HP OMEN 45L GT22 Black 2025

The HP OMEN 45L GT22 is a mid-tower gaming PC built around a top-of-the-charts Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and a capable RTX 5070. It's a beast for productivity and streaming, but gamers laser-focused on 4K ultra settings might find the GPU the weak link at this $2,130 price. The port selection and cooling are stellar, though the 1TB SSD and hefty weight are worth noting.

This thing rips through CPU-intensive tasks like it's nothing. The Core Ultra 9 285K is a top-tier performer, hitting a 98th percentile rank that puts it in the same league as some workstation chips costing nearly as much as this whole PC. In practice, that means video edits render in a snap, 3D modeling stays smooth, and even the most CPU-hungry games can stretch their legs without stuttering. We'd call this processor the absolute best right now for a prebuilt in its class.

The RTX 5070 lands at the 81st percentile, which is well above average but not class-leading. You'll comfortably play Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p with ray tracing on high, and esports titles will fly beyond 200fps. For 4K gaming, you'll need to dial back a few settings in new AAA releases to stay above 60fps. The 32GB of DDR5 running at 5600MHz keeps background tasks humming and sits in the 82nd percentile, so you won't feel shortchanged on memory. Storage speed is solid, around the 73rd percentile, so game load times are snappy, but that single 1TB drive fills up faster than you'd expect.

The obvious rivals are the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 10 and ASUS Republic of Gamers offerings. The Legion usually trades CPU grunt for a better GPU at a similar price, so it's the smarter pick for pure gaming. The ASUS ROG GM700TZ-BS978 often steps up the GPU tier while keeping a fast Intel chip, but you'll pay more. MSI's EdgeXpert lineup can be hit or miss on build quality, while the Dell XPS EBT2250 leans more toward office duty with a less flashy design. The Apple iMac M4 is a completely different animal; it's silent, compact, and efficient for creative workflows, but it can't touch this HP in raw CPU multi-core speed and it's a non-starter for most PC gaming libraries.

New challengers have entered the ring, though. The Lenovo Legion 34IAS10 is a strong alternative that often bundles a higher-tier GPU for a similar outlay, making it a better fit if frame rates matter more than core counts. HP's own Omen 45L remains a solid pick in this bracket, but the Apple Mac Studio M4 Max has emerged as a real threat for video editors and music producers who want dead-silent operation and incredible single-core speed, even if it can't match the Core Ultra 9 in heavily threaded workloads. The MSI MEG Vision X AI 2NVZ9-045US is another fresh face, leaning hard into AI-assisted features and a flashy front-panel display, though its gaming performance lands in roughly the same neighborhood as this HP.

At $2,130, the OMEN 45L GT22 sits in a weird spot. That Core Ultra 9 is an incredible value if you need raw multi-threaded horsepower for work or streaming, but the RTX 5070 means pure gamers aren't getting the most frames per dollar. For a couple hundred less, you could grab a rig with a slightly slower CPU and a faster GPU, which would make more sense if gaming is 90% of what you do. If your day job involves rendering or heavy code compiles, though, the CPU performance here is hard to match at this price from big-name prebuilt brands.

HP's OMEN 45L GT22 is a mid-tower gaming desktop that comes out swinging with one of the fastest consumer CPUs we've ever tracked, the 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. At around $2,130, this prebuilt pairs that monster chip with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a surprisingly generous port setup, including Thunderbolt 4. It's clearly aimed at people who want serious CPU muscle for gaming and heavy multitasking without diving into a custom build.

The star of the show is that Core Ultra 9, which sits in the 98th percentile among all desktop processors in our database. That means it's an absolute animal for content creation, streaming, and any game that leans on the CPU. The RTX 5070, on the other hand, is a strong but more mid-pack GPU. It'll push high frame rates at 1440p and handle 4K with some settings turned down, but it's not going to set any records. The 1TB NVMe SSD is a bit tight for a modern game library, though the tool-less chassis makes future storage upgrades painless.

Cooling is handled by HP's Cryo Chamber, an AIO liquid solution that keeps the core temps manageable even when all 24 cores are screaming. The case itself is a looker, with tempered glass, four zones of RGB, and a full-metal frame that feels sturdy. At 22.6kg (nearly 50 pounds), it's a hefty beast you won't want to move around much. For creatives and gamers who value connectivity, the rear I/O is loaded, and Wi-Fi 6E plus Bluetooth 5.3 mean you're covered for wireless needs right out of the box.

Skip this if your main goal is maxing out 4K gaming right now without compromises. The RTX 5070 is good, but it'll struggle with ultra settings in the hardest titles, so you'd be happier with a system packing an RTX 4080 Super or RX 7900 XTX. Also, anyone who needs a quiet, compact PC should look at smaller builds or even an Apple iMac M4 for silent operation, because this 22.6kg tower is anything but portable and fan noise under load can be noticeable.

If you've been shopping for a powerful prebuilt that won't break a sweat on CPU-heavy tasks and you want tons of ports without dongle hell, the HP OMEN 45L GT22 deserves a spot on your shortlist. The Core Ultra 9 285K is absurdly fast, and the whole package feels built to last. But you should know what you're signing up for: a heavy, not-quite-maxed-out GPU that will leave some gamers wishing they'd spent the same money on a system with an RTX 4080 Super instead.

Grab this if you do equal parts gaming and content creation, or if you plan to pop in a new GPU down the line when prices settle. As a pure gaming rig, it's a bit unbalanced for the cost. The cooling, connectivity, and overall polish are real, though, so it's far from a bad buy.