There seems to be an almost never-ending number of laptops on the market today, and it’s fair to say we’re usually spoiled for choice in most categories. As we approach the holiday season, we’ve rounded up many of the best laptops you can buy as a gift for yourself or a loved one. That includes specific categories like the best gaming laptops, and we even have a list of great budget gaming laptops if you don’t want to spend a lot. But we all have our affinities, and with HP laptops being some of the most popular in the world, it’s only natural you’d be looking for them. To help you out, we’ve gathered some of the best HP laptops for gaming, so you can get something that fits your needs.
HP has a couple of gaming-focused brands in its portfolio, the most notable of which is probably the OMEN family. However, there are other brands in the company’s lineup that you can use for gaming, including the recently-launched Victus series. We’ll highlight the best options across the company’s range, so there’s something for everyone. Let’s get startedNavigate this article:Best overall: OMEN 15z (AMD)Intel alternative: OMEN 15tBest 16-inch gaming laptop: Victus 16t (Intel)AMD version: Victus 16zBest 17-inch laptop: OMEN 17Best budget Intel gaming laptop: HP Pavilion Gaming 15tAMD version: HP Pavilion Gaming 15zBest do-it-all laptop: HP Envy 15Best overall: OMEN 15z
There are a few factors that make a good gaming laptop, and the OMEN 15z checks the most boxes out of HP’s lineup. It’s powerful, sleek, and it has a high refresh rate display with fast response times.
Starting with performance, the OMEN 15z is powered by the latest processors in AMD’s lineup, up to a Ryzen 9 5900HX, a beastly CPU with 8 cores and 16 threads, which can boost up to 4.6GHz. This is one of the most powerful laptop CPUs available right now, and along with that, you also get up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 GPU. With that combination of specs, you can rest assured almost all your games will run at high settings and high frame rates. You can also configure it with up to 16GB of RAM, which isn’t an exceptional amount, but it should be enough to run just about any terkini game, and you can always upgrade it yourself with the two SODIMM slots inside the laptop. For storage, you can get up to a 1TB SSD, which is also user-upgradeable.
Another factor that makes this potentially the best laptop for gaming is the display. It’s a 15.6-inch panel, and the base configuration has Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution and a 144HZ refresh rate, which is already a solid experience for gaming. But if you want an even better one, you can upgrade to the Quad HD (2560 x 1440) panel, which also slightly increases the refresh rate to 165Hz and gives you a 3ms response time. If you max out the CPU and GPU configurations, you’re probably going to want to make the most of it with the higher-quality display.
Above that screen, there’s a 720p webcam, which unfortunately doesn’t support Windows Hello. In fact, there’s no form of biometric authentication on this laptop, which is unfortunate. If you need to connect peripherals to your laptop, the OMEN 15z also has plenty of ports. You get one USB Type-C port, three USB Type-A ports, miniDisplayPort, HDMI dua.1, Gigabit Ethernet, a headphone jack, an SD card reader, and a proprietary charging port. That’s plenty of connectivity for just about anything, though you don’t get Thunderbolt support since that’s Intel technology that’s not supported on AMD laptops.
The design itself is fairly terbaru for a gaming laptop, with mostly flat lines and not much in the way of extravagant design elements. The most noteworthy part of the exterior is the OMEN logo, which is a green and blue gradient, but otherwise, this laptop could be used just about anywhere. The inside of the laptop is a bit more flashy, though, with support for a white backlit keyboard or a 4-zone RGB backlit model. Between all that power and the ports, the laptop is somewhat thick, at around 23.11mm, and it’s not exactly lightweight either, weighing around lima.43lbs. That’s fairly typical of gaming laptops, though, and the focus is on being powerful, which this definitely is. If you want an HP gaming laptop, this should be near the top of your considerations. OMEN 15z The OMEN 15z is a powerful gaming laptop with AMD Ryzen CPUs and NVIDIA RTX GPUs. See at HPIntel alternative: OMEN 15t
If you like everything about the OMEN 15z except the AMD processor, HP also sells a version of the laptops with an Intel processor, the OMEN 15t. These two laptops share the same overall design, but there are a few differences in the configurations available.
For starters, at the time of writing, the OMEN 15t is only available with an Intel Core i5-11400H, which is a 6-core, 12-thread CPU that can boost up to 4.5GHz. THat’s still a very powerful processor, but it doesn’t quite reach the same level as the top-tier AMD configuration above. Similarly, this model only comes with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, which is also not as powerful as the highest configuration available on the AMD contoh. On the flip side, you can get the Intel model with up to 32GB of RAM out of the box, as well as 1TB of storage.
The display is one area where the Intel contoh may have an advantage, however. You get the same two configurations as the AMD version – Full HD at 144Hz or Quad HD at 165Hz – but you also get a brand-new option that may be ideal for esports gamers: You can get a Full HD panel that runs at 300Hz. If you really care about the fastest reaction times in online games, that’s probably going to be your last option, and even if the hardware isn’t as powerful as the AMD model it should still be able to drive a Full HD display at very high frame rates in esports titles.
Design-wise, the two laptops are naturally very similar. That means you also don’t get Windows Hello support of any kind on this contoh, and the webcam is still 720p. One benefit you do get with the Intel model is the option for per-key backlighting on the keyboard, in addition to the two options available on the AMD variant. The 15t is ever-so-slightly thinner and lighter, too, but the difference is so small it doesn’t really make a difference.
The port setup is also nearly identical with the same exact number of ports and the same physical connections. However, instead of regular USB Type-C, the Intel contoh actually supports Thunderbolt 4, which means you can plug in a Thunderbolt dock, monitor, or even an external GPU if you think you need a GPU upgrade down the line. Otherwise, with three USB Type-A ports, HDMI dua.1, kecil DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethermet, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader, you can plug in plenty of peripherals without any docks or adapters.
While it’s not as powerful in some ways, the OMEN 15t is better in others compared to the AMD variant. Depending on your priorities, this might be a better option. OMEN 15t The OMEN 15t is an Intel-powered version of the OMEN 15z featuring Intel CPUs and a faster display. See at HPBest 16-inch gaming laptop: Victus 16t
If you want a slightly larger laptop that also has more of a unique look, HP’s merk-new Victus lineup may be for you. The Victus 16t is an Intel-powered laptop and it offers a great balance of power and style.
The Victus 16t is available in a range of configurations depending on how much power you need. You can get it with up to an Intel Core i7-11800H, which is an 8-core, 16-thread CPU that can boost as high as 4.6GHz. That’s a very powerful processor, and you can combine it with up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 GPU to get very good performance in just about any game you might want to play. Additionally, you can add up to 32GB of RAM – more than enough for gaming on a laptop – and 1TB of SSD storage accelerated by 32GB of Intel Optane memory. It’s a powerful combination all around, even if the GPU isn’t quite as powerful as what you can get with the OMEN 15z.
Moving on to the display, as the name suggests, this is a larger 16.1-inch panel, but it’s still Full HD (1920 x 1080) according to HP’s configuration page, and the base model seems to be at 60Hz, too. You can upgrade to a 144Hz panel if you want the faster refresh rate, though, which is going to be a big boon for games and general usage alike.