HP OMEN - 35L Gaming Desktop - AMD Ryzen 7 8700F - 32GB DDR5 Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 - 1TB SSD - Panda Metal

Oh man... So I've been wanting a gaming desktop for some time now. Although I am tech savvy, I wasn't really sure where to begin when it comes to putting together my own computer. There is so many parts to choose from, and technology is evolving so fast these days that I feel like pre-built computers are the way to go for most people. Especially these days since GPU's , Ram and Storage is getting really expensive. Anyway.. HP has been doing some really cool stuff with their gaming PC's and the HP OMEN 35L is a great example of how to do a gaming rig right. The case feels like it is made out of premium materials. It is rigid, strong, and made of metal. The "mesh" panels are also metal and allow plenty of air to flow through and cool your PC. The side panel feels like actual glass, it could be some sort of plastic because it isn't so heavy but to my touch it feels like glass. It has ports galore on the back and top of the case. 3 DP ports on the back, 1 HDMI 2.1, 4 USB A, 2 USB C 3.1 and 4 USB 2.0. It comes with an 850 Watt power supply, an AMD Ryzen 7 - 8700F, 32GB of Ram ( in a 1 stick configuration) and an Nvidia RTX 5070 with 12 GB of VRAM. Before I picked this PC up, I had heard about the RTX 5070 and people being somewhat disappointed with it but I can reassure you that it is a fantastic video card and will run just about any game in High settings. I opted to connect mine to my 48" OLED TV because it's the best display panel I have in my home and I like to kick back on a bean bag while I game. It is capable of 4k and 120hz and this computer has no problem pushing games onto this display. I dunno if it is the best way to set graphics settings in game, but I always let the Nvidia App optimize and set the graphics settings in the games I play for me and it is working out great. I am currently playing Horizon Forbidden West , Red Dead Redemption, Marvel Rivals, Battlefield 6, Resident Evil 2 ( Remake) Rocket league and Fortnite. Along with a bunch of other games. The RTX 5070 can run all these games in 4k and 120hz. I am really impressed with it. Not ever game is running at its highest graphic settings to get those frame rates but it still looks really good to me. I am loving this computer and I can't wait to buy and play more games on it. I think this machine is pretty future proof, and will serve you for many years to come, it seems easily upgradeable as well. There is plenty of space in the case for expanding and upgrading parts. In the photo you can only see 1 NVME slot, but I did find that there is another underneath the GPU. It takes a little bit of work to take out the card and access it. If you do want to use the second slot for expanding your NVME storage, I would suggest getting a stick that has a heatsink on it because it is sitting right under the GPU and it'll get warm under there. There is also space to install a 2.5" or 3.5"SATA HDD or SATA SSD if you choose to expand your storage even further. I am so stoked to own this Rig, and I love the design and style of it. I love the color scheme as well and the RGB lighting on the fans and Ram stick. It looks modern and classy in my opinion. All in All, have to say this is hands down the best gaming PC I have ever owned. I love it, and I think you will also.

HP built a quality gaming PC with the HP Omen 35L. It looks great and performs great. Its also quite quiet for a gaming PC which is a plus. Setup was easy and your typical Windows OS setup and I immediately go to windows update and get all the latest updates and then update the video card drivers. Its been my process for years. Works out really well, takes some time but I’d rather be fully up to date after unboxing before I start installing anything. So there isn't anything really different about setting this up than any other PC out of the box. HP picked a cool color combination. They call it “Panda Metal” which translates to white/black. It looks nice and the RGB components were done well. It's not “overdone” but nice and classy. Cable management was done great and the whole thing is aesthetically pleasing. The white/black color scheme also gives you the ability to pair it with white or black accessories like mice/keyboard which I thought was cool so you aren't stuck to one color for your peripherals. Aside from looks, it's quite functional and a very decent size. Small enough to look great on a desk yet large enough to house a large graphics card. HP did a great job in the cooling department with this system. Mainly I think because of all the perforations in the case and the fan placement to move air through the case. It’s extremely quiet at idle and decently quiet under load while gaming. It doesn't sound like a jet engine which is nice and performs great under load. It's a powerhouse. It came standard with 32GB of DDR5 6000 RAM. Typically prebuilt systems come with 16GB of RAM so it is nice to see that doubled in this system. Also, it's a single 32GB stick of RAM so there is room on the board for upgrading. This is my first AMD system and it comes with the excellent AMD Ryzen 7 8700F which includes their first NPU unit for AI tasking. The GPU is fantastic, featuring the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 which is an excellent video card capable of playing the latest and greatest titles at great frame rates so you can take advantage of those high refresh rate monitors. Both 1440p and 4K performed great on Battlefield 6, Call of Duty, and Fortnite. Games load quickly thanks to the 1TB solid state hard drive which provides ample room for many games and applications. Speaking of applications. The HP Omen software that is included to control performance settings and RGB lighting is very straightforward and decent. I usually don't like bundled vendor software but the HP Omen suite is fairly lightweight and easy to navigate. I'd give the software an 8 out 10. I think if you aren't going to build your own system from scratch and are looking for a great gaming system that has room for upgrades and performs fantastic, I think this is a great candidate for consideration. I would highly recommend it as it is one of the best pre-built systems I’ve had the pleasure of owning.

The HP Omen 35L is quite a box. Supporting WiFi 6 (802.11ax the high-efficiency wireless standard that offers up to 9.6 Gbps speeds). It has the latest Bluetooth 5.4 (still hard to find). It supports Gigabit Ethernet via a built-in RJ-45 port on the rear I/O panel (supporting 2.5GbE). It has the latest Zen Gen 4 Ryzen 7 8700F (4.1GHz Processor running upto 5 GHz, w/16MB Cache, 8-Cores (16-Threads)) for Powerful Performance.  Not to mention the latest GeForce RTX 5070 with 12GB GDDR7 Dedicated Graphic memory.  It's VR Ready with a single 32GB DDR5 (6000MT) DIMM (can support up to 128 GB).  It has a 850W Power Supply.  And very attractive RGB Lighting.  It includes a gen 4, 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD.  It has 4 USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB 3.2 Type-C ports.  It can drive 4 monitors via a single HDMI port and 3 Display Ports.  It has a Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack, and Audio In/Out ports.  It has Windows 11 Home (64) installed.  The left side of the case has a large glass panel on the side which allows you to see in.  The quality of the internal cable routing is exceptional.  It has 2 PCIe NVMe slots, the second is under the RTX 5070 ( yes it has to be removed to access the second slot (not that difficult, I added a second 1TB SSD).  There are 2 SATA ports, but only a tool less drive holder for a single 3.5" HDD (with space for a second but no drive holder).  When HDD drive prices come back down to earth, I plan to add a 24TB drive for backup (might add 2 - SATA RAID configurations are technically possible with software-based RAID via Windows or BIOS-level RAID configuration). The HP Omen 35L is a very well-cooled gaming PC that provides excellent 3K/4K performance. And what surprised me the most was how whisper quiet it is.  Having had many other gaming systems I was expecting the whirl of server style fans.  But it's exceedingly quiet until you push the GPU with modern games. It uses industry-standard parts to make upgrading easy.  The system starts very fast and runs very quietly. It's handled everything I've thrown at it without any slowdown. Games run smoothly on high settings, and multitasking feels effortless with the installed 32GB of DDR5 RAM (which I'd planned to upgrade to 64GB or more eventually).  I plan to eventually run a Web Server and SQL Server in virtual machines, but I'm having a tough time adjusting to today's memory prices.  I've been using a "UFO" gaming laptop, which was quite expensive.  This Omen absolutely blows it away in terms of smoothness and the ability to drive multiple monitors at the same time (I'm using 3, one widescreen, and two 3K 27" monitors). I edit a lot of Astrophotography which requires stacking hundreds of 20-30Mb images (.fits files).  I thought my laptop was doing a pretty great job (processing 500 images in 30 minutes).  Well this Omen cut that job down to just over 19 minutes (the improved GPU helps, but it's a huge amount of data that is processed); the latest Ryzen 7 is truly an exceptional processor.   I play all new modern games in 1440P with well over 150fps hitting 220fps on high settings.  Depending on the package you get it may or may not come with a keyboard and a mouse; which is fine by me as I end up with my own gaming mouse and programmable mechanical keyboard anyhow.

There are a lot of things to like about this PC, from a build quality standpoint, but there are a few disappointments when it comes to the software side of things. The overall visual impression is relatively tame for a modern gaming PC, with RGB limited to the fans, which are all nicely diffused. This isn't the type of rig that requires you to turn the lights off at night to avoid being blinded. As far as packaging goes, on the one hand, they only use cardboard for padding. This is definitely more eco-friendly than closed-cell foam, but hypothetically less protective in certain shipping scenarios. However, the GPU support is very beefy, so the chances of shipping damage are probably very low. As is typical for HP's gaming lineup, all components are standard. You can swap anything in, or out, as you wish. The 12v high-power GPU cable was fully, firmly inserted, which is what you want to see. None of the connectors were loose. Most of the cabling was routed with re-usable ties, which is good for future upgrades or modifications, although there are a few disposable zip-ties in places you'd probably keep them in the future. Unfortunately, the full suite of cables for the power supply are not included. There *are* two 6+2 pin PCIe power cables tucked behind the motherboard tray, so you can swap out the GPU to *most* other models with the included cables, but, not all, without seeking out additional cables. There is one 3.5" drive bay, and the power and data cables are pre-routed to it, so that's a plus. I would have liked to see two sticks of memory, especially given the potential of the memory controller on these Ryzen APUs, but it's not as bad of a difference on DDR5 systems as opposed to DDR4. But, on the topic of memory... The system considers 6000MHz memory 'overclocking'. This page advertises 6000MHz memory, but the default speed is 5200MHz. You have to explicitly enable 'turbo' mode, which constitutes 'overclocking', which is the speed the memory is rated for through XMP... I don't get it. Also, the HP Omen app has ads in it. Not just gaming ads, but regular, random ads, for things, in general. Like, come on, you already bought the computer, or other hardware, whatever it is... As for more software complaints, it doesn't seem as if PBO2 works. There are no options for it in the BIOS, and when you allegedly set it through the Omen app, it doesn't seem to take. But, it's very difficult to tell, given that STAPM is also enabled on this motherboard, with a low 65w power limit in the long-term. There are no options to change the power limits, either in the BIOS or in the Omen app. STAPM is for mobile devices, not desktops, HP. Please fix. The BIOS does at least have memory timing settings, so you can get a lot lower latency out of your one stick of RAM if you desire to dive into that. The GPU has a fixed power limit of 250w, which is the NVIDIA default for the RTX 5070. Both the CPU and GPU stay far below any thermal throttling limits, even during extended 100% stress tests, which is partly due to STAPM. Hitting >90C is normal for Ryzen CPUs, but this one is not allowed to for very long, due to STAPM. The system fans are very quiet at default settings, though, so there is that. Also, the SSD, while DRAMless, provides more than enough sustained performance for activities in addition to gaming. Ultimately, according to 3DMark, at all default settings, the system manages to perform within the range of average, given its hardware, which is good. It would be bad if it were sub-average. Playing a few modern games with ray-tracing and DLSS, I have no complaints about the baseline performance. If you're a normal user, and you want a quiet computer that just works, this is a great option. But, if you're a tweaker, and you want to get the absolute maximum out of the hardware you're given, you're going to be limited by the software available on this motherboard and GPU.

This PC is fantastic. It just works. It has a nice compact design that looks great, is very quiet, most importantly runs all the games I throw at it with no trouble at all. I have a pair of OLED monitors plugged in to the 5070, one ultrawide 1440P 144hz and the other a 4K 16:9 240hz. I could add two more monitors if I wanted as well but I can easily pick either one as my primary screen and crank up the settings on all the games I’ve tried so far and it handles them easily. Hogwarts Legacy, Control, Forza Horizon 5, Expedition 33, GTA V, Starfield all run on ultra settings with ray tracing on and maintain 50-100FPS depending on the game. With G-Sync on as well I experience no tearing and everything is smooth as can be to my eyes. It loads extremely fast thanks to the gen 4 m.2 1TB SSD and Ryzen 7 8700F, remains whisper quiet even under heavy load, and thankfully the motherboard has a second m.2 SSD slot hidden under the GPU that I added another gen 4 NVME drive to for more game storage. With the 10 available USB ports I have plentiful places to plug in and use my accessories from my headset, keyboard, mouse, VR, external disc drive, webcam, controller, and still have more ports to spare. There is extra space in the top of the case to be able to add an all in one for better CPU cooling if I decide it’s worth doing, and an RGB controller is also hiding behind the back cover for said additional fans. It’s ready for upgrades with space inside and an 850W modular power supply making it easy to do so. The 32GB Kingston DDR5 is on a single DIMM so it has room for another 96GB if it were affordable. I spent some time after initial setup removing some of the bloatware that was pre-installed, and that made a difference to it’s performance as well, initially it had very high network latency that was caused by the antivirus software it was running out of the box. Speaking of networking it supports WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, and gigabit Ethernet, all of which work flawlessly. I haven’t had a single crash or major issue with it yet, and I’ve been putting it through its paces as much as possible since I got it. If you’re looking for a clean easy to use mid-high tier rig with some upgradability I recommend this one.