HP Omen 17 2021 Review ( 17-CK0000, i7-11800H, RTX 3080)

In May 2021, HP strengthened its HP Omen gaming laptop series by introducing the 2021 (updated) models, HP Omen 16 and Omen 17. Previously, we already reviewed the HP Omen 16, so today, we have targeted the high-end model HP Omen 17 (2021).

The model we are going to review today features the combination of Core i7-11800H + RTX 3080. We can say that the 2021 model of HP Omen 17 can give great competition to other competitors in every term. Its specifications, appearance, and performance have now been upgraded to a new level compared with last year’s model.

HP Omen 17 (2021) Specifications

HP Omen 17 (2021): Appearance & Design

Starting from portability, one of the most important factors. It prevents the popularization of large-screen gaming laptops among players, but we can say that this is also one of the evolution points of HP Omen 17 2021.

The new 2021 HP Omen 17 has a hidden hinge design, which means that when the screen is opened, the back of the fuselage does not protrude, making the visual impact of the fuselage more integrated.

Further, this gaming notebook has a compact body structure design, which reduces the overall volume and thickness up to 10% (compared with the previous generation). While maintaining the flagship performance, the portability is also significantly maintained.

The dimensions of the new HP Omen 17 are 324×220×17.9mm, which seems acceptable, but the body weights around 2 kg, which should be slightly less, as the other competitors are launching gaming notebooks with less weight.

On the backside, we have the OMEN Logo in blue color. Furthermore, we have a matte black design which gives a premium look. The HP Omen 17 (2021) has only one color option, and the company has named it: Shadow Black.

HP Omen 17 (2021): Display

The gaming laptop features a 17.3 inches LED Backlit Anti-Glare 16:9 display. A three-sided narrow frame design has been used on the screen, giving players a larger field of view and a more substantial visual impact.

In addition, the display is packed with a combination of Quad-HD resolution (2560*1440p) and 165Hz refresh rate, which helps in getting the high-definition gaming. The display also got 100% sRGB high color gamut, providing higher pixel density and making the picture more detailed.

The display has also achieved the 3ms response, which can effectively avoid stuttering and ghosting. One more thing must be mentioned: HP Omen 17 (2021) screen not only supports DC dimming but has also passed the Eyesafe Rheinland certification, which can effectively filter blue light and reduce eye fatigue.

On the top-middle bezel of the display, we have a very tiny webcam that seems ordinary, but things are not like that. It is the HP Wide Vision 720p HD camera with integrated dual array digital microphones.

HP Omen 17 (2021): Keyboard

It features a mechanical keyboard (aluminum surface) with an optical axis that allows for full-key conflict-free operation. While maintaining the slim design, the optical axis mechanical keyboard provides a more stable signal and has a longer service life than traditional mechanical keyboards.

Compared to a traditional membrane keyboard, the optical axis mechanical keyboard can significantly improve complex combo operations in games and typing feel in everyday use.

The keyboard still lacks a keypad, but that isn’t a deal-breaker for a gaming laptop. Other notable features like RGB backlighting, a shadow-black colored keyboard area, NKRO Anti-Ghosting Key technology (which prevents additional keys from being registered once the rollover limit is reached), and an optical switch are also included.

HP Omen 17 (2021): Ports

In total, the laptop features nine different types of ports on both sides. On the right side of the fuselage, there are two USB Type-A data ports.

While on the left side, we got a USB 3.0 Type-A port, an HDMI Video port, an RJ45 port, a Mini DisplayPort, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an SD Card Slot, and a Thunderbolt 4 port.

The Thunderbolt 4 port is the most powerful of them all. The following are some of the main features: High-speed data transmission, fast charging, output to multiple high-definition displays, and external desktop-level independent graphics card expansion dock and other functions are all possible with the 40Gbps ultra-high bandwidth, comes in Thunderbolt 4 port.

HP Omen 17 (2021): Battery Life, SSD, RAM, and Wi-Fi

We believe that battery is not an essential factor in gaming notebooks as most gamers usually prefer to do gaming while on charging. But still, it has a breakthrough in this field as well. The notebook features a six-cell, 83 Wh Li-ion polymer battery which can provide a battery backup of 8.5 hours while doing the gaming. In addition, the company is shipping a 200W AC Adaptor for charging along with HP Omen 17 (2021). But users can achieve more fast charging through the USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port.

The new eleventh-generation Intel’s Core processor supports 20 direct-connected PCIe 4.0 channels in which graphics cards are using the 16. In contrast, the rest four are being used by SSD. The support of the PCIe 4.0 protocol for SSD maximizes the performance.

The HP Omen 17 (2021) is equipped with a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro (PM9A1) SSD. It is worth mentioning that it is one of the best SSD currently in the market. Using CrystalDiskMark for testing, the new Omen 17 handled the performance of Samsung PM9A1 very brilliantly, with a reading speed of 6994.42MB/s and a writing speed of 5115.58MB/s.

The laptop is equipped with dual-channel (2x16GB) 32GB DDR4 RAM with 3200MHz of high-frequency. Through the AIDA64 test, it is found that the RAM has a reading speed of 49159MB/s, while the write speed is 46383MB/s, the copy speed is 47863MB/s, and the delay is 82.4ns.

It is equipped with the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 (2×2) Card, which comes in an M.2 2230 form factor and supports both the 802.11ac and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6 & Wi-Fi 6E) protocols. In addition, the latest version of Bluetooth (v5.2) has been used. The combo of these two things has a solid and promising impact on the networking speed.

It is worth mentioning that the support for MU-MIMO is also there. This technology allows a Wi-Fi router to communicate with multiple devices simultaneously.

HP Omen 17 (2021): Cooling System

The HP Omen laptop comes with a  fully upgraded cooling module to get the best performance. It uses two fans with 83 high-density fan blades, which can effectively increase the amount of ventilation. This cooling system keeps the hardware temperature, and the surface temperature of the fuselage in a lower space and allows the noise to be reasonably controlled.

In addition, the OMEN Gaming Hub (software) on the HP Omen 17 (2021) can also be the most powerful assist in your game battlefield with robust performance tuning functions and many rich custom settings.

Specifically, players can choose two different modes, “Balance” and “Rage” in the performance control module of the HP Game Control Center (OMEN Gaming Hub), which can meet the different needs of players.

At the same time, a DIY fan adjustment option has been added under the switching module mode, in which the players can flexibly adjust the fan speed as per their needs.

It is worth mentioning that there is another feature named the intelligent voltage drop function found in OMEN Gaming Hub. Through this function, players can conveniently and quickly adjust the voltage, which effectively reduces the processor’s core temperature, obtains a better energy consumption ratio, and helps the user to play the game’s complex operations on the device easily.

Not only that, for some advanced users, you can also manually adjust the voltage drop in the custom mode. After manually reducing the voltage by 0.03v, the HP Game Control Center test shows that the average CPU temperature has dropped by 1°C.

HP Omen 17 (2021): CPU and GPU

In terms of hardware, the new HP Omen 17 has almost similar hardware compared with other competitors. It uses the combination of Intel Core i7-11800H and RTX 3080 GPU, which is mandatory for gaming these days.

This 11^th Gen Intel’s Core is based on Tiger Lake core and built with a 10nm SuperFin process. This chip comes with eight cores and 16 threads and has a base frequency of 2.3GHz, while the maximum frequency is 4.60GHz. The total cache capacity is 24MB.

It is worth mentioning that the Core i7-11800H SoC also features 11^th Generation Intel UHD Mobile Graphics.

The RTX 3080 mobile graphics card has been used on Omen 17 (2021). It uses GA104 core, including 6144 CUDA units, the second-largest RT Core, and the third-generation Tensor Core. The total memory of the GPU is 8GB (Dedicated GDDR6).

The GPU has a bus width of 256 bits and is based on an 8nm manufacturing process. The RTX 3080 Mobile GPU has a base frequency of 1110 MHz, while it can be overclocked to a maximum 1750MHz.

CPU Temperature, Stress Test, Benchmarks

Before starting this test, we opened the performance control module, switched the Omen 17 (2021) to violent mode, and adjust the fan speed to the highest.

At a room temperature of 26°C, first, we used the AIDA64 single-baked FPU for the processor stress test. The HWiNFO64 identification shows that after 20 minutes of operation, the power consumption of Core i7-11800H can be stabilized at 91W, while the complete core frequency is stabilized at 3.9GHz, and its temperature is 96°C.

With the help of a powerful heat dissipation system, the Omen 17 (2021) can make the Core i7-11800H processor run up to the full turbo frequency under the load of the AVX-512 instruction set. The performance release can also reach the first echelon of Omen 17 (2021).

Next, we have done the GPU (RTX 3080 Mobile) stress test through Furmark (application) and used the GPU-Z to monitor. It is found that the power consumption of the RTX 3080 Mobile GPU can reach 165W. On reaching the maximum power consumption, the GPU core temperature was 71°C.

Finally, we did the combined test of both CPU & GPU with AIDA64 and Furmark applications. At this time,  the HP Omen 17 (2021) meet the hardware performance release of both processor and graphic card (i.e., 60W & 140W, respectively), and the performance was also excellent.

It is expected that HP Omen 17 (2021) will be further optimized through software upgrades for better performance releases. After tuning, the double stressed graphics card’s power consumption can reach 150W.

In addition, to meet the power supply requirements when the hardware performance was released, the Omen 17 was connected with a 330W power adapter, which can effectively meet various high-load operation scenarios and make them complete.

CPU-Z: In testing the CPU, we had used the Version 17 project, in which the single-thread score was 614.5, and the multi-thread score was 5796.4. We can consider it as an outstanding score.

Cinebench R20: In this test, the Core i7-11800H SoC on Omen 17 (2021) achieved full turbo frequency release and has scored a single-thread score of 586pts and a multi-threaded score of as high as 5420pts.

Cinebench R23: In the latest R23 version, the Core i7-11800H performed equally well, with a single-thread score of 1519pts and a multi-threaded score of 14070pts.

V-Ray: To evaluate the processor’s rendering capabilities, we also used the V-Ray Benchmark (v 5.0.20). The processor rendering score of HP Omen 17 (2021) was as high as 10237 vsamples. We can also consider this as an excellent performance.

Corona Benchmark: For further testing of the processor’s rendering capabilities, we used Corona 1.3 Benchmark. It is found that HP Omen 17 (2021) only took 1 minute 39 seconds to complete the rendering test, which is extremely fast.

As observed, the performance potential of Core i7-11800H is huge, thanks to its brand-new processing technology and micro-architecture design, which further got combined with extremely excellent performance tuning. After turning on the violent mode in HP Omen 17 (2021), the gamers can get an extremely powerful performance release for achieving a smoother experience.

GPU Benchmarks:

Time Spy: AT the Time Spy test, which reflects the performance of the DX12 game. In this test, the RTX 3080 in Omen 17 (2021) scored 12721 points.

Fire Strike: For testing the graphics performance, we first used Fire Strike in 3DMark, reflecting the performance of the DX11 game. In this test, the HP Omen 17’s GPU scored 31516 points.

Port Royal: At the Port Royal Ray Tracing performance test, in which the GPU score was 7813 points.

Direct X: In the DirectX ray tracing performance test, the average frame number of HP Omen 17 was 31.15cFPS.

We would like to appreciate the powerful cooling module and the HP Game Control Center (OMEN Gaming Hub) in the GPU test, which helps us get the best performance from RTX 3080 Mobile GPU.

we also did a final and whole machine performance test using PCMark10. The total score was 7468, in which the score for common basic functions was 10501, the productivity score was 9417, while the digital content creation score was 11412. This performance is considered a high level in the gaming platform.

Gaming Performance:

After testing the theoretical performance, it’s time to do the gaming test, which is the primary purpose of this gaming notebook. We have tested different games, which are mentioned below, along with their performance.

During the game test, 1080p resolution was used, the highest special effect was set, and vertical synchronization was also turned off.

Assassin’s Creed: Hall of Valor: The second gaming test was done on the Assasin’s Creed: Hall of Valor using the built-in Benchmark that comes in the game. In this test, the Omen 17 (2021) has an average frame rate of 83 FPS, while the lowest frame was 37FPS, which can be considered an overall smooth performance.

Bright Memory: Infinite: This game is developed by the Chinese developer team, named “Feiyan Island.” We did the benchmark test on this game using an independent benchmark program. During the test, the RTX ray-tracing quality was set to extremely high, while the DLSS quality was selected to be balanced. The average frame number of HP Omen 17 on this game was 90FPS. We also observed a minor fluctuation in overall gameplay.

F1 2020: It is a racing game produced and released by Codemasters. We did the benchmark test on this game using the built-in benchmark feature. The “Australian” track was selected. The average frame rate of this game was 210FPS on the new HP Omen 17.

For Honor: An action game produced and released by Ubisoft. It also comes with a built-in benchmark option in which 5 test scenes were combined. The average frame rate of HP Omen 17 (2021) was 192FPS, while the minimum frame rate was 118.76FPS, which can be considered as an excellent smooth experience.

Metro: Departure: We used the enhanced version of this game which requires high-end specifications for regular gameplay. During the test of this game, the ray-tracing super was turned on, and DLSS was set to balance mode. We used the independent benchmark application for testing, and it is found that the average frame rate of HP Omen 17 was around 73.59FPS, which seems basic.

Rainbow Six Siege: After testing the popular AAA stand-alone games, in the end, we also test the famous game “Rainbow Six: Siege.” We used the independent benchmark application for testing, and we find that the overall performance is very smooth. Even with an external 240Hz ultra-high refresh rate display, we found no problems. On Omen 17 (2021), this game has an average frame rate of 331FPS; the highest frame rate was 478FPS, while the lowest was 245 FPS.

In the end, we would say that we find no shortcomings in the HP Omen 17 (2021) in terms of gaming. The measured game performance is also ideal in line with expectations, allowing all kinds of gamers to enjoy the ultimate experience.

Verdict:

After going through this complete analysis of Omen 17 (2021), we believe that this gaming notebook is a hard-to-find game product that can combine powerful performance, a high-quality large screen, and portability at this price. If you have higher specification requirements for gaming, it is best to go with HP Omen 17 (2021) to enjoy the best and smoothest gaming experience.