HP Omen 45L review: A crazy 'Cryo Chamber' keeps this 4K gaming PC cool and infinitely flexible

Hp Omen 45l Allwhite Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Primal

In Dec 2022, I reviewed the HP Omen 30L. Information technology'southward a solid pre-built gaming PC that brings high-end hardware at more affordable prices. The entire Omen desktop line is meant to serve somewhere between pure DIY custom builds and built-to-gild gaming systems from companies like iBuyPower or CLX.

For 2022, HP is back with the Omen 45L. As the proper noun suggests, it'south the largest and most powerful Omen gaming rig ahead of the Omen 40L, 30L, and the smaller 25L. Merely new with the 45L is something really neat: a "Cryo Sleeping room." HP created a standalone cavity only for the all-in-one (AIO) liquid CPU cooler that sits higher up the PC chassis. The thought is simple: Cooler air goes into the AIO and keeps your CPU chilled, assuasive you to button the envelope when overclocking.

HP is so proud of this case pattern it plans to sell it as a standalone purchase. With no proprietary parts, fifty-fifty your DIYers out there can grab this example and throw in whatever y'all desire.

I've spent the terminal few weeks with the Omen 45L (and Omen 27c monitor), and here is what you need to know almost it.

Omen 45l Reco

HP Omen 45L

Bottom line: With top-tier performance, proper name-brand components, easy upgradeability, and a unique and functional design, the Omen 45L makes a good case equally to why building your own PC is unnecessary. Packing up to an RTX 3090, Intel Core i9 (or AMD), this is 1 powerful and nice-looking PC.

The Good

Excellent build quality
Premium make-name components
No proprietary parts, easily expandable
Cryo Bedroom is awesome
Plenty of aRGB/RGB lighting

The Bad

Functioning is excellent, but not the all-time
No DDR5
No Thunderbolt 4

HP Omen 45L: Price and availability

Omen 45L Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central

The HP Omen 45L is bachelor January. v from the HP website. It'll soon be coming to Best Buy besides. Users can configure various options or buy pre-built systems at different toll levels. Pricing begins at $1,899.

1 pre-built SKU is $ii,2300 with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800x CPU, NVIDIA RTX 3070 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD (+1TB HDD) for storage.

Moving upwards to $ii,800, HP ships the Omen 45L with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700K, RTX 3080, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB/1TB storage.

For this review, we are using a maxed-out model which features the 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K, RTX 3090, 64GB RAM, and 2TB SSD x2 (4TB total). That SKU costs around $five,000.

HP Omen 45L: What y'all'll like

Hp Omen 45l Hero HP Omen 45L with Omen 27c display and HyperX keyboard and mouse. Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central

On paper, the Omen 45L is like to the smaller Omen 40L save for the new Cryo Sleeping accommodation, which sits atop the Omen's chassis. The Omen 45L also has three front fans instead of two in the Omen 40L.

The Cryo Chamber is a patented design that puts the included CPU liquid outside the main chassis. The concept is simple: Being external, the radiator draws in only cooler air instead of warmed air from inside the computer. HP claims that putting the radiator outside of the PC can reduce CPU temperature past 6 degrees Celsius compared to the Omen 30L under similar conditions. The result? Cheers to HP's piece of cake-to-use Omen Gaming Hub software, you lot can achieve higher overclocking power.

Hp Omen 45l Cryo Chamber HP's patented Cryo Sleeping room houses a total AIO CPU radiator outside the chief chassis. Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Fundamental

That chamber is removable and, perhaps more than importantly, universal. That means you tin install whatever AIO radiator you want (it ships with a 240mm, dual-fan i, but it supports 120mm, 140mm, 240mm, 280mm, and 360mm up to 58mm thick). Yous can also safely carry the Omen 45L past the chamber, which is fun.

Category	HP Omen 45L
Motherboard	MicroATX (upward to total ATX)
PSU	Libation Primary 800W 80 Plus Golden ATX
Processor	Up to AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Upwardly to Intel 12th Gen Core i9-12900K
Graphics	Upward to AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (24GB/GDDR6x)
Memory	HyperX Fury Up to 64GB (4x 16GB) DDR4-3733 aRGB
Storage	Western Digital WD_Black Up to 4TB (2x 2TB) PCIe four.0 SSD 1TB 7200 HDD
DirectStorage	Yes
Expandable storage	2 x Thou.two PCIe Gen4 SSD 2 x 2.five-inch SATA SSD / 2 ten HDD
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6.0 Bluetooth 5.1 Ethernet
Ports	Front: 2 ten SuperSpeed USB Type-A / 2 ten USB ii.0 Type-A Rear: 2 x USB ii.0 Type-A / 2 x SuperSpeed USB Type-A (5Gbps & 10 Gbps) / two x SuperSpeed USB Type-C (5Gbps & x Gbps)
Sound	Front: three.5mm mic / 3.5mm headphones
Fans	Front end: Up to 3 x 120mm system fans Rear: 1 x 120mm exhaust fan Cryo Chamber: Upward to iii ten 120mm fans
Cooling	Up to 360mm CPU liquid-libation radiator 50mm VRM heatsink with copper pipes Shin-Etsu MicroSI Farthermost Thermal Paste
RGB	4x RGB zones 4x aRGB zones

HP doesn't choose sides between AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel. The Omen 45L supports up to a Cadre i9-12900K and Z690 chipset, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 "BFGPU," or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT. The chassis supports upwardly to a 380mm-long GPU ensuring more than futureproofing. The motherboard is only a microATX, but it tin have up to a full ATX board.

Hp Omen 45l Cpu Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central

Other fans include three 120mm in the front end supporting Addressable RGB (aRGB) and i 120mm fan in the rear for exhaust. The 50mm CPU heatsink uses a copper piping with VRM thermal pads.

The components used are not generic in a recurring theme with the Omen 45L. HP uses highly respected parts from Cooler Master, including the fans, power supply (800W, fourscore PLUS Gold), and radiator. The same goes for the RAM, which is upwardly to 64GB of aRGB HyperX DDR4-3733 (HP at present owns HyperX), and Western Digital WD_Black SSDs. Fifty-fifty the thermal paste used is premium: Shin-Etsu MicroSi Extreme Thermal Paste (HP claims a 16% improvement in thermal conductivity and 20% greater thermal impedance).

The entire case for the Omen 45L is very flexible and super impressive. It has tool-less access for three sides, and side encompass locks to keep everything in place. The front bezel and left sides are tempered glass with a metal console on the right. In that location is an independent RGB/aRGB lighting control daughterboard to add more accessories without whatsoever challenges. There are too two grit filters (front 360mm; magnetic 120mm PSU) for easy cleaning.

HP's Omen Gaming Hub software is as well outstanding. You lot can overclock the Omen 45L, bench, and test information technology all with unmarried clicks. If the system locks up, it automatically restarts and returns to default significant in that location is no way to spiral it up or damage the arrangement. The software lets you customize the aRGB/RGB lighting, including support for 3rd-political party lighting solutions like Razer'southward Chroma. In that location are further optimizations, including networking where the Omen 45L tin use both Wi-Fi and Ethernet while prioritizing data traffic based on importance, e.grand., gaming/streaming.

The aRGB/RGB lighting is plentiful with four aRGB zones (3x forepart fans, HyperX retentivity) and four RGB zones (front end diamond logo, interior light strip, CPU cooler, and an extra zone that is user upgradeable). If you dislike PC lighting, turn information technology off or prepare it all to a neutral white for a more professional look.

Hp Omen 45l Rearports Rear ports on HP Omen 45L. Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central

Performance is excellent. The 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD from Western Digital is blazing fast at half dozen,800MB/s for sequential read and five,200MB/due south for write. The RTX 3090 is, obviously, the fastest GPU we have tested and so far. The Core i9 is one of the fastest nosotros take tested, although our custom-congenital system using an MSI Z690 board edged it out on multi-core (Cinebench 23, Geekbench 5). However, on PCMark x, which measures overall operation, the Omen 45L merely slightly trounce custom systems when overclocked.

Fan racket is most inaudible when using the PC for day-to-solar day tasks and even gaming. Users tin can set the fan speeds manually or with presets, including a tranquility mode. Under farthermost CPU load (Cinebench for ten minutes), the Omen 45L peaked at 63 decibels, which is respectable though just above our reference system using Corsair iCUE cooling (AIO plus 6 fans) and iCUE case at 56 decibels. Simply during gameplay, where the GPU is the primary driver, fan noise was around 46 decibels and was barely noticed.

Speaking of gaming, an overclocked Core i9 and RTX 3090 with 64GB of DDR4 RAM is nearly the best you tin can do today. On Forza Horizon five with graphics completely maxed out, the Omen 45L easily clocked betwixt 101 and 140 frames per second (FPS) when playing at QHD (2560x1440).

Finally, port selection is solid merely limited due to the smaller microATX motherboard. HP rightly moves many of them to the front of the Omen 45L for like shooting fish in a barrel access: 2x SuperSpeed Type A, 2x Type-A 2.0, and separate 3.5mm headphone and mic inputs in the front end. There are 2x Blazon-A 2.0, 2x Type-A SuperSpeed, and 2x SuperSpeed Type-C, along with Ethernet in the rear.

HP Omen 45L: What you won't like

Hp Omen 45l Sidepanel The wiring is OK. Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central

There's not much to dislike well-nigh the Omen 45L, but there are ever ways to improve things.

The cabling is all-black with grommets for hiding, but it'due south withal non the cleanest-looking organisation. Of course, being and then flexible, users can meliorate upon it with aftermarket accessories.

Performance is excellent, but not extraordinary. Our top-tier MSI MPG Z690 Carbon Wi-Fi ATX lath with the aforementioned processor had significantly higher multi-core functioning (non-overclocked) than the Omen 45L when overclocked (53x processor core ratio), with the only difference beingness DDR5 RAM with the MSI.

While super great looking (and theoretically, brilliant), the HP's Cryo Chamber adds just over 4 inches in peak to the case making the Omen 45L quite tall.

While the Omen 45L can support a full ATX motherboard, HP uses a microATX, which is fine for most people, but limits some expansion options and port selection. For instance, there is no Thunderbolt 4 port.

Ane could lament no DDR5 RAM, simply this is no big bargain. For one, DDR5 is in very brusque supply right now and astonishingly high priced, which would have fabricated this arrangement hundreds of dollars more than expensive and harder to obtain. Plus, while the performance with DDR5 is very good, it's currently inconsequential in near tests.

HP Omen 45L: Competition

HP Omen 30L is smaller, more affordable, simply nevertheless outstanding. Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Fundamental

Competition for the Omen 45L varies depending on your level of commitment. At that place is still no substitute in 2022 for merely building your ain organisation with handpicked parts. But between the time for enquiry, ordering, assembly, and testing (particularly if you lot're a novice) such an approach is non-viable for people who just want to game.

For those who like the Omen 45L's expect just don't demand that much ability (or overclocking extremes), the Omen 30L or 40L are both worthwhile alternatives. The 30L is especially compact while however delivering exceptional operation and design and was our top pick (earlier the 45L came along).

Dell's Alienware Aurora R13 is more striking in design, appealing to those who desire extreme gamer looks. With multiple configuration options and price points, the Aurora R13 is popular for a reason.

Moving on to boutique suppliers who build their own gaming rig, CyberPowerPC, which has been around for ages, has its Gamer Master series, which is more budget-friendly with mid-range components.

For ultimate configurability, we like CLX, who can build insane liquid-cooled systems with every pick nether the planet. While not cheap, CLX is the best pick for those who want a pure custom system but don't have the time (or energy) to do it themselves. The CLX Ra series is peculiarly fascinating and offers the best-looking gaming PC we have come beyond.

You can meet our other picks and recommendations in our all-time gaming PC guide.

HP Omen 45L: Should you buy it?

Hp Omen 45l Hero Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central

Yous should purchase this if ...

Yous want a high-speed gaming PC that tin can overclock
You want a gaming PC with premium, name-make components
Y'all like pre-built but desire the flexibility to upgrade afterwards yourself
You want a gaming PC that doesn't scream "gamer"
You're a creator who wants a powerful, simply prissy-looking, rig

You shouldn't buy this if ...

Y'all don't plan to overlock or game every bit a daily hobby
You just don't like the design
You desire a compact gaming PC

The tension betwixt DIY PC builds and boutique PC makers similar CLX is challenged past HP. In the by, pre-congenital systems from HP (and Dell or Lenovo) offered convenience and value over quality as these companies often used not-premium, no-label parts with terrible aesthetics and cabling. Or worse, they were proprietary designs limiting upgradeability and futureproofing.

HP has been bucking this tendency with its Omen desktop line for a few years. The Omen 45L is the nigh extreme version of that ethos, and I'm hither for it. As someone in their 40s, the Omen 45L is a gamer PC, only it is as well mature and professional looking. I also appreciate all the name-brand components being used, as I know the company isn't cut corners. Cooler Master, HyperX, and Western Digital? A heir-apparent can have confidence in these brands.

Sure, the Cryo Chamber seems gimmicky, but it's an ingenious design. Plus, it looks darn cool. Moving the AIO radiator outside the chassis is a bright movement. And HP knows this, which is why it plans to sell simply this case solitary so DIYers tin can leverage its abilities (move over, Corsair). Plus, if yous call back the Cryo Sleeping accommodation is dumb, merely get the Omen 40L.

Hp Omen 45l Desk Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central

And with the single-push button presses to remove the forepart and side panels, upgrading or tinkering with the guts of the Omen 45L is encouraged. Heck, buy the cheaper base system and toss in a ameliorate CPU, GPU, more RAM, or add storage when you accept greenbacks later. HP doesn't care. The process volition take less than five minutes and will allow you grow with the organization.

Let'due south also recognize that HP lets gamers choose betwixt AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA for core components. And even overclocking, a typically intense and worrying endeavor, is made stupid-simple thanks to HP's clever and straightforward software.

Like the Omen 30L, the Omen 45L sets the bar for desktop gaming PCs. The simply existent complaint I can think of is if you simply don't similar how information technology looks, merely this is hardly a polarizing design. It is classy, uses premium parts, is effortless to apply, easy to configure, uncomplicated to upgrade, and the pricing is competitive.

The other business organisation is that if you go the elevation-tier, maxed-out system, a monitor is needed to match the performance. HP recommends its new Omen 27c gaming display with a 240Hz refresh rate, QHD resolution (2560x1440)/HDR400, and 1000R curved blueprint, which we used for this review.

Should you lot get the Omen 45L? Definitely, just only if you're a hardcore gamer (or programmer/content creator) who wants to push button extremes in overclocking. If you don't programme to overclock, just go the Omen 40L or Omen 30L, like systems without the Cryo Chamber.

While the Omen 45L even so tin can't beat the satisfaction of edifice your gaming rig, it certain narrows the gap, and I call back that'south HP'south just intention here. If and then, mission accomplished.

Omen 45l Reco

HP Omen 45L

Lesser line: The Omen 45L should meet the demands of about customizers and PC enthusiasts who want proper noun-brand parts, configurability, upgradeability, and to push extremes in functioning. The unique Cryo Bedchamber is a fun and unique HP innovation.

Daniel Rubino

Daniel Rubino is the Executive Editor of Windows Central. He has been covering Microsoft hither since 2007 back when this site was called WMExperts (and afterward Windows Phone Fundamental). His interests include Windows, Surface, laptops, and modern computing. Follow him on Twitter: @daniel_rubino.