OMEN by HP Obelisk Gaming Desktop Computer, 9th Generation Intel Core i9-9900K Processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB, HyperX 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, Windows 10 Home (875-1023, Black) (Renewed)

I think HP has done something really interesting here with the HP Omen Obelisk 875 0000 Series. So, the idea is you buy a prebuilt from a big company like HP but it’s all standard component. It’s a standard ATX power supply standard micro ATX motherboards – standard everything. As you progress in your knowledge about gaming computers in general and decide you want to upgrade this thing you can!This is something for people who may perhaps want to build their own computer but they’re not quite confident enough yet. Even though it’s really not that difficult you can just get one of these and then upgrade it as you move along.

Technical review of the OMEN by HP Obelisk Gaming Desktop Computer

First of all there’s a core i7 8700 in there. It also has an nvidia gtx 1070 and there’s a half terabyte SSD nvme SSD and a one terabyte hard drive. There is a tiny little CPU cooler inside and it’s a blower style card. What’s really nice is while this card has just a single 8 pin, there is a secondary 8 pin there. It is RGB as well. 

Front Panel

The plastic front panel has a brushed aluminum look to it. It picks up fingerprints a little bit but it’s not that bad. The sides have a satin look towards the edges but the center has the brushed aluminum look. It’s quite a pointy front panel.

Top

On the top section, you have your power button, dual USB, and a headphone/microphone jack along with nice ventilation for the top.

Back Panel

So I did mention it uses standard ATX components and there is a standard ATX power supply. Above it there are the slots for your standard PCI cards. Right now there’s a gtx 1070 in there. Above that is where the i/o would be. There is also a microphone, stereo and woofer port. There is also Ethernet, five type-a USB 3 ports, and a type C. What we don’t get here are display outputs which is really weird because the CPU has a built-in graphics card chip so I was kind of hoping to see at least an HDMI port on there so you can make do if the graphics card ever breaks and you’re waiting for a new one.

Special Feature of Computer

So what’s really nice, and you don’t see this with like you know DIY computer cases, is the way the side panel comes off. So it’s just a big button and when you click it, the side panel just lifts out.

CPU Cooler Fan

The first thing I noticed without the side glass panel is is the tiny little CPU cooler. I’ve tested temperatures. It runs hot but it doesn’t throttle and it is enough. Given that there’s no overclocking and that this is already an i7 there’s not really any need to upgrade it. The cooler is good enough although you know it doesn’t look all that impressive.

Memory Stick

Next to the cooler you can see a single memory stick. This might change depending on which SKU you have. On this computer it is 32 gigs of HyperX memory.What’s really interesting is the power 24 pin is actually in the bottom below the graphics card. It’s something that you don’t see very often but it makes everything look nice and clean.

Size

It’s basically a mini ITX motherboard stretched out to micro ATX size. There is a lot of extra case space above the motherboard. There could have easily been a full ATX motherboard in there

Ventilation

There’s not much ventilation going on right now on the top inside of the case and this is the way HP ships it. You can remove the hard drive plate towards the top if you would like. You can man the hard drive in there or just remove it and have some convection going on. Or at least give the front or this rear fan something to draw air through because other than that ventilation is incredibly poor. For example there are some cutouts in the side panel and you would maybe expect air to go through these cutouts if you take the panel away. The air can’t come through the side panel because it’s blocked off. The bottom of the case is the only place where air can come through. There’s a dust filter there that you can remove to clean which is an awesome feature that they included. It’s doable to reinstall it but it’s a little difficult. There’s just a massive lack of airflow but I couldn’t observe any terminal throttling with the graphics card. It just gets really loud. What’s worrying about this whole situation to me is that people will put the case on a carpet. The power supply and the graphics card are both fighting for air coming through this little area while hopefully the rear fan can get a little bit from the top over there.HP counters that by making the fan work extra hard in there. It can get really loud though. 

Gaming

Everything is playable even at 1440p 4k. Even if it’s not like maxed out intensity graphics, the performance is there. It doesn’t have thermal trouble but I kind of expected more from HP. I really like the concept of making it easier for people who are new to PC gaming and there’s a lot of people like that especially with the entire Metaverse craze. There’s a lot of people who are new to PC gaming who want to build their own system but aren’t quite culturally confident enough. They don’t really know how to do it and so they buy something like this and later on they can upgrade it. 

Overall:

The HP Omen Obelisk configuration reviewed here is a great gaming machine for beginners that runs well and feels good while gaming. It’s great at running programs with heavy graphics and those that take up a lot of processing. That applies to similarly-demanding applications like video editing programs. Only downside is the poor ventilation.