HP is one of the well-known brands you’ll wind up looking at if you’re looking for a pre-built PC. But unlike other of the available desktop solutions, the HP Omen 45L is still upgradeable. It is large, imposing, and attention-getting without being overly flashy. The HP Omen 45L appears to be an off-the-shelf computer, but it isn’t. The HP Omen 45L reminds me of systems housed in cases from brands like Lian Li or Corsair, in contrast to a custom Alienware PC that could never be confused for anything other than an Alienware PC.
There are many different ways to configure the Omen 45L. You can get one with a Core i9 12900K and RTX 3090 if you have the money, but if you have that much money, it would be better to wait a few weeks or months for next-generation choices. The Core i7 12700K and RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards that were included in our review sample were part of a balanced setup. Even with frequent discounts, the $2,279 price tag in the US is rather simple, but at AU$4,999 in Australia, it’s a pricey option.
You can typically build your own PC for less money than you can buy a pre-built desktop, but doing so takes technical skills that many enthusiasts take for granted. Some customers simply don’t want to invest the time required to assemble it, install the windows, troubleshoot any issues, and overall worry about their money. As long as PC gaming is still widely used, there will be a demand for powerful plug-and-play PCs.
HP Omen 45L review: Design
A typical gaming computer doesn’t resemble the HP Omen 45L. Due to the Cryo Chamber on top, it is higher than a typical mid-tower, but once it is assembled, the PC doesn’t appear to be much larger. It’s only slightly taller than a mid-tower PC case at 21.75 inches height and 18 inches long.
The Cryo Chamber is the major difference between the Omen 45L and the Omen 30L from previous year. I initially thought the small gap was stupid, but as time went on, I came to value it for its thermal performance. A thin routing channel where the tubes flow is the only way the 240mm all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler, which is housed in the upper chamber, is connected to the main machine. The Omen 30L’s main problem is resolved by doing this. Similar in concept to the DIY Perks fanless, breathing PC that we saw earlier this year. No matter which way the AIO is facing, it is always sucking in cold air and exhausting hot air away from the other parts.
In my testing, that made a significant difference. The CPU quickly reached 89 degrees Celsius during a 30-minute AIDA64 stress test, and the fans quickly increased to maximum speed. To my amazement, the fans eventually stopped spinning after about a minute, and the CPU settled at a cozy 65 degrees Celsius. Additionally, there were no ramps up or down in between; the Omen 45L withstood that temperature for the duration of the test without producing even the slightest amount of additional fan noise.
HP Omen 45L review: Ports and Upgradeability
HP is stepping up its efforts to include branded, industry-standard components in its Omen gaming PCs, which is beneficial for both future upgradeability and peace of mind. However, the business would be well to apply this approach to its motherboards as well. With some intricate stenciling and substantial VRM heatsinks, the Omen-branded Micro-ATX board HP supplied in our setup looks the part. However, it lacks a lot of the features you might anticipate from a system that costs thousands of dollars. Apart from the absence of DDR5 (which is largely irrelevant for gaming), future SSDs cannot be supported by PCIe 5 (although this is still uncommon on Z690 motherboards as a whole).
The board only features two M.2 PCIe Gen4 slots, both of which are occupied in the configuration we used for this evaluation. There are also just six USB ports and not much else on the board’s back IO. Surprisingly, there are two USB-C connections here, but take note that one is practically USB 3.0 from the past, marked at 5 Gbps, while the other is 10 Gbps. At least four additional USB-A ports are located at the top of the case, along with the power button and separate plugs for the microphone and headphones. On the front panel, however, there is no USB-C.
HP Omen 45L review: Connectivity
The Omen 45L’s networking is its most flawful feature. The Omen 30L stands out even more on this larger design because the Micro ATX motherboard can only support the same amount of ports as it does on the Omen 30L. If you have a lot of dongles or USB gadgets, you’ll need to break out a USB hub because you should still have enough ports for everything.
The new model has two extra USB ports up front compared to the Omen 30L. The new ports include a USB 2.0 lock, which is a concern. More USB ports in front of a PC is something we will never fight against, but this doesn’t seem like much of an improvement. The front panel USB-C ports are absent. HP could have at the very least added two more front-facing USB 3.2 ports.
Around rear, the same applies. You have two USB 3.2 ports (5Gbps and 10Gbps), two USB 2.0 ports, and two USB-C ports, all of which are identical to those on the Omen 30L. (5Gbps and 10Gbps). Although there are two USB-C ports, I truly wish one of them was on the front panel. It seems like HP could have done much more in this area despite the minor connectivity boost.
HP Omen 45L review: Productivity Performance
We anticipated the Omen 45L to perform admirably in our productivity testing given that it was outfitted with a top-of-the-line Intel Core i9-12900K CPU and two 2TB WD Black SSDs. Even though it has an impressive 64GB of RAM, the Corsair setup uses DDR4 rather of the more modern DDR5. Therefore, it will be intriguing to watch if, just like in gaming, the HP machine falls a little short of the i300 in these tests.
On Geekbench 5, the Corsair One i300 did actually outperform the HP Omen 45L, scoring 1,964 for single-core performance and 17,965 for multi-core performance, compared to 1,912 and 15,924 for the HP, respectively. When more cores are stressed, the Corsair system’s advantage increases to about 13%, despite the initial test showing a difference of less than 3%.
The WD Black SSDs in the Omen were quick, copying about 25GB of information at a speed of 2,522.49 MBps. In comparison to the iBuypower and the Alienware, that is more than 5 times faster. But yet more, the Corsair took a commanding lead with 3,006.46 MBps thanks to its Samsung PCIe 4.0 OEM SSD. The Omen finished last in our Handbrake test, which transcodes a 4K movie to 1080p, with a time of 3 minutes and 39 seconds, placing it comfortably behind the Alienware (5:19) and iBuypower (3:57). The Corsair One i300, however, finished in 3:28, 11 seconds faster than the rest of the group.
HP Omen 45L review: Price and availability
On January 5, you may purchase the HP Omen 45L from the HP official website. Best Buy will shortly carry it as well. Users have the opportunity to customise different settings or purchase pre-built systems at various pricing points. The starting price is $1,899. With an AMD Ryzen 7 5800x CPU, NVIDIA RTX 3070 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD (+1TB HDD) for storage, one pre-built SKU costs $2,2300.
The Omen 45L from HP starts at $2,800 and has a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700K, RTX 3080, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB/1TB of storage. In order to do this evaluation, we are using a model that is fully loaded with the 12th generation Intel Core i9-12900K, RTX 3090, 64 GB of RAM, and two 2 TB SSDs (4TB total). That SKU has a $5,000 price tag.
Final Words
When HP’s Omen 45L was initially unveiled, it wowed me on paper, and it’s obvious that it’s even more amazing in person. Despite being very big, the Omen 45L is what makes it such a potent, cool, and quiet gaming powerhouse. It is a capable gaming machine that looks amazing and is reasonably priced for a big OEM. It has the highest specifications and uses the most recent Intel and NVIDIA chips. Having said that, I believe that gamers will object to the machine’s weaker I/O compared to a boutique or custom-built computer due to its absence of it on the back.
It features significantly fewer and slower front and rear ports even when compared to Dell’s Alienware Aurora R13 and R14 models. Further integrating HyperX into the HP brand and user interface would make it simpler for users to control all of their gear in a single location. Although there is certainly space for development, I am really impressed with what HP has accomplished with the Omen 45L and rank it among my top recommendations for a significant OEM system.
