HP Pavilion Gaming Desktop TG01-2022, Ryzen 3 5300G, 8GB, 512GB SSD, Radeon RX 5500, Shadow Black

A budget gaming PC that works, but you'll be upgrading the RAM before you finish installing your Steam library. The RX 5500 does the heavy lifting while the 8GB of RAM holds everything back.

The RX 5500 with 4GB of VRAM surprised us. Once you manually tweak game settings to favor the Radeon 5000 series, this thing punches above its weight at 1080p. The 512GB NVMe SSD boots fast and loads games quickly. But that 8GB of RAM sits in the 16th percentile, which is rough. Multitasking with a browser and Discord open while gaming will have you staring at stutters. The CPU is also underwhelming at the 32nd percentile, so don't expect much headroom for streaming or heavy productivity.

The Lenovo Legion Tower 5a Gen 10 and Acer Nitro N60 both offer better specs for similar money, with 16GB of RAM being the standard. The Dell Tower Plus EBT2250 is more business-focused but has better reliability scores. If you want a compact desktop with actual longevity, the Apple Mac mini M4 Pro runs circles around this for productivity, though it's a different beast for gaming. The ASUS ROG G700TF is in another league entirely, but you'll pay for it.

At $799 USD, this is a tough sell. You're getting a capable 1080p machine, but the RAM and storage limitations mean you'll spend another $100-150 on upgrades almost immediately. For the same money, you can find prebuilts with 16GB of RAM and a better CPU. The value proposition only works if you catch this on sale.

The HP Pavilion Gaming Desktop TG01-2022 is a budget gaming PC that gets the basics right but cuts corners where it hurts. The Ryzen 3 5300G and Radeon RX 5500 combo can handle 1080p gaming fine, but 8GB of RAM in 2024 is like showing up to a marathon in flip-flops. You'll be upgrading this thing sooner than you think.

If you're looking for a plug-and-play gaming PC that just works out of the box, this isn't it. The driver tweaking and RAM upgrade requirement make it a project, not a product. Go grab a Lenovo Legion Tower 5a or Acer Nitro N60 with 16GB of RAM instead. If you're a heavy multitasker or streamer, the Ryzen 3 5300G will frustrate you daily.

The HP Pavilion TG01-2022 is a decent starter gaming PC that's held back by cost-cutting on RAM and a questionable GPU reliability record. If you're willing to upgrade the RAM immediately and don't mind some driver troubleshooting, it's fine. But most people should look elsewhere or wait for a sale.