A Look Inside

Thanks to the traditional system design, changing or upgrading components is fairly easy. To start with, removing four thumb screws will allow you easily remove the side panels by sliding them back until they come free. With the system opened up, it's easy to see Lenovo stuck with a tried and true design. Airflow is positive-pressure focused with two intake fans at the front and an exhaust fan at the rear, which should provide plenty of cooling. Sadly, with no PSU shroud, the drive cages, etc., will be visible.


Taking a closer look at the front panel, we can see Lenovo select AVC for their 120 mm fans. The model number is DAZE1225B2UP033, and it's a ball bearing design, which means it should hold up to years of abuse. Taking a look at the CPU cooler and the rear exhaust fan, these are from AVC and equipped with ARGB lighting. The heatsink is a traditional tower cooler, and while not overly large, does have five heat pipes.


To remove the graphics card, users will need to undo the small thumbscrew holding the latch tight. Once removed, the rear latch can be taken out. Once that is done, unhook the power cables and remove the three screws holding the GPU bracket to the chassis (near the power cables). At that point, simple depress the PCIe latch near the socket to then pull out the graphics card.


The graphics card is an MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super with what appears to be a custom shroud for Lenovo. Considering MSI's software can allow for the GPU's lighting to be changed on some models, I did try it just to see if it would work, which it did not. With the graphics card removed, accessing the other components becomes a lot easier. The memory can be pulled out before or after, but we now have complete access to the M.2 SSD, which is from Western Digital (model number here). The memory is a 2x 8 GB kit from SK Hynix rated at 2933 MHz. It should also be noted that the system does have a second M.2 slot hidden by the graphics card, so you can double up on NVMe SSDs if you wish.


Lenovo does offer WiFi with these systems, with the inclusion of Intel's AX200NGW module that offers 802.11AX (2 x 2) and Bluetooth 5.0. As for the power supply, it's an FSP 80 PLUS Gold model rated at 650 watts—more than enough to meet this system's needs.


For bulk storage, Lenovo includes a Western Digital WD10EZEX 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD to go with the 512 GB NVMe SSD. Rather than run cables and wires, Lenovo did something different here by using a SATA backplane rather than traditional wiring. This means changing or adding another HDD is as simple as putting it into the drive sled that is slid down into place until it's firmly seated.


Cable routing, while not the best I have seen, is pretty clean, and considering how little space there really is behind the right-side panel, I must say it is also well laid out. For those wanting to add extra ARGB fans, the system does have an ARGB hub with some open ports for good measure.


Finally, to clean the front fans and grills, you can remove the front fascia by unhooking the plastic clips on both sides, allowing you to remove it from the chassis frame gently. Just keep in mind there is wiring back here for the LED logo, so don't just rip it off.