HP Victus 15L Gaming Desktop Tower 2024

I was a little concerned when I installed The Amazing Spider-man and it didn’t run well, at all. Apparently that was just a bad choice for the first game to install because it doesn’t work well for AMD chips(terrible optimization). I was pleasantly surprised when I installed Far Cry 4 to see that it was able to handle the highest graphics settings(ultimate). Granted I’m frame limiting it at 30fps but I’m okay with playing all my games at that. I was hoping for a PS4 equivalent but I got something a little better. I would say the ps4 runs far cry 4 at around low to medium settings so ultimate is a vast improvement. textures, effects, lighting, all these things are a vast improvement over the PS4. If you’re into fps i was able to get over 60 in medium settings which isn’t too bad. For a casual gamer like myself I couldn’t have asked for anything better at the price point. The only drawback to the system is that you’ll need to upgrade to 16GB ram to play the latest games well. I got far cry 5 to play but the graphic settings were set to low. (uses less resources). I’m going to upgrade the memory later this month and then i should be set.

*update I tweaked the settings on far cry 5 and overclocked the GPU by 13% and now it’s running smooth on ULTIMATE! that’s a pretty new game. to do this you’ll have to get MSI afterburner. Don’t mess with the memory clock, but the core clock can run +13% no problems. Also set the fan curve higher to keep it around 80 degrees c. I was so happy when i figured this out. with the proper tweaking this machine can handle a lot. Oh also set the power to plus 20 %. I’ve tested about 6 games with these settings monitoring temp and power consumption and it’s all done great. I was happy to find out that the power supply is a gold rating. really for 550 you can’t ask for anything more.

Performance: 5/5
Value: 5/5
Material Condition: 3/5

With such a big purchase (though I forgot to buy that SquareTrade protection plan for this), I documented my unboxing of the PC. Immediately after I removed the styrofoam shipping form, I saw what I thought was just cosmetic damage. As I investigated, I found the entire face plate at that corner was totally loose. I took the side cover off and saw the plastic clip that secures the face plate to the metal frame was broken. This is likely not damage from shipping. The rest of the plastic clip was loose in the cavity of the PC. I’ve contacted the seller about the damage with no response.

I bought this to game and casually stream on Twitch. The computer performs great on a slew of games, but when I stream I drop 40% of my frames, so I have a bit of optimizing to do. The 8 GB of RAM is likely the culprit, as only 6.9 GB is ever available. I’ll be upgrading to 12 GB or 16 GB by the spring.

The AMD Ryzen 3 2200g has GREAT reviews all over the internet and is capable of playing most AAA games with medium settings between 30-60 fps. I have zero problem buying a budget gaming PC that utilizes this APU. I don’t play the latest games but I play Planetside 2 (MMO), ESV: Skyrim with mods, Minecraft with mods and shaders, and a little known universe simulator called Space Engine (very CPU intensive) and this PC keeps up with everything.

I am a full time student so having a powerful, fast computer is important to me. I need to focus on getting my work done, not waiting for things to load. This PC delivers, but it’s only been 2 weeks. As usual, HP has loaded this PC with bloatware, and I’m in the process of removing it all. I’m not sure what is essential and what isn’t, so I’ve only taken off the obvious.

The built in WiFi receiver so far is easy to use and very good. I’m connected to the 5GHz band my router puts out but I am about 15-20 ft (5-6 m) from the router. No connectivity drops, Bluetooth devices pair like a dream, and I’ve got all the USB ports I could possibly need. It has 6 USB in the rear, 2 USB in the front, plus 1 microUSB, 1 card reader, a headphone jack, and an optical drive I’ve yet to take for a spin).

I will say the keyboard and mouse that come with this PC are absolutely low budget. They work, but I hate low profile keys and will be replacing with a Logitech wireless set in the future.

There is NO active VGA port. Thankfully I got a monitor that has HDMI and VGA, but there is the possibility of adding that port in the slot later.

All told, this PC is excellent value for the money if you’re hoping to get into gaming. It will play most titles on medium right out of the box. I don’t get excited thinking about ultra high definition gaming graphics…because I have other, more useful things to spend my money on than well defined pixels. If you’d rather throw money at a better machine, by all means. If you’re looking to spend less than $600 and not get screwed over, this might be for you.

Best of luck.

This computer did not last two years. Beware of HP. First thing that started going wrong was lagging and freezing. It seemed with every update it just kept getting worse and worse. Then it started to have driver issues. A week ago it did not want to boot up. I tried to do a system restart and it froze half way in the process. After trying to get it to boot up today it would not. Now when I hit the power button nothing comes on at all. This machine is dead as of 2-13-21. I will never buy another HP product.