HP refreshes its Omen 16 gaming laptop with improved cooling | Engadget

HP is sprucing up its gaming laptop lineup with an upgrade for an existing model and the addition of a new system. The company is refreshing the Omen 16, which it introduced almost exactly a year ago, with thermal upgrades.

The cooling optimizations include a fifth heat pipe and fourth outflow vent. HP said it found in testing that these can reduce GPU hinge and bottom SSD temperatures by three percent and 14 percent, respectively, while making the laptop five percent quieter. As such, GPU and CPU performance has been boosted, the company claims.

A Dynamic Power feature in the Omen Gaming Hub can help with that as well. HP says that, using a built-in IR thermopile sensor, it can monitor CPU and GPU capacity in real time and allocate power as needed. Not only will this optimize in-game framerates, according to the company, it should boost CPU performance by up to 36 percent compared with the 2021 Omen 16.

The laptop can house up to an Intel Core i9-12900H series CPU or AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX Mobile Processor. On the graphics front, the Omen 16 will support up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti or AMD Ryzen RX 6650M. You’ll also be able to trick out the machine with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and up to a 2TB SSD.

There are multiple display options as well, topping out at a 1440p 165Hz IPS screen with 3ms response time and 100 percent sRGB color gamut. Other features include a keyboard with per-key RGB lighting and a white color option for the shell.

Engadget Senior Reporter Sam Rutherford got some hands-on time with the new Omen 16:

Meanwhile, HP is expanding its mid-tier Victus line (which was also introduced last year) with a new model. The Victus 15 is joining the 16-inch version and a desktop system. Display options include a 1080p 144Hz screen with Eyesafe low-blue light tech.

You can have up to an Intel Core i7-12700H or AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU with 16GB of RAM. On the GPU side, the Victus 15 supports up to a GeForce RTX 3050 Ti or Radeon RX 6500M. You can also have up to 1TB of SSD storage.

HP said it also made improvements to the thermals with this model. The Victus 15 has four-way airflow and a dual heat pipe design. The company claims these provide a seven percent overall airflow improvement and a 146 percent inlet vent area improvement over the previous model.

The Victus 15 will be available in three color options: mica silver, performance blue and ceramic white. It will have a standard backlit keyboard as well.

Both of the laptops come with Omen Gaming Hub software, which has a new optimization feature that can free up system resources and make adjustments to low-level operating system settings to max out performance.

The systems will both be available this summer from HP’s website and other retailers. The Omen 16 will start at $1,200, while the Victus 15 will have a base price of $800.