HP Omen 17 (2023) review: Uncompromising performance

Price When Reviewed

$2,049.99

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HP’s Omen line of laptops are recognized for his or her sheer pace and graphics firepower. The newest Omen 17 is not any completely different in that regard, because it comes with a robust Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 GPU and an Intel Core i9-13900HX CPU. The refreshed core elements from the brand new GPU (Ada Lovelace) and CPU technology (Raptor Lake) are the principle variations to final 12 months’s Omen 17. The casing stays largely unchanged, nonetheless. It additionally sits in a black chassis with a plastic underside and a lid adorned with the Omen brand and lettering. The angular design gives the look of pure energy.

While this laptop computer has so much to supply, there are a couple of unimpressive elements to it. Fingerprints on the lid and wrist relaxation are a nuisance after a short while. The lid additionally wobbles once you change the viewing angle and the case has no ports on the again, making cable administration tough. That mentioned, these are minor quibbles with an in any other case excellent gaming laptop computer.

Looking for extra choices? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best gaming laptops.

HP Omen 17: The Omen Hub

The Omen Hub is HP’s central configuration device for gaming settings. You can set up your video games there, create a gallery with wallpapers and screenshots, however above all use the dashboard to get a fast overview of the system load and tune the CPU and GPU. For benchmarking, we use the efficiency mode for the system and the “dedicated GPU” setting within the choices for Advanced Optimus.

Thomas Rau

The GeForce RTX 4080, Nvidia’s second-best cellular GPU from the Ada-Lovelace technology, ensures pace within the HP Omen 17. It works with 7424 CUDA cores and 12 GB GDDR6 graphics reminiscence and may devour as much as 175 watts with the assistance of Dynamic Boost, the turbo clock is 2010 MHz. Like an RTX 4090, it’s built-in into the system with 16 PCIe 4 lanes whereas the opposite Ada-Lovelace GPUs can solely make the most of the bandwidth of PCIe 4 with 8 lanes.

It’s supported by the Intel Core i9-13900HX CPU. Like most producers of high-end gaming laptops, HP depends on this processor with 24 cores and 32 threads, that are divided into 8 efficiency cores and 16 effectivity cores. Its supposed energy consumption within the Omen 17 is 130 watts, rising to 140 watts underneath load within the take a look at.

HP Omen 17: Gaming efficiency

When it comes to hurry, the Omen 17 is spectacular in all respects. As for gaming efficiency, it’s solely crushed by considerably costlier notebooks with an RTX 4090, whereas laptops with a Ryzen 9 7945HX carry out higher so far as system efficiency goes.

In the 3D Mark Time Spy, the HP Omen 17 is round 15 p.c behind laptops with the RTX 4090, however virtually 50 p.c forward of fashions with the RTX 4070. The HP pocket book can also be simply behind the RTX 4090 group in different checks reminiscent of Speedway or the Port Royal ray tracing take a look at, however very clearly forward of the RTX 4070 fashions.

Accordingly, most video games don’t trigger the Omen 17 any issues in its native show decision of 2560 x 1440. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, for instance, the bandwidth ranges from 169 fps within the “High” setting to 105 fps should you set all controls, together with ray tracing, to ultra-high particulars. Dirt 5 additionally stays playable at 71 fps with ultra-high particulars and ray tracing shadows. Notebooks with an RTX 4090 ship round 20 to 30 fps extra in these video games and round 15 fps with ray tracing. But even right here, the hole between the RTX 4080 and the mid-range RTX 4070 is appreciable and is as much as 50 to 60 fps. However, if you are able to do with out the excessive decision, you will get the identical efficiency less expensive.

Thomas Rau

The present efficiency reference for gaming is Cyberpunk 2077: With the Omen HP 17, the sport stays playable at 68 fps as much as the “Raytracing Low” setting. Higher graphics high quality causes the body charge to drop under 60 fps, with solely 21 fps remaining in ray tracing overdrive. An RTX 4090 solely manages a couple of frames extra, which means that greater settings aren’t playable even with the highest GPU mannequin. By approach of comparability: With an RTX 4070 and 1440p, Cyberpunk 2077 is barely adequate for medium graphics high quality if you wish to keep safely above 60 fps. The mixture of RTX 4070 and FHD, however, delivers comparable outcomes to the Omen 17.

However, should you activate DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, you now not have to fret concerning the graphics settings in Cyberpunk 2077: AI scaling accelerates the Omen 17 to 82 fps even with Raytracing Overdrive.

HP Omen 17: Operating noise

The CPU benchmark Cinebench R23 not solely determines the processor efficiency of a pocket book, but in addition clearly reveals how properly the pocket book producer has cooling and fan noise underneath management.

The HP Omen 17 achieves over 25,000 factors on this take a look at, barely decrease than different gaming laptops with the Core i9-13900HX. This is as a result of HP permits the CPU a barely decrease energy consumption of 140 watts at its peak and round 100 watts on common, whereas the processor in different high-end laptops is allowed as much as 160 watts most and 115 watts on common and may due to this fact obtain a better clock charge.

Above all, HP desires to maintain the fan noise to a minimal. In the endurance take a look at, the laptop computer runs considerably quieter than equally outfitted notebooks at 53 dB(A), whereby “quieter” within the context of gaming notebooks is to be understood as “not quite as loud.” You also needs to positively not use the Omen 17 inside earshot of delicate associates or colleagues for gaming.

Now onto the draw back. The underside of the pocket book will get extremely popular, we measured over 60 levels on the scorching spots. However, so long as you don’t place the laptop computer on a heat-sensitive floor or your thighs when gaming, you possibly can ignore this take a look at worth. The temperature of the Omen 17 stays uncritical on the palm relaxation or the keyboard.

Thomas Rau

The HP Omen 17 can also be among the many prime performers within the system efficiency take a look at and delivers prime values in all purposes. In PC Mark 10, it’s only barely slower than gaming notebooks with a Ryzen 9 7945HX, which performs higher, particularly in applications that require many CPU cores.

Compared to gaming laptops with a Core i7 and RTX 4060, the Omen 17 is especially spectacular in multimedia checks. While it’s round 10 p.c sooner in workplace duties, it’s virtually 30 p.c sooner in photograph and video enhancing.

The Omen 17 makes use of the NVMe SSD Kioxia XG8 as a drive. It presents the anticipated excessive information charges of round 7 and 5 GB/s for sequential studying and writing, however is clearly behind a Samsung PM9A1 in sensible checks, which could be present in different high-end notebooks.

Thomas Rau

HP Omen 17: Loads of ports, mediocre digicam

The Omen 17 is provided to a excessive customary with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD. The pocket book presents three ports for exterior displays, Thunderbolt 4 along with HDMI and Mini DisplayPort. You can even obtain information charges of over 20 Gbit/s with an appropriate exterior arduous drive by way of the versatile Type-C interface, whereas the three Type-A ports on the Omen 17 solely enable a most of 5 Gbit/s (USB 3.2 Gen 1). The HP pocket book additionally presents an SD card reader for reminiscence playing cards.

However, the tools listing doesn’t make us fully joyful: The Omen lacks a 2.5 Gbit LAN port, for instance – its community connection works at Gigabit pace – in addition to a digicam with Full HD decision.

The SSD and RAM could be changed within the Omen 17. There is a second M.2 slot for a further drive.

HP Omen 17: High high quality show

The 17.3-inch display with a 16:9 facet ratio reveals 2560 x 1440 pixels. This implies that the show will not be as detailed as a 16-inch laptop computer with a barely greater WQXGA decision, for instance. The 165Hz refresh charge of the Omen 17 can also be to not be scoffed at, however in view of 300Hz shows, it’s not the measure of all issues.

The image high quality could be very first rate. The take a look at outcomes present good values for brightness at just below 350 cd/sqm, distinction at 960:1, and shade copy with 99% sRGB protection. However, the Omen 17 can’t sustain with excellent LED shows, mini-LED screens, or OLEDs.

HP Omen 17: The keyboard is a bit completely different

As ordinary with Omen units, this one has a key format that deviates from the usual. Instead of a numeric keypad, there are 9 shortcut keys on the best and an additional six on the left. The 4 arrow keys, that are simply accessible on the backside proper of the take a look at subject, have a regular dimension. However, the Enter secret’s solely single-line.

Typing on the keyboard with optical-mechanical switches is quiet, solely the area bar bounces extra audibly. However, the strain suggestions of the person keys might be a bit extra pronounced.

The touchpad, however, confirms a mouse click on clearly and loudly. If you play with the built-in mouse as an alternative of an exterior mouse, you may be happy with the quick and exact mouse actions. The touchpad additionally shortly implements multi-finger gestures.

In the Omen Gaming Hub, lighting results could be set for 4 keyboard zones. For further RGB results, the Omen Light Studio program have to be downloaded.

HP Omen 17: Battery life

The Omen 17 is clearly a desktop laptop computer. Weighing over six kilos, it may well solely be used on the transfer inside your individual 4 partitions, particularly as the facility provide weighs just below one other 2.8 kilos and the battery life is underneath three hours.

HP Omen 17: Benchmarks and specs

This evaluation was translated from German to English and initially appeared on pcwelt.de.