HP Omen 40L review: this gaming PC packs a 1080p punch

Our Verdict

The HP Omen 40L gives you your money’s worth, with respectable 1080p performance and plenty of headroom for higher frame rates if you dial back the graphics settings or enable DLSS 3 with frame generation. It’s no monster, but it’s elegant and up to the task.

Reasons to buy

• Nvidia DLSS 3 support
• Good 1080p gaming performance
• Attractive, accessible design

Reasons to avoid

• Struggles with ray tracing without DLSS
• VRAM limit will start to hurt in latest games
• MSRP is overpriced

With its demonic name and glowing RGB lighting, the HP Omen 40L looks like a menacing gaming rig from the outside. Inside, you’ll also find a solid gaming PC with modest specs, a mid-size footprint, and a temptingly low price. This model comes running on the latest AMD Ryzen 7000-series CPUs and either AMD Radeon RX 6000-series graphics or, as tested here, Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series graphics.

With a lot of glass to show off its components, the HP Omen 40L also looks a little more glamorous than some of its cost-conscious competitors vying to be the best gaming PC in this price range, with some attractive RGB lighting visible behind its glass panel.

The HP Omen 40L is geared up for gamers looking to get all the hardware they need to dive into the latest games with medium-to-high settings, while enjoying a little bit of flair thanks to some RGB lighting. After a couple of weeks of testing and playing games on this PC, I can confirm that the HP Omen 40L offers decent value for gamers who want a new rig but don’t know how to build a gaming PC themselves.

Specs

The HP Omen 40L isn’t a staggering system. It doesn’t feature the highest-end components, and instead goes for a middle-of-the-road approach. In our test system, the Ryzen 7 7700 CPU provides eight cores based on AMD’s strong Zen 4 architecture, which are well suited for gaming and streaming, and boost to up to 5.3GHz.

That comes paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (8GB) graphics card. It’s not the fastest in the family, and the 8GB of VRAM can start to limit you if you want to enable all of the highest graphics settings. However, for 1080p and 1440p gaming, and especially with older games, it can get by.

The bigger factor for the 4060 Ti is that it also gets to tap into the Nvidia DLSS 3 suite of technology for upscaling and Frame Generation, letting it make up for a lack of raw performance with some impressive AI tricks that seriously boost frame rates in games that support them.

It’s not too surprising to see HP go with a B650 (AMD’s cheaper but still capable chipset) motherboard here, and it’s a first-party design. I was a little disappointed to see that it’s micro-ATX board, though, as that limits upgrades down the road if you want to add multiple PCIe cards.

Worse, though, I found that the DDR5 memory wasn’t correctly set up out of the box, with it running at 4,800MHz instead of the 5,200MHz advertised. It’s a simple issue to correct in BIOS, but someone buying a prebuilt system may not even know to check. You also only get 16GB of RAM, which is on the low end in 2024, and it’s only more shameful that HP even provides the option to get a configuration with just 8GB. On the plus side, the Kingston Fury RGB RAM installed in this machine does look fantastic.

One bonus hidden in the specs, though, is that 80 Plus Gold rating for the 600W power supply (or 800W on higher-spec models). You’re lucky to find out almost anything about the power supply in a pre-built system from a big OEM like HP, but knowing that this system can make efficient use of its power is great news. It doesn’t have pretty sleeved cabling, but HP has done a reasonable job of tidying the black wires out of the way, and the PSU itself has a decent spec for the price.

Features

You won’t find many cutting-edge features on the HP Omen 40L. It’s a touch behind the curve but it’s not lagging too far behind either. Wi-Fi 6 with 2×2 multiplexing can provide a very fast and stable wireless connection, and most people’s home internet still isn’t taking full advantage of this, so the lack of Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 doesn’t hurt too much. The 1Gbps Ethernet port is also plenty for most.

None of the USB ports are up to the latest standards either. There are a few USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps ports, but most are simple 5Gbps ports or even older USB 2.0 ports. With standards for 20Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2×2) and 40Gbps (USB4) ports, it’s a little disappointing to see only dated options. At least there’s a good quantity of them, with plenty of USB available on both the front panel and rear of the desktop, plus audio connections at both ends.

HP offers a one-year limited hardware warranty. That includes chat support for the whole year and phone support for the first 90 days. It doesn’t sound all that impressive, and HP doesn’t offer a lot of insight into what is actually covered by the warranty, though provides plenty of detail on what isn’t. Disappointingly, I also found that the Trustpilot reviews of HP’s service and warranty are also largely unfavorable.

Design

I like the HP Omen 40L’s attractive design. It comes fitted with a smokey glass front and side panel, showing off the components and RGB lighting on two intake fans, the CPU cooler, the RAM heatsinks, and the glowing HP Omen logo on the front of the machine. While both the RGB lighting and glass are attractive, they have some small downsides. The lighting loves to kick in from time to time, even while the computer is asleep, and it’s very bright in a dark room. The glass panels are also prone to showing fingerprints.

With glass covering the front of the system, HP had to build two thin vertical channels into the frame to let the intake fans actually pull some clean air into the system, and these fans are covered by a fine mesh filter. Both the front panel and filter can pop off without needing any tools, and the filter section extends above the two fans, with enough space to provide airflow to a third fan if necessary.

Users seeking to optimize airflow could install a third 120mm fan and simply pop off the front cover when the performance is needed. What’s more, since the illuminated Omen logo is powered by a POGO connector, no manual disconnecting and rewiring is necessary if you remove the front panel.

Meanwhile, the top of the case features a slick lattice that stands out a little more than the basic series of pinholes some cases use, and also provides some ventilation. The top also includes two buttons that release the side panels for quick access to the insides of the system. The front-panel ports are inset and angled as well, so small drives and dongles plugged in here don’t awkwardly stick out from the top of the system. It makes for a clean aesthetic.

The cooling of the system isn’t all that cleverly set up, although it does keep the HP Omen 40L sounding fairly hushed even under load. The two intake fans sit low in the system. The bottom one effectively channels its air into a lower chamber that won’t give the graphics card or CPU much of its fresh air.

Also, since the power supply is also largely isolated, this fan won’t be doing much. Meanwhile, the upper fan sends its air straight back toward the graphics card. This leaves the CPU not getting a direct stream of fresh air from outside the system. That said, there is an exhaust fan behind the CPU cooler that can help ensure that at least its waste heat will be sucked out of the system.

Beyond this, the system is fairly normal in terms of design, with the bottom chamber hiding away a lot of cables, with room to hold a few extra drives. What’s more, the whole case isn’t obnoxiously large, with dimensions that come in at a little trim compared to many mid-tower cases (though certainly not as small as you can go with a micro-ATX motherboard). Oddly, despite what the name would have you think, the system is almost 45 liters in volume.

Benchmarks

Unless you use DLSS, you won’t be maxing out games with ray tracing and getting high frame rates on the HP Omen 40L, at least not the latest AAA games, but the PC does a respectable job keeping up. In Cyberpunk 2077, the RT Ultra mode is a seriously demanding setting, and the HP Omen 40L struggles to run it smoothly without DLSS.

However, it just manages to get near the 45fps average threshold we’d consider acceptable. It falls to a poor ~25fps average for 1440p though. Still, that’s just a starting point for gamers. Knowing that the system can muster that level of performance with settings virtually maxed out just means that you can boost performance by dialing back settings. Just disabling ray tracing, you can see frame rates leap (to over 90fps in our testing), while still being able to enjoy high details.

With the RTX 40-series, though, you can also tap into DLSS 3 Frame Generation, which boosted the average frame rate to a smooth 71fps at 1080p. This setting can apply to games whether ray tracing is enabled or not, so there’s even further potential to increase smoothness. For example, it took our non-ray-traced gameplay up to an average of 135fps.

F1 23 wasn’t quite as demanding, and showed that the HP Omen 40L is up to the task with more modest tests. With Ultra High settings in this game, the PC kept up an average of 68.5fps at 1080p with lows of just 59fps. Even 1440p was in the acceptable range at an average of 50fps. Plus, of course, the game looks immaculate with Ultra High settings. Gamers who crave more speed simply have to dial back the graphical details a little to bump up their frame rate.

Less graphically demanding games also get a leg up. The Ryzen 7 7700 CPU is plenty competent with this GPU at its side, and the two components helped the system run Total War: Warhammer 3 at an average of nearly 102fps with Ultra settings at 1080p. That’s excellent performance for smooth gameplay. Even 1440p was attainable with an average of 66.5fps and lows only dipping to 51fps.

The CPU on deck may not be a top dog in the market, but it’s got enough might to ensure it’s not a bottleneck for the GPU. It scored 981 points in Cinebench R24 and, perhaps more importantly, showed consistent performance. Despite the tight opening at the front of the HP Omen 40L, the CPU didn’t seem to choke and run into major thermal throttling that would diminish performance.

Performance was consistent in 3DMark’s Time Spy and CPU Profile tests as well. It might seem like a waste to have an eight-core CPU that’s not working as hard as the GPU while gaming, but that extra horsepower can step in to help with tasks like game streaming without seeing your frame rates take a nosedive as a result.

Price

The HP Omen 40L has a starting price of $1,299.99, though that bumps up to $1,823.99 for the configuration on test here. You can get away without the $140 CPU upgrade, though, and the Ryzen 5 7600 version will be fine if you want to save some money.

However, we advise avoiding the base spec version, which only has 8GB of RAM, an RTX 4060, and 512GB of storage. That combination, especially the memory, is insufficient for a modern gaming PC. Fortunately, the retail price for desktops from major OEMs proves largely nebulous. At the time of writing, our configuration was going for just $1,479.99 at Best Buy, which is far more palatable given the hardware it includes.

Kitting out a similar system with individually purchased parts, and then assembling them yourself, will cost a similar amount of money, or possibly more depending on the specific components you choose. It also entails PC building and configuring skills that aren’t for everyone.

At its street price, the HP Omen 40L provides decent value, not bearing any major faults from its design and looking attractive. HP also still provides easy access to the internals in case you want to make a few upgrades of your own, such as adding more storage or memory.

Verdict

The HP Omen 40L is an attractive gaming PC if you’re on a somewhat tight budget. It has a reserved design that springs to life with internal RGB lighting when it wakes up. It doesn’t offer all the cutting-edge features found on a high-end computer, but it’s not missing a lot when it comes to quality-of-life, utility features like fast Wi-Fi, and an abundance of ports.

The performance it offers also enables you to max out settings on all the latest games at 1080p, as long as you enable DLSS, and it can provide smooth gameplay where ray tracing isn’t involved without DLSS. At its MSRP, the value isn’t great, especially with just an RTX 4060 Ti, which is held back both by raw performance and limited VRAM. However, if you can buy this PC at the current $1,479.99 price (or lower), that value is hard to beat, even if you were to build your PC with similar specs.

Alternatives

If the HP Omen 40L isn’t quite right for your needs, check out our full guide to the best gaming PC, where we run you through all the best options with a range of specs and prices to suit your needs.