HP’s gaming brand Omen often occupies a place in List of the best gaming PCsThanks to affordability and, in recent years, the shift to brand name parts. The latter is still in focus with the company’s new Omen 45L, but the case is made noticeably larger, thanks to an external “Cryo Chamber” on the case. It is separate from the interior of the case, allowing cool outside air to be sucked into the 240mm radiator located inside.
The front also has a similar air gap, allowing three 140mm RGB fans to draw in fresh air while still giving the front of the system a glossy glass look throughout.
HP Omen 45L Configurations
While we haven’t had a chance to fully test the system yet, performance shouldn’t be a huge concern, as the HP Omen 45L will sell with up to Intel Core i9-12900 K And the RTX 3090. Pair that with 64GB of DDR4 (sorry, DDR5 diehards) and a pair of spacious 2TB NVMe SSDs (and, of course, Windows 11) and you’ve got our review configuration, which HP says will retail for around $5,000.
If that’s too much for your wallet, the company will also offer a $2,299 configuration based on a file Ryzen 7 5800X And the RTX 3070. The system can also be configured to order, with a large number of component options, mostly brand name and standard. The SSD is a WD Black model. The Cooler Master makes the power source (800W 80 Plus Gold model in our configuration) and the RAM is HyperX branding (unsurprisingly) HP bought HyperX last year).
HP is doubling down on its efforts to integrate standard, branded components into its Omen gaming PCs, which is good for your peace of mind and future upgradeability. But the company would do well to extend that policy to its motherboards.
The Omen-branded HP Micro-ATX board included in our configuration looks part of it, with some elaborate stenciling and large VRM heatsinks. But it’s far from as feature-packed as you might expect in a system that costs thousands of dollars.
Aside from the lack of DDR5 (which doesn’t really matter for gaming), there’s no mention anywhere of PCIe 5 support. The board also has only two M.2 PCIe Gen4 slots, and a completely barren rear IO with only six USB ports and not many. There are, somewhat surprisingly, two USB-C ports here, but note that one is basically an old-school USB 3.0 port, rated at 5Gbps (the other is 10Gbps). There are, at least, four more USB-A ports on the top of the case, along with the power button and separate headphone and microphone ports.
Heatsink on HP Omen 45L
The upper Cryo chamber is arguably the Omen 45L’s most interesting feature, as it houses a 240mm AIO cooler outside the main body of the case, giving it a large gap to draw in and expel cool air from the top. HP says this results in CPU temperatures of up to 6°C under full load. And some quick tests tell us that CPU temperatures aren’t an issue here.
When we ran our model subway displacement Stress test, simulating half an hour of gaming by repeating the benchmark 15 times, we saw a brief peak of 71°C early on, which is warm but far from the 100°C you need to reach the CPU. . A measurement of 71 degrees was an anomaly. After this early rise, the temporary temperature stabilized at an average of 54 °C for the total test run. While we don’t have comparison data for the same test running on other Alder Lake pre-built desktop PCs, the cooling performance here is more than enough for stock performance. Considering that this is a pre-built gaming PC from a big brand, it is likely that the vast majority of buyers will operate at stock speeds.
The system was also very quiet for a computer loaded with high-end parts. But that probably has more to do with the sheer volume of the chassis (45 liters) than the separate Cryo Chamber.
All that said, there is another aspect of Cryo Chamber that worries us a bit. The company claims that the Cryo Chamber is also designed to act as a handle to help you move the system. And you might want to use it due to the size and heaviness of the Omen 45L.
But on our unit at least, the attic room arrived partially separated in the back of the enclosure. HP says this most likely occurred while charging, but there was no noticeable damage to the box. There was no other visual damage or curved or wrinkled parts of the system itself to indicate that it had been dropped or crushed. Hopefully for HP this is just an isolated shipping issue or an early manufacturing issue. But it’s also another area where, at least in this isolated instance, the case system doesn’t quite look or feel like a rig that you’d want to pay thousands of dollars for.
Regardless of our issue with the back of the Cryo Chamber, the Omen 45L is an attractive, intriguingly designed system that is robustly configured and appears to be cooling well. We look forward to putting it in our full set of tests and comparing it to other Alder Lake gaming PCs — especially when it comes to temperatures.
If you love the look of the Omen 45L but are more than just a PC builder, the HP Omen 45L sells as a standalone ATX case, too. It will be shipped with RGB light strip and indoor RGB / ARGB light hub. But you will have to provide your own RGB input fans. HP says it will sell the case with a single non-RGB 120mm exhaust disc.
The case might be a better fit for DIY hardware rather than HP selling it as a pre-built computer, since it has more room for radiators than the 240mm model that was included with our rig. And unless you’re aiming for serious overclocking, Cryo Chamber’s cooling can be said to be overkill anyway. And if you’re going to do that, you’ll probably also want a more powerful motherboard than HP offers — with more ports, too.
The company also didn’t say how much the Omen 45L canister would sell. But you can bet it will land closer to premium pricing than the budget area.