HP Announces the Omen Max 45L Gaming PC With Heavy Duty Cooling

HP just announced the Omen Max 45L, an AMD CPU-powered version of the Omen 45L, one of our favorite gaming desktops. The company says the upgraded machine, configurable with up to a AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 GPU, will be available in December. HP isn't ready to announce pricing yet, but you can bet it won't be cheap: the existing Omen 45L starts at $1,999.

If a maxed-out model appeals to you, the Max 45L's Ryzen 9 9950X3D will outperform the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K that's available for the standard Omen 45L. That CPU may also be a bit of overkill; as IGN's Jackie Thomas wrote earlier this year, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which will also be an option for this machine according to a specs sheet HP emailed to IGN, is probably adequate for most folks.

HP says it has made some other tweaks here, including a "re-engineered design featuring raised feet, open bottom vents, and vented PCI slots," and the addition of a 1,200-watt "fully modular" PSU – up from a max 1,000-watt in the 45L. Otherwise, you can expect the same powerful liquid cooling, triple 120mm front fans and single 120mm rear fan, and spacious, upgrade-friendly case design that helps makes the Omen 45L such a good prebuilt option. Unfortunately, the Max 45L is still a heavy bastard at 49.82 pounds, and the base config still starts with a measly 512GB NVMe SSD.

Apart from the Max 45L, HP announced new versions of the Omen 35L with similar upgrades, including new AMD Ryzen chipsets and a 1,200-watt power supply, as those coming to the Max 45L. The company will also release a new Omen 35L Stealth Edition that's basically the same machine, but in an all-black case with no RGB lights to speak of – and it's also smaller. Both of those machines will be available in October on HP's website, starting at $1,499.99.

Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.