HP Victus 15, Core i5-13420H, 16GB, 1TB SSD, RTX 3050, mica silver

That 6GB RTX 3050 is doing all the heavy lifting in a laptop that otherwise feels like last year's parts bin. Wait for a price drop before you bite.

The RTX 3050 lands in the 75th percentile for GPUs, which surprised us. That's well above average for a card people love to dismiss. The 6GB of VRAM is the real difference maker, letting it handle modern titles at 1080p without choking the way the 4GB version does. The i5-13420H is solid but unremarkable, sitting right around the middle of the pack. The 16GB of DDR4 RAM is where things get a little disappointing, landing in the 37th percentile. It's fine for gaming, but creators will feel the ceiling quickly.

The Victus 15 sits in an awkward spot. The Lenovo Legion 5i gives you better build quality and a more powerful GPU for not much more money. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is lighter, faster, and has a better screen, though it costs more. And if you don't need gaming performance at all, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition absolutely destroys this thing on portability and battery life. The Victus only wins if you specifically need a budget gaming laptop with a 6GB VRAM card and you catch it on sale.

At $1,069, this is a tough sell. You're paying a premium for the 6GB RTX 3050 and the 1TB SSD, but the DDR4 RAM and middling reliability scores make it feel like a $850 laptop wearing a $1,000 price tag. If you can find this on sale for under $900, it becomes a much more interesting proposition. At full price, you're better off shopping around.

The HP Victus 15 is a budget gaming laptop that gets the basics right but doesn't exactly light the room on fire. The one thing to know? That RTX 3050 with 6GB of VRAM is the star here, punching above its weight class, while the rest of the machine feels like a collection of sensible compromises. At $1,069, you're getting a 144Hz IPS display, a 13th-gen i5, and a full terabyte of storage, which sounds great until you realize the RAM is DDR4 and the battery is a modest 52Wh.

If you're looking for a portable laptop with all-day battery life, this isn't it. Go get a Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition instead. And if you want a gaming laptop that feels premium and will last, the Lenovo Legion 5i is the better buy even if it costs a bit more.

The HP Victus 15 is a decent budget gaming laptop with one genuinely good component and a bunch of average ones. The 6GB RTX 3050 is the reason to buy it, full stop. But at $1,069, you're paying too much for a machine with DDR4 RAM, a small battery, and reliability scores that don't inspire confidence. Wait for a sale, or spend a little more on a Legion 5i.