HP has been steadily growing and improving its OMEN line of gaming hardware in the last few years, and the brand has become a consistently good option for consumers.
Now, the OMEN family is quite a bit larger, with HP announcing a handful of hardware refreshes — and an entirely new product to sit at the very top of the lineup.
2025 is giving us a new HP OMEN 35L desktop (including a very interesting new edition), a refreshed HP OMEN 16 laptop, and the absolutely ridiculous HP OMEN MAX 45L desktop.
There’s some interesting stuff going on here, so let’s dive in.
What makes the OMEN MAX 45L special
HP’s new flagship, pre-built gaming tower boasts the most powerful AMD and NVIDIA hardware you can find anywhere, but its real claims to fame are the upgraded cooling system, in-depth overclocking features, and the new fully modular power supply with automatic fan cleaning.
First, we have the all-new HP OMEN MAX 45L. Similar to the HP OMEN MAX 16 (2025) I reviewed, this tower is meant to be the best HP can offer to those who demand the greatest performance.
Equipped with up to an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (16 cores, 32 threads), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB VRAM), 128GB of DDR5 RAM, and 2TB of PCIe Gen5 SSD storage, the OMEN MAX 45L is a monster for gaming, creation, and artificial intelligence workflows.
What makes this desktop “flagship” level, though, is more than just the components inside. Toolless entry into the roomy chassis allows for easy upgrades of the standard parts, you get a high-powered motherboard that enables in-depth CPU, GPU, and RAM overclocking, HP improved its “CRYO CHAMBER” cooling technology (which includes 360mm liquid CPU cooling), and the 1,200W PSU is now fully modular and even includes unique features like automatic fan cleaning.
This tower is massive and it’s bound to be expensive, but it should offer some of the best and most consistent performance you can expect out of a modern gaming PC, and compete with PCs like the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 10) I just reviewed. I do wish the OMEN MAX 45L got the same “pair up to three wireless HyperX accessories without a USB dongle” feature as the MAX 16 laptop, though.
Before I jump into the new OMEN 35L desktop, a brief mention of the third OMEN product HP announced today.
The HP OMEN 16 gaming laptop has also been refreshed, but it’s a simple spec bump to the latest internals, including up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.
Why I’m excited for the “Stealth Edition” OMEN 35L
I love the idea of HP’s “Stealth Edition” OMEN 35L — the same ultra-powerful desktop, but with a “sleeper” build. Gaming PCs can be garish, but this pre-built powerhouse is designed to fly under the radar for those who prefer subtlety.
I reviewed the HP OMEN 35L (2024), and I honestly loved that desktop. It wasn’t perfect (mostly on the software/firmware front), but its compact chassis was gorgeous. HP hasn’t messed with that design for 2025, but the OMEN 35L is getting treated to many of the same on-paper components as the OMEN MAX 45L.
Performance won’t be as good thanks to less space for airflow to keep everything running cool, but a lot of people will be more than happy to accept that compromise. The most exciting part about this year’s OMEN 35L, though, is the new Stealth Edition.
Designed for esports but aimed at anyone who wants a more understated design, the OMEN 35L Stealth Edition boasts all the same specs as the standard version, but does away with the glass-clad, RGB-lit chassis in favor of a blockier, all matte-black design.
It’s a gaming PC that doesn’t look like a gaming PC, and I personally think it’s awesome. It’s an even better version of the reasons I loved the Dell XPS Desktop (8960) we reviewed. I’m willing to be a lot of people will be drawn to the Stealth Edition.
In other news, HP also announced some new HyperX gaming accessories, so be sure to check those out, too. Stay tuned, because as you’re reading this I’m in Los Angeles with HP, going hands-on with these new products. My initial impressions will be appearing on Windows Central soon.
#Unveils #Powerful #Stealthiest #Gaming #Desktops
