In case you were wondering, the HP Omen 35L really is 35 litres. Take off your shoes and socks and do the maths, the dimensions are somewhere on this page: HP has named its compactish gaming PC rather sensibly, and while there’s no way this could ever be called SFF (it’s about the size of two Fractal Terras stacked on top of one another, or just over three large watermelons if you squish them a bit) it’s certainly not huge.
And it’s very nicely made. The one we’ve got here comes in black, though there have been white variants of the 35L in the past, and the glass front and side panels allow you to see the glory of the RGB fans and CPU pump as they swish away. The mATX motherboard contains two RAM slots, both of which are filled, and there’s a spare M.2 for an extra SSD if you don’t mind removing the GPU to get at it, but the empty PCIe slot at the bottom is so close to the graphics card shroud you’re not going to get much in there.
AMD says AM5 should be good for up to Zen 7, however, so there’s scope for some upgrades here as long as you don’t mind replacing all the RAM—it’s 32 GB of 6000MT/s across the two sticks right now, so there should be some headroom.
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CPU |
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D |
|
NPU |
none |
|
Graphics |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070Ti (16 GB) |
|
Memory |
32 GB DDR5-6000 MT/s |
|
Storage |
1 TB SSD |
|
Ports |
4x USB2, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x 2.5Gb Ethernet, 1x 3.5mm audio; 3x DisplayPort 2.1b and 1x HDMI 2.1b on graphics card |
|
Wireless connectivity |
Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 |
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Dimensions |
21 x 41 x 41 cm |
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Weight |
14.5 kg |
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Price |
£2599.99 or $3,199.99 |
Buy if…
✅ The sight of a screwdriver brings you out in purple spots: PC gaming has long been a DIY hobby, but there’s no shame in picking up a pre-built and diving straight into the best PC gaming has to offer.
Do not buy if…
❌ You need portability or the bleeding edge: This is a high-performance PC designed to hit a price that’s high but not too high, and with a little room inside for upgrades, could be your gaming friend for years.
On the outside of the case you’ll be disappointed if you’re expecting USB4—it’s not here, and the Type-C ports top out at 10Gbps. Retro peripheral enthusiasts will be pleased by the four USB2 ports, though three of them are likely to remain unused by most users. There’s just enough I/O here to make the 35L useful, with top-mounted ports that are easy to reach right next to the power button. On the back, there’s no HDMI for the CPU’s integrated graphics—it uses a USB-C’s DP mode instead—but you’ll be more interested in the trio of DisplayPort and single HDMI of the GeForce card anyway. This arrangement should at least prevent that embarrassing scenario where you plug your monitor into the integrated GPU by mistake and wonder why your games won’t run nicely.
1440p gaming performance
Testing our benchmarking suite at the PC gaming sweet spot resolution
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| HP Omen 35L | RTX 5070 Ti | Ryzen 7 9800X3D | 99 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS |
| HP Omen 35L | RTX 4080 Super | Core Ultra 7 265K | 92.5 Avg FPS, 70 1% Low FPS |
| iBuyPower RDY Element 9 Pro R07 | RX 9070 XT | Ryzen 7 7800X3D | 68 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS |
| Custom PC build | RTX 5070 Ti | Ryzen 7 9800X3D | 82 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS |
The games do run, however, and they run a little faster than the last Omen 35L PCG reviewed back at the beginning of 2025, which paired a Core Ultra 7 265K with an RTX 4080 Super and a larger 2 TB SSD. That PC was a little bit cheaper at the time, a difference of about 10% on the US dollar prices, with two years’ worth of inflation and all this *gestures around wildly* to blame for the increase. You’re getting an extra two frames per second (2.73%) in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p with upscaling off for your money.
That’s assuming you upgrade your 35L every time a new one comes out, and most people probably don’t do that. Though if you do, write in and the hardware team will refer you to one of their legion of therapists. For anyone coming from a RTX 20- or 30-series Nvidia card, however, it’s going to be a major step up.
A pre-built desktop system like this is PC gaming on easy mode.
It’s certainly a very quiet machine. The case fans spin all the time, though they do switch the RGB off on occasion, and all they’re doing is feeding air over the motherboard heatsinks and to the GPU cooler, as the CPU is under a water block that sends its heat out the top of the case through a 240 mm radiator. Work it hard and all you’ll hear is a rushing sound like wind through trees that doesn’t stop, the working of the pump and the motors in the fans largely unnoticeable—of the PCG benchmark suite, it’s only Time Spy Extreme that really gets it fired up, and only then near the end. It’s a system that keeps everything very nice and cool in our tests, with even the idea of 70°C something neither the CPU nor GPU is prepared to entertain during a Metro Exodus run.
Thermals
Temperature of the core components during a stress testing game run
Gaming Temps
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| HP Omen 35L | RTX 5070 Ti | Ryzen 7 9800X3D | 60 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 66 Max CPU Temp (°C), 60 Avg GPU Temp (°C), 66 Max GPU Temp (°C) |
| HP Omen 35L | RTX 4080 Super | Core Ultra 7 265K | 52 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 62 Max CPU Temp (°C), 54 Avg GPU Temp (°C), 33 Max GPU Temp (°C) |
| iBuyPower RDY Element 9 Pro R07 | RX 9070 XT | Ryzen 7 7800X3D | 63 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 71 Max CPU Temp (°C), 60 Avg GPU Temp (°C), 43 Max GPU Temp (°C) |
| Custom PC build | RTX 5070 Ti | Ryzne 7 9800X3D | 67 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 74 Max CPU Temp (°C), 69 Avg GPU Temp (°C), 53 Max GPU Temp (°C) |
Metro is always an interesting case study as it puts a lot of strain on a PC’s CPU. The best results in testing for this game come from AMD CPUs, with the X3D models rising to the top, and so it proves here with the 35L’s results coming within a whisker of an almost identically-specced custom system created for PCG’s print magazine. The only desktop PC that beats the 35L (in this test, out of the systems PCG has tested) is an NZXT Player Three Prime that pairs an RTX 5090 with a 9800X3D, and which costs a lot more than the Omen 35L. In a game of diminishing returns, an extra 19fps for $1800 is well up there when you’re already producing over 170.
This all goes to show why the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is still PCG’s favourite desktop processor, even though the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D now exists. Despite being built on AMD’s latest architecture it’s practically old-fashioned, having only one type of core, no NPU, and hyper-threading (SMT) enabled, yet trashes the competition in pre-built or DIY machines when paired with a suitable GPU.
Buying a pre-built desktop system like this is, in many ways, PC gaming on easy mode. You plug it in, it works, you get great results—there’s no obsessive selection of parts, no creation of multiple lists, and certainly no screwdrivers. It may take a bit of the fun out of getting a new PC, but at least it’s not a laptop.
The question of value will hang over the Omen 35L, especially with component prices the way they are right now. It’s not a bargain system, but it sure is cheaper than something like the Maingear MG-1 Mk.II, and can at least cool its CPU effectively. What you get for that money hits pretty close to a price/performance sweetspot, though, and that’s got to be worth a look.
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