The new HP Omen 15 gaming laptop with Ryzen 5000 is here, so let’s find out how well
it performs in 13 different games, compare it with other laptops and test out screen
response time.
These are the specs of my Omen 15, I’ve got the Ryzen 7 5800H and Nvidia RTX 3070
with 16 gigs of memory in dual channel.
Mine has a 1080p 144Hz screen, but you can pay extra for 1440p, and there’s also a
cheaper Ryzen 5 and RTX 3060 configuration too, and you can find updated prices for the
different configurations with the links down in the description.
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and now back to the Omen 15.
Unfortunately the HP website doesn’t appear to list GPU power limits, however I found
that my RTX 3070 ran consistently at 100 watts, and this was the same in a GPU only load,
or in a GPU plus GPU stress test, so it doesn’t appear to be changing based on dynamic boost
despite the Nvidia control panel software saying that dynamic boost is active - so 100
watts is not a full power 3070.
Unfortunately there’s no way of disabling optimus for a speed boost with the Ryzen model,
so there’s no G-Sync.
It does have FreeSync, but with a 40 to 60Hz range it’s only really going to be useful
in the more demanding games.
The Omen software lets you change performance modes and adjust fan speed.
I’ve done all testing with the highest performance mode and max fans for best results.
Alright, so we’ll start out by testing the Omen 15 in 13 different games at all setting
levels, then afterwards I’ll compare the gaming performance against other laptops and
check out screen response time, or just use those timestamps below if you get bored of
the graphs!
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little China with the street kid life path.
60 FPS was still possible with ultra settings, and about the same with the RT medium preset
with DLSS set to quality, while almost 100 FPS was possible with low settings if you
prefer frame rate over visuals.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the games benchmark.
Max settings was close to 60 FPS, but it’s worth considering that the XMG Neo 15 with
same CPU and GPU combination was doing better than this even at the higher 1440p resolution.
Again I’ll compare the Omen 15 against other gaming laptops a bit later in this video.
Call of Duty Warzone was tested with either all settings at minimum or maximum, as it
doesn’t have predefined setting presets.
Still above 100 FPS with max settings with just a small 9% gain with everything at minimum.
Control was tested with ray tracing on in the green bars, which is why it’s the lowest,
then with ray tracing plus DLSS in the red bars, which offers a significant improvement.
The purple bars represent default settings with no ray tracing or DLSS, but at higher
settings you might as well just use DLSS and ray tracing as performance was similar while
looking better.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was tested with the game's benchmark, and max settings was
offering us 69 FPS, nice, while minimum was close to 100 FPS.
Watch Dogs Legion was also tested with the games benchmark, and the result at ultra settings
was nice here too, again around 100 FPS was possible in this test with lower settings.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge.
This game doesn’t need a high frame rate, and low settings was just below 60 FPS, but
I thought it was still going quite well with high settings too.
Battlefield V was tested in campaign mode, and I’ll use this game to compare against
some other laptops soon, but more than 100 FPS is a decent result at max settings.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark tool, again above 100
FPS at max settings sounds nice, but relative to other RTX 3070 laptops it’s not super
impressive, as we’ll see shortly.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature.
This is more of an esports test, so higher frame rates are expected, though optimus often
starts becoming more of a bottleneck due to the processor iGPU with more frames, but regardless
an average frame rate above the screen’s refresh rate at max shows this game is running
well.
CS:GO is another esports title, and this one in particular is one I’ve found to see big
gains with optimus disabled due to the high frame rates that the test can hit.
If optimus could be disabled, I’d expect more like 400 FPS best case, but in any case
300 plus is still not an issue in this test.
Rainbow Six Siege also hits high frame rates without issue, and there wasn’t any difference
between high and ultra settings so I suppose might as well just max it out given even the
1% lows are higher than the screen’s refresh rate.
The Witcher 3 is an older game that I still test so that you can compare with my older
videos.
No problem running maxed out, though there are fairly big gains comparatively using high
settings, where even the 1% low almost matches the average FPS of ultra.
Now let’s find out how well this configuration of HP Omen 15 compares against other laptops,
but use these results as a rough guide only, as they were tested at different times with
different drivers.
I’ve tested Battlefield 5 in campaign mode at ultra settings, and the Omen 15 is highlighted
in red.
The result isn’t bad or anything, but compared to the 3070 in the Intel based Aero 15, well
that was reaching 11% higher average frame rate in this test, while the Neo 15 with higher
GPU power limit was 21% higher.
It’s only just behind the 3080 in the ASUS G15 just above it, but both are capped to
100 watts and don’t let you disable optimus.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark tool with the highest
setting preset, and the Omen 15 is sitting in the same position relative to the same
laptops we just looked at.
It’s the lowest result I’ve got from an RTX 3070 laptop so far, but although not as
good as others, it’s not like this is bad performance or anything, it’s just that
you might be able to get better performance from a different laptop with the same GPU
- it all comes down to cost difference.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the games benchmark tool at max settings.
The Omen 15 moves down a bit in this test, still around 100 FPS and realistically there
isn’t too much difference between it and some of the 2070 Max-Q and 2070 Super Max-Q
laptops from last generation such as the Aorus 15 and Legion 7i just above, however those
are Intel based and it does seem that Intel based laptops seem to have an edge over Ryzen
in this specific test.
I’ve also connected an external monitor and retested tombraider, and we’re able
to get more than a 9% boost to average FPS with this simple change which helps demonstrate
the performance we’d be getting if the laptop let us disable optimus, as using the external
screen bypasses the iGPU.
Overall gaming performance is decent, which is what we would expect from an RTX 3070 laptop,
it’s just not doing quite as well as expected for a 3070 laptop, and that’s probably mostly
in part because it doesn’t let you disable optimus, though this might matter less if
you get the 1440p screen option - again links to different configurations of the Omen 15
can be found below.
Now let’s check out screen response time.
There aren’t any panel overdrive modes available, so by default my 144Hz screen had an 8.35ms
average grey-to-grey response time, below the 6.9 for transitions to occur within the
refresh window.
There’s a link in the description if you need an explanation on what these numbers
mean.
It’s not doing that well when compared against others, but it’s only slightly behind the
LG panel in last year's Ryzen Omen 15.
The same AUO panel was used in the Intel based HP Pavilion 15, though that one had a slightly
better result, but within margin of error for screens with the same model.
There’s a lot more on the HP Omen 15 that I’ll cover in the upcoming full review video,
so make sure you’re subscribed for that one as well as for future laptop videos like
this one, and come and join us in Discord and get behind the scenes videos by supporting
the channel on Patreon.