HP Omen Desktop Review: A mid-range pre-built gaming tower

[sac39507]

Who, in this day and age?? How about nine out of every ten people you meet in your life (not just your circle of friends). You make it sound like it's as easy and common knowledge as tying one's shoes. Don't assume that because you can do something, everyone should be able to.

The reviewed model here is hardly "twice the price" and is actually a very good value: I just priced out this system on Newegg and it came to a little over $1,600. So throw in the labor cost to assemble it and the shipping costs to distribute it, and it's actually a very good value. And YES, I know that HP doesn't pay Newegg prices for their parts, but consumers do.

No one says you have to pay full price for parts from a retailer like Newegg. If you were a budget minded person who shops around you could save significantly. Saying "twice the price" was just an exaggeration to make my point of saying it would be cheaper to build it yourself. Even if one does not know how to put together a system, it would be easy to find someone to do so at an extremely affordable price. I will build entire systems all day for $20-$40 labor costs.

 

[sac39507]

I am wondering also in what universe is a $1000 PC with a mechanical hard drive a good value...

In the universe where one does not know what a mechanical drive is and one where marketing does a great job of selling capacity over performance and technology.

 

[Boilerhog146]

Why can't they stop using sh@tty OEM hardware and just use off the shelf gear I bet if the mobo ever went poof it'd cost you $500 to replace it

Where are you going to get that oem board if it blows after it's probably 1 year warranty runs out? Then that requires a fresh windows install.oh .no discs.but maybe a recovery disc .if your lucky.less headache down the road with a do it yourself.and more upgrade options.

 

[ddferrari]

7700K: $315
16GB DDR4: $150
256GB SSD: $90
2TB HDD: $70
GTX 1080: $525

Grand total without a case or PSU is $1150.

OK, but a case, a power supply and operating system are mandatory. This system, priced out on Newegg for home assembly, comes to $1600. So for $1900 it's not a bad deal.

 

[amstech]

OK, but a case, a power supply and operating system are mandatory. This system, priced out on Newegg for home assembly, comes to $1600. So for $1900 it's not a bad deal.

Newegg's prices haven't been that good for years.
I priced out everything from TigerDirect's constant sales, ebay deals and with a decent case/PSU/OS, total was under $1350. That's all this PC is worth, give or take $50.

 

[ewok68]

Friends, don't let friends, buy HP.

 

[Francis69]

I know you can't change the red led's via the Omen Command center in any of the Omen 880-xxx models. But, did anyone find a method of changing them either with a BIOS hack or something to replace them? Why do designers think that limiting options is a good idea?

 

[sac39507]

Newegg's prices haven't been that good for years.
I priced out everything from TigerDirect's constant sales, ebay deals and with a decent case/PSU/OS, total was under $1350. That's all this PC is worth, give or take $50.

This is exactly what I was saying. No budget minded person would buy exclusively from one place.

 

[Porbitz]

I got to this review as I'm looking for my first VR headset and a PC to run it, and this PC is one of the two models I'm considering, but I'm not sure which of them would be better. I'd appreciate if you could give me some input/advice. My intention, more than just gaming is to develop VR applications and games, for education and research.

The two PCs I'm looking at are,
MSI Trident X (£2700)
- Unlocked Intel® Core™ i7-9700K Processor
- RAM: 32 GB / Storage: 2 TB HDD & 512 GB SSD
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB
- SFX PSU, 650 W

HP OMEN 880 (£1700)
- AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Processor
- RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 2 TB HDD & 256 GB SSD
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB
- PSU 500W

Are the higher specs on the MSI worth the extra £ 1K? Would the HP handle VR on (very) good quality for the next few years?

Also, I've read somewhere else that, given above specs for the HP, the 500W PSU is right on the limit with no "room for error", and I wonder if, with the VR headset, it'll be too much.

Many thanks for your time and advice!!!

 

[Umbie]

Hi, I have the Omen 880-108na model. Could you tell me if I could add an extra 2tb hard drive to it please.
It has an extra slot above the 1tb already installed. Please note I know nothing about computers!! Sorry