HP has been producing some solid gaming hardware as of late — the OMEN 17 laptop I reviewed and the cube desktop built by Maingear are good examples. However, HP has yet to go all out with their OMEN X brand — the “X” denoting the upper echelon of its high-performance brand — until now, with two new laptops.
The OMEN X laptop comes in 15-inch and 17-inch versions, both equipped with NVIDIA G-Sync and optional, overclocked NVIDIA GTX 1080 graphics cards. If you feel the need to upgrade RAM, the SSDs or make your own risky adjustments, you can unscrew a single panel with a Philips screwdriver and get to work.
My only personal disappointment with these new systems is the lack of eight-generation Intel Core processors — however they’re so new and untested, I’ll make an exception — instead opting for last-gen chips.
The base model that retails for $1,999 includes a 1080p display, 16GB RAM plus a 256GB/1TB HDD storage duo and a Core i7-7700HQ processor. An overclockable Core i7-7820HK processor is available, at a higher premium of course.
The rest of the laptop is what you’ve come to expect of high-end machines of this caliber: a programmable, backlit mechanical keyboard, healthy selection of ports and even overclocking support for the GPU and RAM.
The OMEN X laptops will go on sale directly from HP and its partners in November, starting at $1,999.
