If you’re into no-frills design, the HP Pavilion Desktop TG01-2460 fits the bill fair and square. It’s a build that is simple and just gets the job done – no more no less. However, at $1345 one can certainly expect more quality, I’m talking about a gamer-centric rig with a plexiglass side panel, RGB lighting and the rest of the 9-yards other prebuilt gaming PCs try to do. My biggest gripe with this PC is this very issue. You share the same PC build with sub $500 PCs. We first met this case when we reviewed the HP Pavilion desktop TP01-2032 – a remarkable budget PC.
Our review unit also uses the same case as mentioned. That is a problem for this price point, but if you don’t mind aesthetics or are picking this PC up for later upgrades, that’s fine, but just know it is overpriced and you’ll spend more in the long run.
Under the hood, the HP Pavilion Desktop TG01-2460 looks more upscale than its design would suggest. With an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G processor, Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics card, and 16GB memory, there’s the promise of high-end performance. You can expect fast daily performance, excellent power consumption, and 1080p gaming capabilities. We will get into gaming later on though.
At its current price point ($1345), the HP Pavilion reminds us of the SkyTech Shadow 3.0 gaming PC. SkyTech picked our Editor’s choice for not only its remarkable features, price, and performance but also for its remarkable eye-catching design and RGB lighting. It packs Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core 3.6GHz processor, RTX 3060 12GB graphics card, 1TB SSD storage, 16GB DDR4 3000 memory, RGB Fans, AC WiFi, and 600W Gold power supply (PSU). You get all that for $50 more than HP Pavilion’s offer.
HP Pavilion TG01-2460 Review Specs
- Desktop Class: Personal, Business
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
- RAM: 16 GB
- Storage: 1TB SSD
- Graphics: Nvidia RTX 2060
- Operating System: Windows 11
- Dimensions: 12.09 x 6.12 x 13.28 inches
- Weight 13.14 pounds
Design – Respectably Simple
Sitting at 12.09 x 6.12 x 13.28 inches, the HP Pavilion TG01-2460 is slightly larger than mid-sized towers. It stacks up well against the Acer Aspire TC-1660-UA92 (13.78 x 6.42 x 13.39 inches) in terms of size, which means it can easily fit on an evenly sized desk. If you have a sizeable desk, you can fit both your monitor and desktop on the desk.
Ports- HP Pavilion Desktop TG01-2460 Review
The HP Pavilion TG01-2460 has a decent selection of ports, especially at the front face. The front sports four USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and a full-sized SD card reader, a headphone jack, and a USB Type-C port. This seems to be standard considering the TG01-2032 also came with the same ports as well.
Also included at the front is an optical drive that can read and write DVDs. The drive is an anachronism, to be sure, but if you’ve still got a large photo archive or movie collection stored on discs, you’ll appreciate it.
The rear holds a wide array of ports. The rear houses both VGA and HDMI video outputs, a Gigabit Ethernet connector, two audio outputs, and a 3.5mm microphone input. Additionally, there are four more USB ports on the back as well, for a total of eight, but unfortunately, the rear ones support only the slower USB 2.0 standard. That means they have glacially slow transfer speeds, making them ideal for a mouse, keyboard, or printer but a poor choice for connecting an external hard drive.
HP includes complimentary keyboards and mice sent together with this PC. The keyboard is sturdy but not exactly quality to write home about. It should just get you through before you decide to buy a better one. The mouse is no different too, so please consider investing in better pieces.
Other connectivity features available are the 80211ac Wi-Fi and a built-in Bluetooth 5 which means you won’t need to buy an ethernet cable for your internet connection. The wireless radio has an internal antenna instead of an externally mounted one that you must screw on. Additionally, HP also includes a one-year warranty and 90-day customer support with this Pavilion.
Performance
One of the most defining features of HP desktops is performance and the HP Pavilion TG01-2 stays true to this. There’s an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G processor packed under the hood which brings unbeatable 1080p and excellent 720p gaming. This processor brags 8-cores, 16 threads, and title for one of the fastest Integrated graphic cards in the industry. Most AMD Ryzen processors lack on-chip graphics, a key consideration in these days of wildly inflated video-card prices and rallies to buy a GPU.
However, with the launch of the Ryzen 7 5700G processor, AMD finally addressed an urgent need: robust graphics for gaming and more without a dedicated GPU. So as the story goes, this gem of a processor is great for both productivity and gaming. Thanks to the 16 threads, the HP Pavilion is a multitasking beast and also able to handle your day-to-day home and basic office tasks. If you need to do more (light) office work at home than you did in the past, this desktop is up to the task.
The 16GB memory and 1TB SSD storage combo come together well to provide a seamless fast user experience too. If you want to load up some browser windows, games, visually simple Steam titles, or 2D games like simulations or strategy games that lean more on the processor than the GPU, this desktop can do the job. Also, you have plenty of storage for software, files, and data.
Great Gaming Performance
As far as serious gaming goes, the Pavilion TG01-2460 comes with an Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics card, a powerful mid-range GPU that opens the door for Ray Tracing and 1080p gaming. As earlier mentioned, this PC is fully capable of 1080P gaming thanks to the processor and RTX 2060 GPU. But that’s not all. Whereas the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 was designed for 1080p gaming and could scrape by playing some games at 1,440p, the RTX 2060 has mastered high-frame-rate Full HD gaming, delivering excellent 1440p results and somewhat playable 4K gaming hovering around 30 frames per second (fps).
This means it pulls off consistent 70-75 fps at Battlefield V while running at 1080p with Ultra quality settings and ray tracing. Tuning up to 2560 x 1440 drops the frame rates to 45- 40 fps if left on Ultra quality settings and ray tracing. However, 4K at the same settings is somewhat playable with frame rates hovering around 25 fps.
Overall, it’s hard to argue the stunning performance this GPU brings which makes it a good fit for this PC.
Power Supply and Cooling
The HP Pavilion Gaming Desktop TG01-2460 PC (https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c07946918) was designed to run the 65-watt processor Ryzen 7 5700G and the RTX 2060 graphics card you have without additional cooling interventions. You don’t need to add any cooling options, the stock airfans is enough to work with.
As far as power supply goes, I’m glad to say there are plenty of users (see: https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/HP-Pavilion-Gaming-Desktop-TG01-2xxx/236052) running their TG01-2xxx (Erica6 Motherboard) with an RTX 3060-Ti GPU, which means you can adapt a higher GPU in the future as well (if you manage to upgrade the PSU)
The original 400 watt power supply that this unit (HP L69242-800) comes with is woefully under powered to run anything more powerful than an RTX 2060. However, there is a compatible 500 watt PSU available (L05757-800) for this PC. There only issue is that they are rare to come by, perhaps one might be forced to order from HP.
There are alternative power options available [DISCLAIMER: NOT endorsed by HP!] -if you are reasonably computer savvy.
Conclusion – Poor Design Great Performance
To wrap everything up, the HP Pavilion Desktop TG01-2460 does have a sound combination of features and components at still-competitive pricing. It offers great performance thanks to a careful assortment of components (AMD Ryzen 7 5700G and RTX 2060 GPU), plus includes extras like USB Type-C support and plenty of storage space.
However, we don’t think it is fair value as competition seems to have slightly better offerings. For $50 more, the SkyTech Shadow 3.0 Gaming PC brings to the table Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core 3.6GHz processor, RTX 3060 12GB graphics card, 1TB SSD storage, 16GB DDR4 3000 memory, RGB Fans, AC WiFi, and 600W Gold power supply (PSU). That earns it our Editor’s Choice laurel for the category.
