HP Omen Max 45L review: Flagship desktop gaming PC performance with a price tag to match

PC manufacturers are fully embracing massive cases for the flagship gaming desktops. HP is clearly no exception with the Omen Max 45L. This is a machine that brashly makes its presence known and looks good while doing it.

With three 120mm fans up front, a honking 1,200-watt power supply in the bottom of the chassis, room for a flagship graphics card from AMD or Nvidia, and HP's dedicated Cryo Chamber that sits atop the chassis, it's no wonder the Omen Max 45L is so large and in charge.

The Omen Max 45L aims to dance with the best gaming PCs, so it should come as no surprise that our review unit packs an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D processor, 64GB of DDR5-6000, and a GeForce RTX 5090. But that will cost you — our review unit has a $6,499.99 price tag.

Design of the HP Omen Max 45L

The 45-liter Omen Max measures 8.03 x 18.50 x 21.85 inches and weighs 49.82 pounds. Still, removing the sample unit from the box was a relatively simple affair, as HP ships the Omen Max 45L in a "lift-off top" shipping box held in place by four black plastic retaining clips along the sides (near the base of the box).

The chassis is a matte-black aluminum affair with a glass front and a glass side panel, providing an uninterrupted view inside the chassis. The glass front panel is adorned with a large "OMEN" logo printed in white, along with a view of the three vertically stacked 120 mm RGB intake fans that sit behind a large dust filter. There is a narrow gap along the sides between the front panel and the chassis where air comes in to feed the fans. There's also a tiny AMD Ryzen sticker in the bottom right corner of the front glass panel, which mars an otherwise classy design.

Looking inside the case, you'll find tidy cable management and plenty of RGB lighting to dazzle the eye. The liquid cooler features a circular LCD with an RGB ring around its perimeter. Inside that ring, you'll find CPU and GPU temperatures. A single 120 mm RGB exhaust fan matches the color schemes of the three front intake fans, and the two 32GB Fury DDR5-6000 sticks have their own RGB effects, topping each module.

The CPU radiator is mounted in a dedicated housing at the top of the chassis, leaving an air gap between it and the rest of the case. HP calls this the "Cryo Chamber" because it is isolated from the interior of the chassis and has access to fresh outside air. According to HP, this setup results in up to a 7-degree Celsius reduction in CPU temperature versus competing solutions under similar loads. There are three additional 120 mm fans mounted at the bottom of the Cryo Chamber that push air upward over the radiator.

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Although the Omen Max 45L is a big system, it is dwarfed by the Alienware Area-51, which measures 22.4 x 24.04 x 9.12 inches and weighs 76.1 pounds. The Aurora R16 comes in at 18.05 x 16.5 x 7.76 inches, while the Corsair Vengeance i7500 measures 18.3 x 17.8 x 9.1 inches.

HP Omen Max 45L Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability of the HP Omen Max 45L

When it comes to the easy-to-access top ports, the Omen Max 45L is well-equipped. There are two USB-A (5 Gbps) ports and a single USB-C (10 Gbps) port for connecting thumb drives or other peripherals you need to plug in quickly, without getting on your knees and fiddling with the rear I/O panel. Also up top is a single headphone/microphone combo jack.

Our review unit uses a custom HP 8E55 motherboard with an AMD X870 chipset. The port allotment is plentiful, with four USB-A (480 Mbps) ports, two USB-A (5 Gps) ports, one USB-C (10 Gbps) port, and one Thunderbolt 4 port. There's also a 2.5 GbE port and audio ports. There's also a built-in MediaTek Wi-Fi 7 adapter and Bluetooth 5.4.

The toolless chassis makes it easy to get into the Omen Max. There's a button located above the glass side panel labeled “Internal Access” that you press. Once you push it in, the panel pivots outward, and you can then lift it out of the chassis. The same setup is repeated for the panel on the opposite side of the chassis.

Although HP uses its own motherboard, you can fit any standard ATX motherboard in the chassis if you wish to upgrade in the future. The 8E55 includes four DIMM slots, two of which were populated in our review unit, for a total of 64GB of DDR5-6000 memory.

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The motherboard features a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot. The Omen Max 45L comes with two M.2 storage slots onboard, and both are filled with 2TB PCIe 4.0 Samsung SSDs. The M.2 Gen 5.0 SSD slot is located above the x16 connector (with a heatsink for the SSD), while the Gen 4.0 SSD is located below (no heatsink here). Accessing the Gen 5 slot is possible without removing the graphics card, although it’s a tight fit for your hands. The Gen 4 slot, however, requires removing the graphics card, which is made more laborious by the retention brackets that must be removed first.

HP uses a modular 1,200W ATX 3.1 PSU, which you can swap out in the future should your power needs increase.

With the panel removed on the opposite side of the chassis, you can install a 3.5-inch hard drive.

Gaming and Graphics on the HP Omen Max 45L

Our Omen Max 45L review unit features an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D processor, 64GB of DDR5-6000 memory, and a GeForce RTX 5090, which are definitely flagship-worthy specs.

We pitted the system against two variants of the Alienware Area-51 (one with a Core Ultra 9 285K and one with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D, both of which include an RTX 5090). The other two systems that were thrown into the mix include the Alienware Aurora R16 and Corsair Vengeance i7500, which feature Core i9-14900K processors and RTX 4090 GPUs.

I booted up Battlefield 6 to get my butt handed to me on a dust-covered plate. Battlefield 6 is a well-optimized game, and an RTX 5090 can push upwards of 300 frames per second depending on the resolution. However, I tested the Omen Max 45L at 5120 x 1440 resolution with the Overkill graphics option enabled with DLSS 4.5 in Quality mode. I averaged between 160 and 180 FPS with these settings and noticed only a low hum from the system and GPU fans.

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With the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Highest setting), the Omen Max 45L cranked 329 FPS at 1080p and 170 FPS at 4K. The 1080p performance was over 30 FPS higher than the next-closest Vengeance i7500, while the 4K performance was more in line with the two Area-51 systems.

The Omen Max 45L again stretched its legs at 1080p in Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra settings), hitting 146 FPS, a 21 FPS improvement over the second-place Vengeance i7500. The Omen Max eked out 50 FPS at 4K resolution, putting it slightly ahead of the competition.

We once again saw the Omen Max 45L punching above its weight class in the CPU-intensive Far Cry 6. It delivers 187 FPS at 1080p resolution, nearly 30 FPS higher than the Vengeance i7500. Shifting to 4K resolution, the Omen Max 45L actually found itself in that rear of the pack at 111 FPS. The fastest among the assembled group was the Area-51 (AMD) at 128 FPS.

Our Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings) benchmark allowed the Omen Max 45L to reach 217 FPS at 1080p, putting it slightly ahead of the Vengeance i7500 (209 FPS). At 4K resolution, it also took top honors with 124 FPS.

Borderlands 3 is another CPU-heavy title, and it was the only gaming benchmark where the Omen Max 45L didn't lead the charts at 1080p resolution. It delivered 248 FPS at 1080p (tied for last place) and 185 FPS at 4K resolution (the best among the group).

The Metro Exodus benchmark remains our go-to for stress testing gaming desktops. After running the Omen Max 45 through 15 loops, it averaged 157.68 FPS.

The AMD Zen 5 cores averaged 4.93 GHz and measured 49.8 Celsius. The GPU clocked in at 2,469.77 MHz and measured 48.2 C. During the stress test, the fans slowly ramped, but were never louder than a low hum.

Productivity Performance on the HP Omen Max 45L

The Omen Max 45L is well-stacked to handle productivity work, given that it's paired with a Ryzen 9 9900X3D, 64GB of RAM, and two 2TB SSDs.

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Starting with Geekbench 6, the Omen Max 45L was second only to the Area-51 with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D in single-core score (3,253 against Alienware's 3,384). However, the standings were quite different for the multi-core score, as the system fell to last place (18,394) primarily due to its shortfall in assembled CPU cores.

When it came to our file transfer test, the Omen Max 45L came out guns blazing, reaching 2,645.53 MBps while transferring 25GB of data. This put it well ahead of all the competing systems, with the exception of the Area-51 (AMD), which scored a stellar 3,414.29 MBps.

Our Handbrake benchmark relies heavily on multi-threaded performance when transcoding a 4K video to 1080p. The Omen Max 45L managed a third-place showing (2:08), placing it behind the two Area-51 systems, which completed the task in under two minutes.

Software and Warranty on the HP Omen Max 45L

The Omen Max 45L comes preloaded with a lot of add-on software with the Windows 11 Pro install; some of it good, some of it that we could do without. There's a slew of HP utilities, including HP, HP Documentation, HP PC Hardware Diagnostics, HP Privacy Settings, HP Smart, HP Support Assistant, and HP System Event Utility. Quite frankly, most of these little applets could have been combined into one.

McAfee Online Protection is installed by default and provides some nifty perks, such as a Scam Detector (protection against email, text, and video scams), an integrated VPN, and identity monitoring, in addition to the usual antivirus protection.

But probably the most important piece of added software you'll interface with regularly is the Omen Gaming Hub. This is the centralized app that lets you control and configure the Omen Max 45L, along with supported accessories such as HyperX keyboards, mice, and headsets. You can capture system vitals, adjust performance profiles, enable the Power Supply Status Monitor (which captures data such as temperature, load, efficiency, etc.), and control lighting for the RGB fans.

In addition, the Omen Gaming Hub lets you control the LCD on the AIO unit. By default, it shows CPU and GPU temperature. But you can also allow it to show other system vitals (fan speeds, storage levels, etc.), display a static image, or even show the time (among other options). The Omen Gaming Hub even offers Omen AI, which automatically applies optimal performance settings for popular games like Fortnite, League of Legends, and Marvel Rivals.Omen Audio Control lets you adjust speaker/headphone volume, along with noise cancellation and equalizer settings.

The Omen Max 45L ships with a 1-year limited hardware warranty and one year of limited technical support.

HP Omen Max 45L Configurations

There are four primary configurations for the Omen Max 45L, starting with a Ryzen 7 9700X, Radeon RX 9070 XT, 32GB DDR5-6000, a 1TB SSD, and an 850W modular PSU, priced at $2,544.99. You can get the basic configuration, swapping out the AMD GPU for a GeForce RTX 5070, priced at $2,534.99.

If you want more CPU horsepower under the hood, adding a Ryzen 7 9800X3D (while keeping all other specs the same) takes the price to $3,254.99.

Our system is the top-of-the-line configuration, and you pay dearly for it. Our review unit is equipped with a Ryzen 9 9900X3D, 64GB of DDR5-6000, a GeForce RTX 5090, dual 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and a 1,200W PSU for $6,499.99.

Bottom Line

The HP Omen Max 45L is a highly capable gaming system that casts a long shadow with its towering appearance. With its Ryzen 9 9900X3D chip and RTX 5090 GPU onboard, the Omen Max 45L nearly ran the tables at 1080p. However, the 5090 is better suited for 4K gaming, and Omen Max 45L proved strong enough to lead the pack at 4K or at least remain highly competitive.

Our flagship configuration was equipped with two 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs, which delivered excellent data transfer speeds, and networking capabilities are plentiful with an onboard 2.5 GbE LAN and Wi-Fi 7. At the center of it all is the Omen Gaming Hub, which is your one-stop shop for RGB, performance profiles, game optimizations, and system monitoring.

It’s hard not to be impressed with the Omen Max 45L, as it excels at excess – and that is especially true of its price tag. As configured, our review unit tipped the scales at $6,499.99. The Alienware Area-51 we tested in November with similar specs (albeit with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D) cost $5,749.99. However, in this age of rising RAM and NAND costs, the same Area-51 system (with 4TB of storage to match the Omen Max 45L) will run you $6,249.99.

Either system will satiate your needs for 4K gaming, but you’re going to need a whole lot of cash to secure one.