HP Victus HP Victus 15.6" FHD 144Hz Gaming Laptop, Intel Review

The HP Victus is a budget gaming laptop that tries to do a lot for not a lot of cash. You get a 144Hz screen and an RTX 3050, which is enough to get you in the door for 1080p gaming. But you can feel the corners they cut to hit that price point, especially when you look at the specs.

The Intel 13420H CPU and RTX 3050 combo is fine for the basics. You'll hit decent frame rates in esports titles and older AAA games on medium settings. But that 8GB of RAM is a huge bottleneck. It's in the 10th percentile, which means it's way below average. Expect stutters in modern games and when you have a few apps open. The GPU lands in the 68th percentile, so it's decent for the money, but the whole system feels held back by that tiny amount of memory.

At $640, it's cheap. You're getting a discrete GPU and a high-refresh screen, which is rare at this price. But that 8GB of RAM is a deal-breaker for any serious use. You'll probably need to upgrade it immediately, which adds cost and hassle. It feels like a starter kit that needs extra parts.

It's way cheaper than an Apple MacBook Pro or a high-end Lenovo Legion, but those are in a different league. The real competition is other budget gaming laptops. Compared to them, the Victus offers a better screen than most, but that 8GB RAM puts it behind rivals that start with 16GB. The Asus Zenbook Duo isn't a gaming machine, and the MSI and Gigabyte options are much more powerful but cost a lot more. This sits in a weird spot where it's not the best value because of its crippling RAM.

Buy this only if you're on an extreme budget and you're willing to immediately buy and install more RAM yourself. For everyone else, especially if you want to do more than just game, save up a bit more for a laptop that doesn't have such a glaring weakness right out of the box.