HP Omen 15 (i7-8750H, GTX 1070 Max-Q, SSD, FHD) Laptop Review

The Omen does not offer a maintenance cover. In order to access the insides, you have to remove the bottom of the case. While the case bottom of the sibling model we tested previously was so incredibly tight that we were unable to take it off, our current test unit shows some significant improvement. After we removed all the screws from bottom of the case, we were able to take off the case cover. To do this, we recommend starting at the level of the touchpad, where the plastic clips are not too tight and can be loosened by slightly bending the top of the base unit. The rest of the clips can then be unclipped using a prying tool such as a spatula. 

HP has equipped the Omen with an Intel Core i7-8750H hexa-core processor, which is a model based on the Coffee Lake architecture. Since the performance per MHz remained unchanged compared to Kaby Lake, the additional cores and the higher clock speeds are responsible for the additional performance.

The processor operates at a basic clock speed of 2.2 GHz, which can be increased via Turbo to 3.9 GHz (six cores), 4 GHz (four cores), and 4.1 GHz (one/two cores), respectively. The Core i7 has a TDP of 45 watts. Hewlett-Packard allows a short-term increase of the TDP up to 78 watts.

In the multithread tests of the Cinebench benchmarks, the processor runs for a few seconds at 3.5 to 4.1 GHz, but then the clock speed drops to 2.8 - 2.9 GHz. It runs through the single-thread tests at 3.9 - 4.1 GHz in mains operation. During battery operation, the CPU runs at 2.2 GHz (multithread) and 2.2 - 2.9 GHz (single-thread).

The Omen does not lack in system performance. This is confirmed by the very good results in the CPU, GPU, and PCMark benchmarks. But anything else would have been a surprise. After all, the notebook contains very powerful hardware. The hexa-core processor offers sufficient reserves for the next few years, and the dedicated graphics core enables playing computer games. We did not encounter any problems.

An NVMe SSD from Toshiba serves as the system drive. This is an M.2-2280 model that has a total capacity of 512 GB. In the state of delivery, about 433 GB of this is freely usable. The SSD delivers outstanding transfer rates. NVMe SSDs are connected via PCI Express 3.0 x4, which enables significantly higher transfer rates than a connection via SATA III. 

In addition to the SSD, the notebook also contains a 1-TB hard-drive (2.5-in, 7200 rpm), which serves as data storage. Please note that if you want to exchange the HDD for a higher-capacity model, you need to be aware that the recovery partition of the notebook is stored on the HDD.

The built-in GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics core from Nvidia is a version of the regular GTX 1070 GPU that is trimmed for efficiency and designed for thin and light notebooks. The model built into our test unit runs at a basic clock speed of 1215 MHz, which can be increased up to 1379 MHz via Turbo. The GPU is accompanied by 8192 MB of fast GDDR5 memory. The results in the 3DMark benchmarks range on a normal level for the GPU.

The UHD Graphics 630 integrated into the processor has been disabled by HP, so there is no solution for switching graphics (Optimus) here, and the GeForce graphics core is always active.