Just a few years ago, gaming PC manufacturers were experimenting with some wild form factors. HP OMEN‘s rebellious phase culminated in their OMEN X angled-cube design, a surprisingly ergonomic and useful machine. Since then, PCs and their accessories have become a lot more refined in their visual design and have collided somewhat with regular desktops. HP OMEN 30L approaches a middle-ground between a gaming machine and an elegant high-end PC.
Make-Under
A simple-but-striking design that embraces the clean lines, minimalism and functionalism of the 2020s, 30L is gorgeous.
The front glass plate sports just a single, plain OMEN diamond logo and an LED that frames the front fan. While turned off, it looks like an obsidian slab mounted aface the PC with the fan almost invisible in this situation.
The top and select panels on other sides feature a triangular shaped grille. This macro detailing is effective in adding visual intrigue to the machine without overloading it.
The LED logo and fan ring are wholly customisable with a lot of promo material showing a deep, dangerous red. The machine offers a steely white by default.
The outer case is roughly half-aluminium, half-glass. On the left hand-side as one faces the PC, there is a huge glass window. This can easily be swung open with a quick access button. The innards being this exposed will delight some while others would prefer their cables hidden.
Atop the machine there is a small tray with two angled USB 3.0, headphone/mic combo and mic input. It’s a matted plastic that suits the rest of the case and doesn’t stand out from the . Behind this is a large perforated plate with that triangular grille detailing. Users end up dealing with and looking at the top of the machine most often so the angled port bay and particular aesthetic effort here are welcome.
Easy Access
That push-button glass door allows incredibly quick access to the motherboard and most of its components. As noted, the glass shows the innards. Innards which are a little untidy compared to HP OMEN’s previous efforts at showing their components.
Some of this is a side-effect of HP’s commendable decision to furnish their 30L line with off-the-shelf components rather than mix in some bespoke parts. The benefits of straightforward upgrades and a world of choice are obviously worth this minor drawback.
Being a mid-size tower, it is slightly laterally cramped. HP OMEN 30L’s slim, tall design might make reaching the motherboard tricky depending on what you are attempting to swap out. Manoeuvring some extra RAM into the two free slots will be easy but replacing a GPU will not.
Performance Sweet Spot
You could fetch the CPU (€450), GPU (€700), 512 GB solid state storage (€70) w/ 2TB 7200rpm hard disk (€70) and RAM (€150) for around €1,440. Throw in an equivalent motherboard, PSU and a case of this quality and you aren’t far off the MRRP of this pre-built unit.
At its launch in 2019, our NVidia GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB competed in the lower leagues of the high-end video card race, it’s somewhat of a weak link in a decent PC at this price in 2021.
Watch Dogs Legion reliably hits 60 frames per second at 1080p with settings on ‘Very High’ aside from RT on low and DLSS disabled.
Rainbow Six Siege auto-selects Ultra settings at 4K output. The actual rendering resolution at this setting is 2872×1456 due to the render scaling factor being set to 25. For a competitive shooter, the choice of settings is probably too high for this build. In regular online play, 120fps minimum is a better target than the 100 minimum that Ubi selected for the HP OMEN 30L GT13-0044na.
A-Civ Test
The CPU is capable enough to handle most of what the GPU can outside of some limited cases. Ray tracing needs to stay on a ‘low settings’ with more ambitious applications of RT from 2020/21 too much to ask and the CPU is mostly the cause for this.
I like to test CPUs by hosting a two-player networked game of 2005’s Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword with Neoteric World mod installed. Our Intel Core i7-10900K can just barely get to the end of a game before turns become excruciating with seven starting AI civs on a ‘Huge’ map. That’s both a testament to complexity of the game/mod pairing and the slowdown in raw CPU progress since then.
Gaming Flub
HP Gaming Hub will be divisive. Some may appreciate the nigh-on all-in-one utility. But it’s more likely that its massive footprint and stubborn refusal to be closed will be a nuisance. The excessive resource use and the lack of obvious paths to delete or permanently remove the programme renders the otherwise useful suite closer to bloatware than one would like.
Oddly enough, OMEN Light Studio isn’t included out of the box. Users will need to fetch it from the menu of the Gaming Hub For all of its preloaded mass, it managed to omit that important one.
HP’s own suite of business and networking apps are here. On a gaming PC these come across as unnecessary and effectively bloatware. While business clients may get some use from some of these apps, there’s no need to install them on OMEN gear.
Specifications
| Model reviewed: | HP OMEN 30L GT13-0044na |
| Motherboard: | Dorado the OC (…don’t call it that…) |
| CPU: – Speed: – Cores: – CPU Cache: | Intel Core i7 – 10700K 3.8 GHz base frequency, up to 5.0 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 8 16 MB L3 cache |
| RAM: Memory Slots: | HyperX XMP RGB – 16 GB 2x8GB 4 slots total, 2 free |
| Graphics: – Engine clock: – Memory speed: | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (8 GB) – HDMI resolution: 3,840 x 2,160 x 24 bpp at 60 Hz – DisplayPort resolution: DP 1.3/1.4 ready/7680 x 4320 at 120 Hz 1650 MHz (Base) / 1815 MHz (Boost) 15.5 Gbps |
| PCIe: | One Gen 3 x16 |
| External connector: | One PCIe 2 x4 (8-pin) and One PCIe 2 x3 (6-pin) |
| Networking (Wireless): | Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2×2) and Bluetooth 5 combo – Interface: M.2 – Transmission standards: 802.11ax – Dual band: 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz – Max speed: 2.4 Gbps – Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) support: Yes |
| Networking (LAN): | 1000BASE-T – Realtek RTL8118 ASH-CG – Data transfer speeds: up to 10/100/1000 Mb/s – Transmission standards: 1000BASE-T Ethernet |
| Hard drives: | – 512 GB, PCIe NVMe M.2 Solid State – 2TB, 7,200rpm, SATA |
| Power Supply: | Internal PSU, 750W |
| I/O: | Rear: – RJ-45 Ethernet port – Audio ports (line-in/line-out/microphone) – Two USB 2.0 Type-A port – Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports (5 Gbps signaling rate) – One USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port (10 Gbps signaling rate) – Two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (10 Gbps signaling rate) Front: – Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports (5 Gbps signaling rate) – Audio ports (microphone in/mic+headphone combo) |
| Case Dimensions: | 421mm (L) x 165mm (W) x 433mm (H) 16.61 in x 6.50 in x 17.05 in |
| Weight: | 12.9kgs (28.5 lbs) |
| Review Model Price: | €1,999 |
| Range Price: | €1,200-€3,499 |
Lots to Love
Aesthetically pleasing, well built and capably specced, our review model HP OMEN 30L is a lot of gaming PC for under two grand. The range is huge so that functional but fine-looking case can be yours no matter what your budget is.
