HP Pavilion TG01 2022, Core i5-10400F, 16GB, 1TB SSD, RTX 3060, Black

The HP Pavilion TG01 is a budget gaming desktop with a solid RTX 3060 GPU and a fast 1TB SSD. It's fine for 1080p gaming, but the aging CPU and a shockingly weak 180W power supply limit its long-term appeal. Buy it only if the price is right and you don't plan on upgrading.

In our database, the RTX 3060 lands in the upper-middle of the pack for GPUs, which is solid for 1080p gaming. You'll run most esports titles at high frame rates and handle AAA games at medium to high settings without much fuss. The 12GB of VRAM is genuinely useful for texture-heavy games and gives this card a longer lifespan than the 8GB variants floating around.

The CPU is where things get less exciting. The i5-10400F sits well below average compared to current desktop processors. It's a 6-core, 12-thread chip from 2020, and while it won't bottleneck the RTX 3060 in most games, it's not doing you any favors in CPU-heavy titles or productivity work. The 16GB of DDR4 RAM is also on the lower end of what we see these days, though it's enough for gaming and general multitasking. Overall, this is a machine that performs fine for its intended use case, but it's not breaking any records.

Stacked against the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 10, the HP Pavilion TG01 looks like a budget compromise. The Legion typically comes with newer Intel chips and power supplies that won't laugh at you when you try to upgrade the GPU. The Dell Aurora Gaming is another competitor that offers more headroom for future upgrades, though Dell's proprietary parts can be their own headache.

The ASUS ROG GM700 is in a different league entirely, aimed at enthusiasts who want top-tier performance and don't mind paying for it. And the Apple Mac Studio M5 Max isn't really a gaming machine, but it's worth mentioning because it absolutely crushes the HP in CPU performance and efficiency. If you're doing creative work or anything CPU-intensive, the Mac Studio makes the Pavilion look like a relic. For pure gaming on a budget, though, the HP holds its own thanks to that RTX 3060.

Without a listed price, it's hard to judge the exact value proposition, but the component mix tells us this is aimed at budget-conscious buyers. The RTX 3060 and 1TB SSD are the highlights, but the aging CPU and that 180W PSU mean you're buying a system with a hard ceiling. If you can find this for a low price, it's a reasonable 1080p gaming box. But if it's priced anywhere near systems with newer CPUs and standard power supplies, you should look elsewhere. The Lenovo Legion Tower and Dell Aurora Gaming both offer more balanced configurations if you're willing to spend a bit more.

The HP Pavilion TG01 is a budget gaming desktop that tries to punch above its weight class. You get an RTX 3060 with 12GB of VRAM, which is the star of the show here, paired with a 10th gen Intel Core i5-10400F. It's a tower that sits in that entry-level to mid-range gaming space, and the specs tell an interesting story about where HP spent the money and where they cut corners.

People searching for a prebuilt gaming PC under a certain price point will likely stumble on this one. The big question is whether the RTX 3060 can carry a system with a CPU that's a few generations old. And honestly, for 1080p gaming, it mostly can. The 1TB NVMe SSD is a nice touch too, giving you fast load times and plenty of room for a modern game library.

But there's a catch, and it's a big one. The power supply is only 180W. That's not a typo. We'll get into why that matters, but it's the kind of spec that makes you do a double take on a machine marketed for gaming.

Skip this if you're a tinkerer or someone who likes to upgrade components over time. The 180W PSU and proprietary HP parts make this a closed box in practice. If you do CPU-heavy work like video editing, 3D rendering, or streaming while gaming, the i5-10400F will frustrate you. Look at the Lenovo Legion Tower or a custom build with a standard ATX power supply instead. And if you're not gaming at all, there are cheaper and more efficient options out there.

Should you buy the HP Pavilion TG01? If you find it at a steep discount and you want a plug-and-play 1080p gaming machine, sure. The RTX 3060 is a capable card, and the 1TB SSD means you won't be uninstalling games every other week. It'll handle most games at 1080p without breaking a sweat.

But if you're thinking about this as a platform to upgrade over time, walk away. That 180W power supply is a dead end. You won't be dropping in a beefier GPU without also replacing the PSU, and HP's proprietary motherboard and case make that more annoying than it should be. This is a machine for someone who wants to buy it, use it as-is, and not think about opening the case.