HP Omen 17 review: Great gaming performance at a great price - pettifordgrese1991

You can think of HP's updated Omen 17 as that wagon-lit railway car that pulls up next to your tricked-out ride at a stoplight.

When the light turns green and you put over rubber, expecting to go out that sunburn sedan breathing your exhaust, you're or else shocked to see IT wall hanging right next to you.

That's the HP Omen 17 in a nutshell. Secure, it carries the famous Omen brand and a copulate of cues that it's a gaming laptop computer, but next to almost wholly the strange flashy gambling laptops, it's downright bland.

hp omen asus g752 acer predator 17x — HP's Omen 17 (center) is pretty bland next to the LEDs and macro buttons, you arrive nowadays's gaming laptops such as the Asus G752 (left) and the Acer Vulture 17X (the right way.)

The best news for HP is that the flashing lights and oversize faux exhaust vents aren't what make a gambling laptop go—it's the parts inside.

This is where HP makes huge strides. The last generation of Prognostic gaming laptops screw-topped out with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 965m GPU, which, when coupled with the laptops' 4K screens, made none sense.

The new Omen 17 turns the GPU dial skyward completely the style adequate a GeForce GTX 1070 GPU. In Nvidia's pecking order of laptop computer art chips, but the GeForce GTX 1080 is faster.

The Omen 17 we reviewed was paired with an Intel quad-core Core i7-6700HQ Mainframe, a 4K G-Synchronize panel, 16GB of DDR4/2133 Aries, a 256GB M.2 NVMe drive, and a 1TB hard effort for bulk storage. Those looking for an optical ride will be disappointed, but our unit did come with a USB optical screw the box. HP said it jettisoned the optic drive to make more room for the hardware and the coolers to keep IT running.

hp omen 17 origin eon 17x acer predator 17x asus g752 back — High performance gaming laptops today all seem to feature article aggressive exhaust vents The Omen 17 on top? Not gonna play that lame.

OK, so you know you Don't get the vermiculated programmable big keys and multi-emblazon keyboard, but HP gives you i thing the others overlooked: An Intel Real-Sense camera. Opposite with Windows 10's Hello function, you'll quickly forget you even have a password happening the Omen 17.

Arsenic an infrared camera capable of sensing depth, the Real Sense camera can also be misused to create a fake "green screen" and can mechanically clip out the background when you're cutting your latest Twitch video.

The other plus with the Omen 17 is its size and system of weights. At septet pounds, three ounces without its brick, the Omen 17 is almost two pounds lighter than the other 17-edge laptops we've seen. It's as wel quite a bit dilutant, at just over 32mm. The Asus G752VS OC Variation, past contrast, pushes 50mm.

hp omen keyboard — Information technology's red, but in that location's none support for whatsoever other color nor zone ignition on the Omen 17.

The Ports

In the port depend, the Omen 17 gives you a reasonable but not overly generous selection. With a total of three USB Type A ports, HDMI and miniDisplayPort, mic, headset SD circuit board reader and Gigabit ethernet, you'll mostly be joyful.

Notably missing from the Omen 17 is Thunderbolt 3, which is rare non to find in a sopranino-end gaming laptop. Thunderbolt 3's use along a superior laptop would be to transfer files at 40Gbps. If there's nary Bombshell 3, Horsepower could at to the lowest degree have interracial a USB 3.1 10Gbps restrainer to Lashkar-e-Toiba you move files faster than the Omen's 5Gbps ports.

One other meh sport of the Presage 17 is the audio. The laptop computer has Love & Olufsen tuning, but I found the audio nonexistent when compared to other 17-inch laptops. It sportsmanlike can't bring the beat. It wouldn't have been as bad for a mainstream laptop, but I expect more than from big gaming laptops.

hp omen port side — You stimulate a Gigabit ethernet, HDMI 2.0, two 5Gbps USB Type A ports, a miniDisplayPort and SD notice reader on the far slope of the Predic 17. The left slope adds one more USB Group A and two analog sound ports.

The most important matter in a gaming laptop is how well information technology performs in games. The Omen 17 doesn't let down in that respect.

3DMark FireStrike Extreme Performance

To see just where the Omen 17 and its GTX 1070 waterfall in the hierarchy, I compared it to a spate of old and new beefy gaming laptops. To get a feel for how much performance is available from each storey of GPU, I threw in the tiny Razer Blade 2016 and MSI's new GS63VR Stealing, the latter of which I'm currently reviewing.

The test is 3DMark FireStrike Extreme point, and I'm reporting only the art torpedo-score, which isolates the GPU performance a bit Sir Thomas More.

For the most partly, the Prognostic 17 hangs slightly behind the Asus Commonwealth of Gamers G752VS OC Edition that we reviewed. That's zero surprisal, equally the Asus has the equivalent GeForce GTX 1070 GPU.

The Omen 17 and its GTX 1070 flatly leave the older GTX 980m and symmetrical the GTX 980 suck exhaust.

hp omen 17 gtx1070 3dmark firestrike extreme graphics — The Omen 17 is a slightly slower than the Asus G752VS OC edition in 3DMark FireStrike Immoderate Art.

The psychometric test preceding is 3DMark FireStrike Extreme. I'm reporting only the nontextual matter subscore, which isolates the GPU functioning a bit many. Because many mass induce access only when to the 3DMark FireStrike Extreme Overall make, I'll likewise provide that data. Even though it factors in the CPU a little, it's still mostly a nontextual matter score and doesn't alteration much.

hp omen 17 gtx1070 3dmark firestrike extreme overall — 3Dmark FireStrike Uttermost's overall hit counts the CPU and GPU carrying into action but it's still mostly a graphics tests.

Tomb Raider Operation

Even though 3DMark is a very honest test, it's still synthetic. People privation to see performance based on de facto game play. I ran the numbers racket in Grave Raider set to Last-ditch timber level and 1920×1080 resolution.

The results mostly mirror the 3DMark scores: GTX 1080 is along top by a comfortable margin, followed by GTX 1070, GTX 980, GTX 1060 so GTX 980m and GTX 970m.

hp omen 17 gtx1070 tomb raider ultimate 19x10 — The performance you get from the GTX 1070 in the Prodigy 17 is just plain impressive.

Rise of the Tomb Raider Carrying out

Grave Raider is an elderly game at this point, so I likewise crunched the numbers in the fairly recently Salary increase of the Tomb Raider. At 1920×1080, the Bode 17 is pushing nearly 95 fps, far much than you need. The bad tidings? It's roughly 10 per centum slower than the Asus G752VS OC Version, which I'd attribute to the higher clock speeds of the GPU in this theoretical account. I didn't happen to have scads for the GTX 980m and GTX 970m available in this test, but you hind end assume both of them would be slower.

hp omen 17 gtx1070 rise of the tomb raider very high 19x10 — Wax of the Tomb Raider is newer than Tomb Raider and you fancy you need a bigger GPU to run it.

Middle-earth: Phantasma of Mordor 4K carrying out

As the Predic 17 has a 4K display I also wanted to see how IT would game at its native result. For that I fired up Middle-worldly concern: Tincture of Mordor with the 4K textures installed. The performance, again, just trails the Asus G752VS OC Edition a tad. It's not huge, just it's still more or less 5 per centum slower.

Rise of the Tomb Raider 4K performance

I also ran Uprise of the Grave Raider at 4K set to Very High. The answer drags the laptops down equal promote. As a matter of fact, I'd recommend trimming some game settings if you really desire to play along the Omen 17. At this resolution, you really need at least a GTX 1080 to hit the magical 60 fps. The echt news for the Foretell 17 is that 4K instrument panel supports G-Sync, which smooths kayoed broken frame rates exceptionally well. It's enough that playacting games in the 40 fps range isn't as atrocious Eastern Samoa you might imagine.

hp omen 17 gtx1070 rise of the tomb raider very high 4k resolution — Rise of the Tomb Freeboote should probably be rill with a few settings clipped kill at 4K resolution happening every but the GTX 1080.

Handbrake encoding performance

I don't conceive in the 100-pct gamer, because everyone does something besides gaming along a PC once in a while, right? That means the CPU even matters. To test the CPU carrying out of the Omen 17, I ran our Handbrake 0.9.9 and encoded a 30GB 1080p video file using the made-up-in Android tablet preset.

Because every laptop Hera save the Origin EON17-X (review forthcoming) used Intel mobile Skylake quad-core CPUs, the performance was pretty some a tie-up when the Predator 17X and Asus G752VS OC Edition were consort at their out-of-the-box stock speeds. Overclocking would lower their scores, but no of them would likely touch the Origin EON17-X, which has a screen background Skylake quad-core CPU in it.

hp omen 17 gtx1070 handbrake 0.9.9 encode — Our Handbrake tests puts the quad-core mobile CPUs all in a related performance stove.

Serviceableness

Small laptops might as well be iPads for all the upgrades you can perform. Big gaming laptops ordinarily provide or s ability to service the interior, but the Portent 17 is an exception, unless you dearest removing a lot more screws. Thither is a single door on the inferior, but removing it gives you the ability to upgrade the RAM, and that's it. Hint, Horsepower: people like to upgrade the storage subsystems and maybe clean the fans exterior on social occasion, indeed earn the access door bigger.

hp omen pod bay door open — HP gives you fairly limited access to the guts of the Omen 17. Soda the door open and all you can replace is the RAM.

Conclusion

Despite the sedate vogue, the simple truth with the Omen 17 is that you'Ra acquiring top-of-the-line execution at a jolly soundly price. Our review model, for example, with its GTX 1070, quad-essence CPU, 16GB of DDR4/2133 RAM, 256GB SSD, and 4K G-sync impanel is $1,800. To stick those parts in a 17-inch laptop from other vendors might cost you some other $200 to $400.

Of flow, those other vendors will give you a Sir Thomas More aggressive look, more flashing lights and more bling, but is information technology really worth it? That's ultimately up to you. Equally it stands, the Foretell 17 is hella secured and a hella lot.