OMEN Obelisk Gaming Desktop - Intel Core i7-8700 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA RTX 2080 - 2TB HDD + 256GB SSD - HP Finish In Shadow Black

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The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Fast computer let down by poor thermals

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  • Top 100 Contributor

  Gaming PCs are in vogue now, and what used to be the domain of boutique builders is now become something offered by almost everyone. HP is no stranger to this market, as they acquired a boutique builder - Voodoo PC - back in 2006. Since that time they have replaced the branding with Omen, but maintained both some of the character, as well as the unique logo associated with that brand. The Omen Obelisk 875 is the latest in a line of these desktops, which brings the latest and greatest offerings from Nvidia and Intel to the table. Is it worth the asking price? Let’s dig in. The Omen Obelisk represents the entry level Omen desktop line. Compared to its larger Omen brethren, the Obelisk is more compact, less upgradable, and features a more limited set of configuration. Essentially what you get in this relatively small package, is a single chamber Micro-ATX computer layout, bottom mount power supply, dual 3.5” bays that are easy swap-in/out in arrangement. This configuration includes an Intel i7-8700 6-core CPU, 16GB DDR4, 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD, 2TB HDD, and the star of the show, the GeForce RTX 2080 8GB GDDR6. This is a potent configuration, featuring last year’s fastest non-k CPU, and this years fastest GPU under the $1k mark. This is a lot of hardware crammed into a relatively small case. I’m no stranger to small form factor builds, and this one has some issues - but are easily correctable with some investment. -- Design -- Inside the box is very little other than the tower. There is a bag of paperwork with an overview of your new computer. A power cord, and the obligatory keyboard and mouse are also found here. You won’t want to use the keyboard and mouse if you bought this $2k gaming rig. This computer comes with a tempered glass window on the side w/ RGB lighting. This once novel feature has turned somewhat mainstream for gaming computers. The lighting consists of both a main LED bar found at the top of the case, and the Omen logo, which acts as a separate zone. These are controllable via the Omen Command Center software and can not only be a static color, but have animations, even ones that indicate temperature. The software is fairly well executed, but the animations aren’t quite as smooth as you’d see on some. Interestingly, the GPU has an LED X found on the outside of the shroud that is the default Omen red - but lacks any control and is hardly visible with only about an inch of clearance between it and the power supply casing. Aesthetically the computer is sort of a mixed bag. The cable management is pretty good, with only a bit of ATX power cable being coiled at the bottom. The stock fan arrangement is just an 80mm exhaust fan, and the CPU fan - which is just a small step above the Intel stock cooler. The case is blacked out, including a black motherboard, black GPU, black power supply, black powder coating inside and out, and all black cabling. A single RAM slot, which is bright red, is populated with Kingston Hyper X ram shrouded in black with white lettering. This black theme breaks down on the m.2 SSD, which is a green PCB and really the only wart on this otherwise nicely executed monochromatic build. The case is easy to open, and while filled with some OEM style engineering tricks, is generally easy to work with. HP even provides video tutorials on everything from opening the side case (just push the convenient button) to replacing the motherboard. One thing that you won’t see in many other builds is the tempered glass is attached to the steel panel. Most manufacturers just use a drilled piece of tempered glass and affix with standoffs. The HP has a carefully engineered side panel with mounted glass. This means it is sealed much better than most other cases. The 3.5” drive mounts are tooless, and even support mounting 2.5” SSDs (BYO screws). There are filters, some removable, some not, everywhere, which should make maintenance easy enough. The CPU is Intel’s venerable i7 8700. This is the non-k CPU, with a 65w TDP - which is the most this board is designed for. The 6 core i7 has a base 3.2GHz frequency, but an all core boost speed of 4.3GHz which i’ve found can be held indefinitely using Intel’s XTU tooling. However, the CPU cooler is pretty bad. While it actually does keep the CPU cool and at least in a 21C ambient environment away from thermal throttling (just barely - peaking at 94C), it’s extremely loud. The fan ramps up, and between it and the exhaust fan heat pours out the back like a space heater. The GPU is an HP designed RTX 2080. This card is a blower style design with a shiny logo and LED lit red X that is hardly visible in this build. The card follows what appears to be the Nvidia reference board (although I did not disassemble it) and includes an aluminum backplate. The card weighs 1.25Kg (nearly 3lbs), so it definitely includes some cooling. As with most blower designs, the card is both loud and hot. The good news is that the noise isn’t annoying like the CPU, but rather a low rumble. The RTX 2080 design here generally is boosting to 1920Mhz until it hits its target temperature - at which point it does slowly drop back down to 1710, then its base frequency of 1515. The card seems to keep its 1710 boost in all but the worst synthetic loads, but this is definitely RTX 2080 reference clocks with no real headroom. Essentially this card performs worse than Nvidia’s RTX 2080 Founders Edition and worse than most 1080ti cards. That said it’s still a beast of a card, just limited by its own thermal design. -- Performance -- The Obelisk doesn’t disappoint when it comes to the task it was designed for. I ran the following benchmarks: Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark: 76 FPS 2560x1440 on Ultra settings Deus Ex Mankind Divided benchmark: Min 49.0, Max 75.1 Avg: 60.1 2560x1440 on Ultra settings 3DMark TimeSpy - 9525, Firestrike - 20975 Cinebench R15: (1242 stock/1388 with XTU tweaks) It’s important to remember this is out of the box stock with components that are somewhat thermally constrained and single channel RAM. Sure an RTX 2080 FE would perform better, dual channel ram might make up a few FPS, and an 8700k would keep things even faster, but there is no denying that this is a capable gaming rig. I did fire up some Battlefield V with ray tracing enabled. It looks nice, but honestly I have a hard time in such a fast paced game appreciating reflections. The included SSD is a decent performer. It is a Toshiba model (KBG30ZMV256G) and reads and writes sequentially around 1600 and 950MB/s respectively. It also does a good job in 4k reads and writes (500/450MB/s). -- Upgradability -- HP will advertise that it is a highly upgradable system, and while that isn’t untrue, it isn’t going to offer the easiest of upgrade paths. The biggest issue here is the stock Omen motherboard - the Edoras. Yes, it appears to be named for a Tolkien LOTR location with some potential references I won’t explore. It’s an H370 chipset, Intel’s top of the line non-overclocking chipset, which offers a good feature set. The board is designed with VRMs/power delivery for 65w TDP chips, so the fastest chip this board will ever see is already installed. Oddly, the motherboard only includes 2 RAM slots despite being a full-sized mATX board (as opposed to the conventional 4 slots) meaning that you’ll max out RAM at 32GB. The is only 1 m.2 slot (typical) and supports 2280 NVMe based drives which would be easy enough to replace. The 500w power supply is stout for its rating (40A on the 12v rail), but limiting overall, as between the CPU (65w)/GPU (215w) and other components, it’s pulling close enough to its rating. You could ostensibly replace the motherboard and power supply, but both will be difficult tasks in this chassis due to the compact nature and cable management system (perfectly laid out for this board, but not really much else). The LED control is farmed out to a separate daughter board that appears to use a USB header, so at least that seems easy enough. The GPU might pose some problem due to the mounting bracket (although based on cursory observations, it appears as though Nvidia reference style coolers should be fine here). I added a Corsair H60 120mm radiator to the CPU. This dramatically helped temperatures, both ambient in the case, and CPU package. This case does support adding a 120mm radiator (and only a 120mm radiator). There is a removable metal sheet at the top of the case. This sheet has 4 cutouts that can be removed using a screwdriver that will allow airflow. Once these are removed, you can mount either a 120mm fan or 120mm radiator. The radiator is just what this compact case needed to dissipate the heat of the 8700. The installation of such however, required removing the motherboard, which was no small task. I also had to detach the stock backplate, which had a significant amount of adhesive padding on the back. This is probably further than a normal consumer would want to go with their $2k computer, so while I like this option the best, it’s hard to recommend. Ram wise, I found while Best Buy doesn’t carry the matching stick of RAM, another online retailer we’ve all heard of does. I will comment back once I see what impact dual channel and 32GB make. -- Conclusion -- While some may argue (and rightfully so) that building your own rig will be faster, cheaper, and better - the answer is that it always depends. If you have no interest in building a computer, but rather just gaming - then this HP Omen is a serious consideration. You get top tier components, RGB lighting, tempered glass, and a reasonably small form factor. On sale, this can even be quite competitive or cheaper than building, especially with the GPU starting at $700 alone. My biggest complaint here is the CPU cooler, which is atrocious for the heat the CPU puts out.

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  Posted 6 years ago by aarondr

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Excellent Pre-Built PC by HP. Easy Upgrades.

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  HP Omen Obelisk (875-0024) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #####Setup/Testing/Conclusion##### --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The HP Omen Obelisk. Where do I even start… Let’s just say, HP has definitely struck a home run with the HP Omen Obelisk. Not only is this gaming PC a beast for all you hardcore enthusiast gamers, the best part is that it is fully upgradable. I really like the micro-ATX chassis that HP went with for the Omen Obelisk. The nice large side window will fulfill all you hardcore enthusiast gamers by showing off your internals to all your jealous friends/family (RTX 2080 WINK WINK). If that doesn’t impress your friends/family, maybe the included RBG lighting will. Now when I mentioned fully upgradable, I literally mean fully upgradable. HP thought of the gaming enthusiast by providing tool-free removal when it comes to wanting to make your own installations/adjustments. So if the included specs aren’t beefy enough for you, you’re more than welcome to add or make adjustments. Now onto the specs. For this specific model, you’re going to be geared with an i7 8700 (non K) processor, 16GB of Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 2666MHz memory, 256GB SSD, and of course; a Nvidia RTX 2080 (8GB). For those of you that have a lot of pictures or music that you want to store, this specific model also includes a 2TB 7200 rpm hard drive. But realistically, how does everything perform when it comes to gaming? Everything I ran and threw at this beast was like butter to a hot knife; effortless while providing the best results. A couple things I would’ve liked to see differently. For memory, I would’ve liked to see 8GB sticks (x2) instead of just 1 16GB stick to be able to utilize dual channel. It also helps with the fact if 1 stick goes bad, you have the option to run the PC still with just 1 stick till you obtain another. But, I can see why HP perhaps did that. It’s so that you can get another 16GB stick to run the maximum 32GB. Being that the i7 8700 runs quite warm, I would’ve liked to see the CPU being watercooled instead of utilizing the stock fan. Along with that, I would’ve liked to see a bigger SSD than 256GB since most games nowadays take up a lot of space. Overall, I can say that this prebuilt gaming rig will satisfy most enthusiast gamers out there. The reason why, if you want to make upgrades; HP definitely welcomes you to do that with the HP Omen Obelisk. The chassis that HP went with made it so that it makes it extremely simple to make changes/buy upgrades thanks to the tooless design. Although it’s a micro-ATX chassis, you can still fit in things like a watercooler and a full sized video card like the already included RTX 2080. Not to mention, HP gives you some pretty good parts already to begin with so you won’t have trouble playing all those AAA titles. I must say, GREAT JOB HP! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #####Specs##### --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Windows 10 Intel Core i7 8700 (non K) 16GB of Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 2666MHz memory (1x16) Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 8GB 256GB SSD 2TB 7200 rpm HDD 7 USB 3.1 ports Bluetooth and WLAN Ready DTS Headphone: X technology Microphone-in/headphone-out combo jack. Microphone input. Optical audio output --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #####What's in the box##### --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HP Omen Desktop - Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 - 2TB Hard Drive + 256GB Solid State Drive HP black wired keyboard with volume control and wired optical mouse Power Cord Various Manuals

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  Posted 6 years ago by MarkusKong

• Rated 3 out of 5 stars

  Subpar Performance For the Price

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  • Top 100 Contributor

  The HP Omen Obelisk Desktop is geared towards PC gamers who want performance combined with clean aesthetics and upgradeability in a small chassis. While the general consumer might be happy with this product, there are some caveats that those with PC-building experience may want to be aware of. CHASSIS QUALITY: Like other recent Omen products that I’ve had the opportunity to experience, the build materials of the Chassis is decent. It’s a standard MicroATX case with one included rear-mounted case fan which is configured for exhaust. While there is no intake for better cooling, there is enough room for a top-mounted fan or single radiator AIO cooler if you wanted to add liquid cooling. There’s also a button on back that you can press to release the tempered glass side panel—which you simply lift upwards to remove. There are chambers for 2x 3.5” SATA drives, and room for a standard ATX PSU. On the front is an RGB-enabled Omen Logo which you can configure from the HP Omen Command Center software. Additionally, you have 2 Type-A USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo port, a separate microphone input port, and the power button. Overall, this case is functional, but certainly geared towards simplicity. SPECIFICATIONS: As mentioned before, HP’s chassis is geared towards a more minimalistic MicroATX build. This means that it only uses MicroATX motherboards which often provide less capability for I/O. This means fewer USB ports on the motherboard as well as having fewer PCI or PCIe slots for expansion for sound cards and crossfire. You’re really only given a single PCIe slot which comes pre-occupied by the RTX 2080 graphics card. On this Edoras H37 motherboard, you’ll find the following: - (1x) Intel LGA1151 socket for 8th Gen Intel Core CPUs (i7-8700 pre-installed) - (2x) DDR4 (288-pin) sockets (1x16GB HyperX 2666MHz CL16 pre-installed) - (1x) PCIe x16 socket (HP-manufactured RTX 2080 8GB pre-installed) - (1x) M.2 socket 1, key A (Intel AC-9560 Wi-Fi / Bluetooth module pre-installed) - (1x) M.2 socket 3, key M (256 GB KBG30ZMV256G TOSHIBA SSD pre-installed) - (2x) SATA3 ports (1x Toshiba DT01ACA200 2TB HDD pre-installed) As far as rear I/O is concerned, you’ll be equipped with: - (4x) USB Type-A 3.1 Gen 1 - (1x) USB Type-A 3.1 Gen 2 - (1x) USB Type-C 3.1 Gen 2 - RJ-45 (Ethernet) - Audio: Line in (microphone) - Audio-out jack - Audio-in jack And lastly, you’ll have a LITE-ON 500W 80 Plus Bronze power supply that will gimp any additional performance you might hope to obtain by overclocking this system. Stay tuned for details on that. STOCK PERFORMANCE: Right out of the gate, I found that I was having a more enjoyable experience playing games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 3440x1440 on the highest preset due to the RTX 2080 8GB GPU and the hexacore i7-8700 CPU. I was reaching framerates unobtainable by my previous system’s GTX 1080 graphics card, which was to be expected. After doing some research on what many other reviewers were achieving without overclocking, I noticed that my scores were actually underwhelming in comparison. I even challenged a friend who owns a Core i7-5820k and GTX 1080 Ti to a 3DMark benchmark battle and lost by a decent chunk in the graphics scores. What? Why? All the benchmarks said that the RTX 2080 should be pretty comparable to the GTX 1080 Ti. I tried everything I could to debug the issue, but still ended up getting similar scores in my benchmark tests. And then it dawned on me. So it turns out that Nvidia wasn’t kidding when they recommended a 650W power supply for a system configured with the RTX 2080, and the fact that HP supplied this build with a 500W power supply is not acceptable. During my benchmark runs, I pulled up a GPU usage monitor and sometimes noticed only ~86% GPU utilization during the 3DMark graphics tests, which indicated that power limit throttling was occuring, since the temperatures were perfectly acceptable. Maybe the CPU cores were requesting more voltage to hit higher clock speeds? Out of curiosity, I pulled the RTX 2080 from the build and threw it into a comparable system with a 1000W 80 Plus Gold power supply. Without a stock GPU configuration and clean drivers, my graphics scores improved by a large amount, since the CPU and GPU were no longer battling for voltage. The main lesson here is that if you’re running GPU-intensive benchmarks or games, you may not be able to reach peak performance due to HP’s choice of using a low-wattage power supply. Lastly, it should be noted that HP shipped these desktops without the 10 October Fall Creators Update (AKA build 1809) which provides proper support for RTX’s ray-tracing capabilities in supported DX12 titles. While I didn’t test any Ray Tracing-enabled games, it’s important for others to be aware of this if they plan to play games that support the feature. I had to do quite a few updates to reach build 1809. OVERCLOCKING: I do not recommend trying to overclock this system with only a 500W power supply. It’s clear that HP didn’t design this system with that in mind. Thankfully, you can upgrade to a quality, higher wattage power supply for an affordable price. Ultimately, I recommend changing the power supply out for a 650W model, as Nvidia recommended. My testing shows much better framerate stability and performance improvements. That being said, at one point, I was able to get some pretty respectable results just using the 500W PSU, but I’ve been absolutely unable to get anywhere near these scores with the same CPU/GPU overclocks. You can see the comparison of the stock configuration versus the overclocked configuration here: https://www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/5415905/spy/5439638 One could easily achieve better scores than this with a higher wattage power supply, dual-channel memory, improved cooling, and overclocking. However, since this is the non-K model of the i7-8700, you cannot achieve a CPU clock speed higher than 4.6GHz. Using ThrottleStop or Intel Xtreme Tuning Utility, you can increase the Turbo Boost Power to allow the CPU to reach 4.6GHz on all cores, but you would definitely want a better CPU heatsink & cooler to maintain ideal temperatures. As for the GPU, adding around +140MHz to the core clock and around +700MHz to the memory clock while also increasing max power to 110% yielded 8-10% performance improvements in framerate in 3DMark as well as Shadow of the Tomb raider. I was able to benchmark an average of ~66fps at Highest settings at 3440x1440. OTHER ISSUES: One thing I really dislike about this build is that HP has a kind of “brace” for the graphics card to ensure that it doesn’t wobble. While normally that might be fine, HP seemingly screwed it in with the power of Kratos because I found it incredibly difficult to remove—so much so, that the screw head stripped and I have given up on being nice to it. I will probably have to break the piece off, which is very frustrating. Thankfully, I was still able to remove the graphics card with the brace still fixed to the case. But if I ever decided to put a different graphics card in, I’ll definitely need to remove the brace. Something that’s not necessarily an issue but should be noted is that this H370 motherboard does not support XMP profiles for memory, which means the best you’ll get is 2666MHz out of a single stick of RAM. Intel’s Z370 motherboards support XMP profiles, so you could later opt to upgrade the motherboard if you deem it necessary. This probably isn’t a dealbreaker for many, but I had 2x16 3200MHz DIMMs lying around and tried running them dual channel, but the speed was capped at a mere 2666MHz. CONCLUSION: Overall, someone who wants a prebuilt machine and doesn’t care about getting the best performance for the price might really like this machine. But the reality is that someone spending this kind of money probably isn’t okay with getting subpar performance. RTX graphics card prices are already inflated, and that becomes pretty obvious in the non-sale price of this Obelisk PC. If this PC goes on sale (which it did for Black Friday), I think the price is much more manageable to swallow. But for enthusiasts hoping to save a bit of money with a pre-built machine, I’d advise that you wait until mid-January or so before biting the bullet. With more and more quality components coming at affordable prices, HP isn’t providing a compelling option for those who are educated buyers—instead opting to pinch pennies in areas that negatively impact their reputation.

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  Posted 6 years ago by Xephyroth