HP Pavilion gaming 17 vs Omen 17 (Intel): Which One You Choose for Gaming?

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This is a comparison of HP Pavilion Gaming 17 and HP Omen 17 Intel version. In this review, we will see a comparison of its performance, thermals, and many more things. Through this, you can take the decision easily.

BUY NOW	BUY NOW
HP Pavilion Gaming 17	HP Omen 17 (Intel)
PROS	PROS
Sleek design. Quiet running on load.	Nice Gaming and CPU performance. Beautiful 144 Hz refresh rate display. Good keyboard.
CONS	CONS
No Thunderbolt. Plastic build.	Broad plastic chassis. No per-key lighting.

INTRODUCTION:

HP Pavilion Gaming 17

This is one of the semi-affordable gaming laptops which comes at around $1000. There are no premium gaming laptop things but this one gives enough amount of performance considering the price range. 

HP Omen 17 (Intel)

The Omen 17 has a good performance, design, big screen, and many more things. In this price range, it gives a good performance in gaming and all other works like video editing, Photoshop.

DESIGN & BUILD QUALITY:

HP Pavilion Gaming 17

The build quality-wise, this is made out of all plastic. It’s a black, simple design. You have a green logo in the middle depending on how the light reflects on it. It is six pounds, so it’s not heavy to the point where you can’t carry it around but it will feel a bit cumbersome if you’re carrying this all day long.

You do have a full-size keyboard. The keys are not cramped so that’s always good but the keys are a bit mushy. You don’t get RGB, all you get is green-lit keys. So, if you want that customization, you’ll have to move up to a more expensive HP gaming laptop but it’s more than adequate to a game on and it’s fine for productivity. The touchpad is on the bottom of the laptop. It’s made out of plastic, it’s horizontal, it’s a bit narrow and because it’s plastic, it doesn’t have the accuracy that glass does.

HP Omen 17 (Intel)

There is a bit of screen flex caused by the hinges being more centrally positioned. I would prefer to see them at the sides to give it more rigidity. This unit did have a bit of backlight bleed in the lower corners. It does have an anti-glare coating and seems to cope reasonably well under bright light. It’s an all-aluminum build. The lid is divided into 4 quadrants, two with a brushed finish, logo at the top and Omen stenciled at the bottom. The design is definitely more subtle than last year but still shows it’s a gaming laptop.

The keyboard deck is also brushed aluminum and shows a lot of smudges and fingerprints. The Elan trackpad works well. Unlike the 15-inch Pavilion, you now have space for 6 programmable macro keys on the left. The key lighting is actually in 4 zones, not per-key RGB. Although you can change the colors and brightness, you can’t make them flash or anything. You can configure in the BIOS so that the function keys can alter volume, brightness, etc without pressing the Fn key. You have a key to open their Omen Command Center software and a separate number pad. There is a bit of flex on the deck but not too bad.

DISPLAY:

HP Pavilion Gaming 17

The display kind of shocked me because I was expecting a poor color-accurate display because that’s what usually most $1000 laptops have but this one’s actually kind of good. Unfortunately, it’s only 60 Hertz. So, you’re not going to get a high refresh rate for gaming but color accuracy is quite respectable 100% sRGB and about 80% Adobe RGB. So, not only is this good for gaming, I’d feel comfortable doing design work on this.

HP Omen 17 (Intel)

This can be configured with a 1080p 60 Hz, 144 Hz, or 240 Hz panel or even a 4K IPS. This unit has the 144 Hz panel but the 15-inch Omen laptop with the same 144hz panel looks brighter at 330 nits versus 278 on the 17-inch. According to Panelook, the 17-inch 144 Hz panel has an sRGB of 100% and only a 30ms response time. The side bezels are fairly slim, a bit thicker at the top where the webcam is placed. There is no Windows Hello, unfortunately.

FEATURES:

HP Pavilion Gaming 17

This Pavilion 17 gaming laptop has an Intel 10th gen processor with an NVIDIA GTX graphics card. The memory and storage are up to 32GB and 1TB SSD respectively. It has Wi-Fi 6 for good connectivity. 

In terms of ports, on the left-hand side, you have your SD card slot, USB type-c port not Thunderbolt 3, RJ45, USB 3.0, full-sized HDMI, and on the other side, you have your audio jack, two more USB ports, and of course your barrel connector. So, a few things are upgradable. You have your M.2 NVMe drive, this one happens to be 256GB and you have eight gigabytes of RAM and HP for making a dual-channel that does help with performance. It has a swappable Wi-Fi card, then you have an extra slot for a 2.5-inch drive.

The camera is on top. The bezels are a bit on the thicker side but if you’re planning on streaming or conference call, the camera looks blurry. The sound is coming out of two speakers on the top of the laptop. They sound very narrow, so it’s like squeezing the highs, no bass but because there are on top of the laptop, you do get a better sound spectrum.

HP Omen 17 (Intel)

It starts at $1200 with an i7 and a GTX 1660Ti and can be configured up to an i9 8-core CPU. There are some of the differences between the 17 and 15-inch laptops that are subtle such as a more brushed styling on the lid of the 17-inch, another is you get separate audio ports on the 17-inch. If you want G-sync, then you need to go for the 2070 or 2080 in either model. The unit I have for comparison is running an RTX 2060 and although it doesn’t have G-sync, it does run off that GPU all the time, so no hybrid graphics here.

This has 3 USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a thunderbolt 3, mini display port, HDMI 2.0, gigabit ethernet, and an SD card reader that accepts cards all the way in. This one uses a 115W 2070 and a 150W 2080, so you will definitely get more performance. Disappointingly there is no subwoofer, so the speakers lack a bit of bass and are of average loudness. You can still hear gameplay but the audio is much better-using headphones.

The aluminum back cover has large air intakes and large rear feet with speaker grills at the sides. Inside, you have some foam that helps reduce vibrations from the 1TB 7200 rpm mechanical drive. You have a 70 WHr battery which good for 2 hours 30 minutes watching videos at 25% brightness. Underneath the metal, the cover is where you will have your M.2 NVME SSDs. In order to have two M.2 slots, you need to have the 2070 or 2080 model. There is only one connector. This is a very strange design choice that makes no sense. The Wi-Fi card is a fast Intel Wi-Fi6 AX200. The fans push out air via three heatsinks. There are two shared heat pipes and an extra one for the GPU.

The command center shows system vitals, manages your network speeds, configures the macro key assignment, changes keyboard lighting, and allows you to choose one of three performance modes as well as switch the fans from auto to max. If you don’t have the max fan option, make sure to uninstall the software and reinstall it from the Windows store.

PERFORMANCE:

HP Pavilion Gaming 17

Performance is where this thing really shines. This is using an i7 10750H paired with a GTX 1660TI Max-Q processor. For those of you unfamiliar with the Max-Q, you get about 50% more performance in the GTX 1650 but about 15% less performance than a full-size GTX 1660TI. The gameplay on this thing is absolutely fantastic. This is capable of handling the majority of games with settings set to medium to high, no matter what game you threw at it, it was able to handle it comfortably.

Heat management was very interesting. This laptop does not get hot whatsoever and the reason being is because they severely power throttle it when it’s under full load, that’s a downfall if you’re doing multi-threaded applications like Adobe Premiere or 3D Solidworks, you’re not gonna get the full spectrum of the CPU. It’s gonna be power throttled below the base clock to around base clock speed which a lot of people might not like. The upside to this though, you get a very quiet gaming laptop, in fact, this is the quietest gaming laptop I’ve reviewed in this period of time.

HP Omen 17 (Intel)

You can still hear the fans at idle but they are still quiet, the auto fan at load is 45DB and if you activate max fans then you are at 50DB which isn’t the loudest I have heard. The Gamestream option allows you to stream games from your laptop to another PC on your network, more useful for a desktop. With the default setting and max fan, we can see the keyboard is comfortable at 37 degrees Celcius and we see much the same underneath. The fans are doing a great job of moving hot air out of the system.

Running Cinebench R20 with the default profile and auto fan, the initial CPU power is set to 90W but it will quickly settle to 45W. Consequently, the clock speed drops to 2900 Mhz and 66 degrees but a low score of 2234 points. Setting the CPU at 3800 Mhz and a 150mv undervolt, you will see the CPU initially holding at 3800 Mhz and then drop to 3200 Mhz. The watts is still 45 and the temperatures about the same but this time, we scored 2560 points. Running with the performance profile and same undervolt settings, the CPU holds the 3800 Mhz, temps are in the low 80s but this is with auto fan, and it is now pulling 72W. Performance mode drastically increases the watts and thus heat to the CPU. Still, we get a decent score of 2890 points. I recommend using this setting for all CPU work, even with max fan should you wish. One such use case is a Handbrake encode, after about 30 minutes it was still holding the 3800 Mhz clock and with a max fan was running at about 80 degrees which is perfect. Still, without the undervolt the CPU was pretty much the slowest of the bunch. With an undervolt it matched the time of the Helios 300.

Onto some gaming where the system has both a CPU and GPU load. On ultra settings using the default power profile, auto fan on the left and max fan on the right. With the auto fan, the CPU settles at 35W whilst with the max fan, it goes up to about 40W and a slightly higher boost clock. GPU performance and frame rates are unchanged but you do see a 4 to 5-degree drop in temperatures. When we have performance mode with max fans, the CPU settles in at about 55W, which translates into a higher boost clock and its temperature hovers in the mid to high 80s. Unfortunately using auto fan and performance saw the CPU temperature increase into the low 90s with a peak at 95. Using the same settings with the default profile, the performance is still good and temperatures are rock solid. This is with an auto fan at 45DB.

BATTERY:

HP Pavilion Gaming 17

The battery is only 52-watt hours, so I’m only getting about four to five hours of use before need to charge. It may seem quite low battery life but considering the price range and the battery size, this battery life is pretty good.

HP Omen 17 (Intel)

At 7 pounds, it’s quite lightweight for a 17″ laptop and the 200W power brick isn’t huge either making a weight of 8 pounds. The power pull was 199W with the default profile and 206W using performance. This is with a combined CPU and GPU load, so it’s a worst-case situation. This didn’t happen under regular gaming and as for battery drain, HP has an option in the BIOS to prolong battery life.

WHICH TO BUY?

For a 17-inch $1000 laptop, you get really great performance in this HP Pavilion Gaming 17. I love the fact that it’s so quiet. It is such fresh air being able to play games without the fans bothering you while you’re doing it. If you’re looking to use the CPU to run very intensive applications that are not games, you might be disappointed with the power throttling but if you’re buying this just to game, do some video editing, this thing is a good laptop because of those fans. It’s not perfect though like the keyboard is a little bit soft, the screen is a little bit wobbly but overall this is a very solid pick for under $1000. The Omen 17 is a solid aluminum build that may only be let down by the central hinges. For CPU work, you have to use the Performance profile to get the best results but in gaming, my advice is to stick with the default, you get the same frame rates at lower temperatures. Applying an undervolt will let you use the auto fan with class-leading low fan noise. I do wish the speakers had more oomph but the audio through headphones is loud and clear. The keyboard is decent and if you are into macro keys they have you covered.

Both the laptops are good for gaming but if anyone says to choose between these two laptops, I will definitely choose HP Omen 17 laptop for better performance and better gaming experience.

Expert reviews of HP Pavilion Gaming 17:

By Notebookcheck
One word describes our overall experience with the Pavilion Gaming 17: surprised. The Pavilion series is HP’s bottom-of-the-barrel offering…

By Pcworld
I came into this thinking I’d find a pitched battle between HP’s Pavilion and Omen lines. Really, they’re just two sides…

Expert Reviews for HP Omen 17 (Intel):

By Digit
Aside from putting in a GTX 1070, there really isn’t much about this laptop that would attract the “gaming” label. Performance wise, the HP Omen 17 does take a few steps back because of the older CPU but when it comes to gaming it decimates practically…

By LaptopMag
The HP Omen 17 packs impressive gaming and VR performance into a beastly, slick-looking and reasonably priced…

By gamingcentral.in
The redesigned HP Omen 17 is an improvement over its predecessor in almost every single way, and even though it’s quite bulky for a laptop, most people who want to buy a 17-inch laptop wouldn’t really be concerned about portability in the first place….

By laptopmedia.com
Despite some of its drawbacks, the HP Omen 17 (GTX 1070) makes it to our recommendation list as it has some few strong selling points that need to be considered. Unfortunately, build quality, feel and input devices are not one of them. The lid feels…

By PCWorld
HP’s Omen 17 has a reputation as a solid performer at a budget price, and its 2019 model follows suit. It’s heavy and the battery is a bummer, but a full RTX 2070 at this price? Believe it.

Arya

Hello! I'm Surendar Arya, a passionate tech writer from Uttar Pradesh, India. I'm a freelance contributor to the tech blog - The World's Best And Worst. My enthusiasm for technology drives me to explore the latest trends and innovations in the field. I take immense pleasure in guiding individuals on how to leverage technology for their benefit, making their lives easier and more efficient.