Ryzen 9 8940HX laptop for less than $950

It’s a cry of agreement. HP has almost halved the price of the Omen 16z to just $950; That’s a savings of $850 (was $1,700). I chose it because of its processor, the Ryzen 9 8940HX is a power user’s dream with 16 cores (32 threads) and a huge 64MB L3 cache. The next cheapest laptop with this processor is about 50% more expensive. This HP deal is so good!

I can’t stress enough how powerful the 55W 16-core processor is. Although it ranks 10th among AMD mobile processors, it is faster than all but two of Intel’s laptop processors (the 275HX and 285HX).

Its score of 51300 in the CPU test puts it ahead of the Apple M2 Ultra (the chip in the $7,000 Mac Pro desktop workstation) and the 350W AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7945WX workstation processor.

The rest of the component list isn’t bad either. An Nvidia RTX5060 GPU with 8GB of RAM (remember, this is the laptop version, so don’t expect miracles), two 8GB DDR5 memory modules, 512GB of PCIe Gen4 solid-state storage, a 16-inch 2K IPS display with 300 nits of brightness, and a 6-WZ-8-com battery. UPC.

There are also plenty of connectivity and upgrade options. You can add another SSD, and there are six I/O ports (including GbE LAN). One area that falls short of my expectations is the wireless technology used: the Realtek Wi-Fi 6 chip just isn’t enough in a $1,000 laptop; It’s not even Wi-Fi 6e, and others are already using Wi-Fi 7

On the other hand, I like the Full HD LCD camera (would be useful for Windows Hello) and the backlit keyboard with a dedicated number pad. My colleagues at TechRadar reviewed an earlier version of the Omen 16z in 2023 and said it was a great option for gaming on a budget.

I couldn’t agree more, other than the fact that this is an absolute bargain for those who can afford it. Oh, and you can get the RTX 5700 version for just $120.

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My early years and upbringing meant that I always preferred economical tech products. I chase deals, not brands. Perhaps that’s why the trades I choose are often very different from those of my colleagues.

The most powerful laptops cost about 1000 dollars