After spending 10 years bathed within the glow of RGB, I’m so prepared for HP’s new black-box Omen 35L Stealth gaming PC

It was 10 years in the past final month that MSI launched the primary RGB motherboard, the X99A Godlike Gaming. And as a PC and parts editor, it seems like I’ve lived each rainbow-strewn second of the final decade surrounded by software-controlled lights. From SSDs, laptops, mousepads, GPU water blocks, energy cables – you identify it. About the one PC or PC half that did not get the RGB remedy was the CPU (until you depend Newegg’s 2019 April Fools video).

We even constructed a few customized PCs with as a lot RGB as we might discover. I did not hate RGB again then, and I nonetheless do not fully hate it now. But man, my eyes are prepared for a break after constructing and utilizing PCs in instances just like the InWin 309 Gaming Edition for the previous a number of years.

I imply, have a look at it. It had a controller that allow you to play Tetris on the entrance panel, for some purpose. It was enjoyable for a couple of minutes in 2020 once I was nonetheless principally caught at dwelling, however by 2023, I’d rebuilt my gaming rig inside a Fractal North case with out RGB or perhaps a facet window. It’s nonetheless the case (and the PC) that I’m utilizing right this moment as my fundamental work and gaming system, and I have never seen something since that is made me need to swap.

I like the simple look of the 35L Stealth Edition, though. If not for its mesh front and top, it would look almost… Kubrickian, with a skinny white font proclaiming the Omen model and 35L mannequin / quantity on the entrance and facet, and not likely anything by way of adornment. Still, I’d wish to see a color-swapped model in white with black letters, which the corporate already does with the non-Stealth 35L.

Port choice on the again of the mannequin the corporate had on show at a press occasion in NYC was no less than first rate, with two 10 Gbps USB-C ports and 6 USB-A. But notice that 4 of these ports appear to be USB 2.0. Port choice can even possible differ, no less than between Intel and AMD fashions.

The Omen 35L and 35L Stealth Edition are anticipated to go on sale in October, beginning at $1,499. The CPU choices vary from the Ryzen 7 7800X3D to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D on the AMD facet, with simply two last-gen CPU choices from Intel: the Core i5-14400F and Core i7-14700F. (The imbalance of these CPU choices additionally tells a narrative of a giant shift within the trade). GPUs run the gamut of Nvidia’s present Blackwell vary, from the RTX 5050 as much as the RTX 5090. Sorry, AMD followers, there aren’t any Radeons within the Stealth’s spec sheet.

As a builder, I’m more likely to roll my very own gaming PC (Lian Li’s glorious wood-accented LanCool 217 can be a very good place to start out). But I hope the Omen 35L Stealth Edition sells properly sufficient for HP to proceed iterating on its non-RGB gaming rig, and for different corporations to contemplate their very own non-lit PCs. I do not count on RGB to go away, nevertheless it’s all the time good to have decisions. And for a very long time within the prebuilt gaming and PC case house, it is felt like the first (and infrequently solely) factor most corporations paid any actual consideration to was RGB. I’m able to deal with – and have a look at – one thing else.

Note: As with all of our op-eds, the opinions expressed right here belong to the author alone and never Tom’s Hardware as a group.