 14.8 x 12 x 7 inches and weighing about 20 pounds. Finding a spot for this demure machine should be pretty easy, even in a cluttered office. Setting up is equally as simple since the package only comes with a power cable, keyboard, and mouse.
At a glance, the device looks similar to a Lenovo IdeaCentre desktop. I would recommend the LOQ Tower 17 for traditional office environments if it weren’t for a potential problem: a long LED light going down the middle. Granted, it’s not as distracting as the RGB lights on a gaming PC, but it is still quite bright.
Also on the front are a headphone jack, a USB-C input, and two USB-A ports — pretty standard fare. Around the back are an additional 12 ports, including four extra USB-A ports, an Ethernet port, and an HDMI 1.4b input. The array allows you to enjoy multimonitor setups alongside several supportive accessories. However, you are still limited in what you can do.
I wish it had additional USB-C and HDMI ports since it only possesses one of each. I would’ve liked it if Lenovo had not installed a VGA port. There’s nothing wrong with the VGA standard per se, but I don’t see the average person utilizing it going into 2025. People are more familiar with HDMI. Lenovo’s desktop should’ve supported other standards besides VGA. Hopefully, future models rectify this issue.
It’s important to mention that Lenovo’s device supports both Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, enabling speedy wireless connection without needing an external antenna. All the components you need for an over-the-air connection are inside the hardware. The design flourish gives the LOQ Tower 17 an edge over contemporaries like the Dell XPS 8960.
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Inside my LOQ Tower review unit was an Intel Core i5-14400F processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card, and 16GB of RAM. A configuration like this is fairly lightweight. It performs well across a wide range of workloads. It didn’t slow down or buckle in the face of 50 browser tabs, multiple web pages with videos playing, and several first-party apps running simultaneously. For general use, the computer is solid, but once you begin to push the hardware, you’ll begin to see its faults.
During testing, I plugged an Ethernet cable into the computer to ensure a stable connection. That way, any faults couldn’t be chalked up to problems with the Wi-Fi.
The benchmark tests revealed a lot. On PCMark 10, Lenovo’s LOQ Tower 17 earned a slightly above-average score of 7,658. I then ran 3DMark Steel Nomad, where the machine underperformed as well. It hovered below 2,800, which is lower than the overall average for the hardware pairing. These numbers tell me the computer may struggle with tough workloads and high-resolution gaming. My suspicions were later proven correct.
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Because the Lenovo LOQ Tower 17 is one of the company’s budget gaming options, I played several video games on it as another part of my tests. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it did as a mid-tier machine. Action titles like Marvel Rivals ran great. I didn’t run into any performance issues during my stress tests, so long as I kept the graphical settings low.
Issues arose when I began pushing the hardware to output 4K resolution gameplay. The frame rate plummeted, and seeing what was happening on screen was difficult. What’s more, there was a noticeable screen tearing across the display.
ZDNET’s buying advice
Prices for the Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 start at $1,100. The base version comes with a 14th-Gen Intel Core i5-14400F processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. At the time of this writing, it doesn’t appear that my review unit is on sale, but you can find a similar LOQ Tower configuration on Walmart for $1,689.
The recent US tariffs on imports from countries like China, Vietnam, and India aim to boost domestic manufacturing but are likely to drive up prices on consumer electronics. Products like smartphones, laptops, and TVs may become more expensive as companies rethink global supply chains and weigh the cost of shifting production.
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Laptops and PCs are also hit hard by the new US tariffs, with import duties potentially increasing prices by up to 35%. Many major brands still rely on Chinese and Vietnamese factories for assembly, meaning consumers could soon pay significantly more for everything from budget Chromebooks to high-end gaming rigs.
These tariffs may accelerate efforts to move production to regions like Mexico or India, but shoppers can expect higher costs and fewer discounts in the short term.
