OMEN RTX GPU Ray Tracing Guide 2025: Performance Benchmarks for Gamers

The ray tracing revolution isn’t something to dream about anymore. It’s here, and it’s as beautiful as everyone anticipated. For Hong Kong’s passionate gaming community, where high-performance computing meets compact living spaces, this technological leap forward represents a significant moment in gaming history. Over the past year, the conversation has shifted from “does it have ray tracing” to “how well does it run with ray tracing”. This technology that replicates the natural behavior of light has paved the way for hyper-realistic scenery, becoming the new benchmark for visual fidelity in gaming. But what does that mean for gamers?

For gamers, it means reflections, shadows, and lighting that are indistinguishable from real life, creating a level of immersion once thought impossible. However, this stunning realism comes at the cost of serious hardware demands. That’s why our HP OMEN gaming desktops feature NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 40-series GPUs, to make these wonderful visuals accessible to gamers across different budgets. But is the hardware and performance cost worth the visual upgrade? And how does HP OMEN find the right balance between performance and aesthetics? This guide will answer all those questions. So without further ado, let’s dive in.

What is Ray Tracing? Understanding the Technology

Before we examine the statistics and tricks for optimizing your system for ray tracing, let’s first understand the technology itself. For decades, video games have used a rendering technique called rasterization. Think of it like creating a 2D painting of a 3D scene. It’s fast and effective, but it uses clever shortcuts and approximations to simulate lighting, shadows, and reflections.

Ray tracing, however, is more like a complete physics simulation. It traces the pathway of every individual ray of light from your viewpoint back to the light sources within your game, interacting with objects along the way, bouncing off a puddle or being blocked by a character. This allows the system to calculate the exact color, brightness, and shadow information for every single pixel on your screen.

OMEN RTX GPU Top Picks for Ray Tracing Performance

Our HP OMEN gaming laptops and HP OMEN desktops are designed to extract maximum performance from these powerful GPUs. With advanced thermal solutions like the HP OMEN Tempest Cooling system, we ensure your hardware runs at peak performance during the most intense ray-traced gaming sessions. Here are the most popular options:

• RTX 4060 Ti in HP OMEN systems: Your gateway to ray-traced gaming experiences. These GPUs are excellent for gamers hoping to enjoy 1080p ray tracing without sacrificing smooth frame rates.
• RTX 4070 and 4070 Ti configurations: The sweet spot for high-refresh-rate 1440p gaming. HP OMEN desktops with an RTX 4070 Ti provide a fantastic balance of price and performance, capable of handling demanding ray tracing in most modern triple-A (AAA) titles.
• RTX 4080 and 4090 flagship options: For extreme enthusiasts who demand an uncompromised 4K experience, these GPUs are the best option. These flagship cards deliver unmatched ray tracing performance at the highest resolutions.

Benchmark Methodology and Test Setup

But don’t just take our word for it. We ran benchmarks in some of the most demanding titles and have the results for you. To provide clear and objective results, we used a consistent test environment for all benchmarks.

• Test System: HP OMEN 45L Gaming Desktop
• Processor: Intel® Core™ i9-13900K
• Memory: 32GB DDR5 RAM
• Storage: 2TB NVMe SSD
• Games Tested: Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, Portal with RTX, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
• Settings Used: Tests were conducted at 1920 x 1080 (1080p), 2560 x 1440 (1440p), and 3840 x 2160 (4K) resolutions with the highest in-game graphical presets.
• Performance Metrics: We tracked average frames per second (FPS) as our primary metric.

Ray Tracing Performance Benchmarks

Here’s how our HP OMEN systems performed across a suite of the most demanding ray-traced games available today. “Native RT” refers to Ray Tracing enabled without DLSS, while “DLSS 3 Performance” refers to Ray Tracing enabled with DLSS 3 set to its Performance mode, including Frame Generation.

Cyberpunk 2077 (RT: Overdrive - Path Tracing)

Alan Wake 2 (Full Ray Tracing)

Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (RT: Very High)

DLSS 3 and Frame Generation Impact

As the benchmark results suggest, NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology is crucial for unlocking the full potential of games featuring ray tracing. But how exactly does it work?

DLSS is an AI-powered rendering technology that, in its traditional form (Super Resolution), renders the game at a lower internal resolution and then uses AI and the GPU’s Tensor Cores to intelligently upscale the image to your target resolution, reconstructing detail to look as good as native rendering.

With the RTX 40 Series, NVIDIA introduced Frame Generation, a revolutionary feature alongside DLSS 3, which analyses sequential frames and motion data to create new frames and inserts them between the traditionally rendered ones. This enhances the visual performance of the game while providing stable frame rates.

Is OMEN Ray Tracing Good? Performance Analysis

The benchmark results look impressive, but what do they mean in practice? From a performance perspective, HP OMEN desktops are exceptionally well-suited for running games with ray tracing. The primary challenge these systems face isn’t performance but heat, as ray tracing pushes your GPU to its absolute limit. This is why all of our desktops come with the HP OMEN Tempest Cooling Solution to manage heat effectively. This is a critical advantage of an integrated, professionally designed system.

For Hong Kong’s subtropical climate, where temperatures can reach 32-33°C during summer months and humidity levels consistently range between 70-90%, effective thermal management becomes even more crucial. The HP OMEN Tempest Cooling Solution ensures your system maintains optimal performance even when ambient temperatures in your gaming space are elevated, particularly important for those gaming in apartments without constant air conditioning.

Optimizing Ray Tracing on OMEN Systems

If you already own an HP OMEN PC, you can leverage certain capabilities already present within your machine to ensure the perfect balance between visual quality and performance. Here are tips to extract every last bit of power and performance from your computer.

• Start with HP OMEN Gaming Hub: Use our built-in Gaming Hub software to ensure your system is running in Performance Mode, which optimises power and fan curves for gaming.
• Let DLSS Do the Work: For most games, the best approach is to turn ray tracing settings to High or Ultra and then enable DLSS 3 in Quality or Balanced mode. This gives you the best visuals with minimal performance impact.
• Know When to Disable: In highly competitive, fast-paced shooters where every millisecond counts, you may still want to prioritise raw frame rates over visual fidelity. Consider turning ray tracing off in these specific scenarios to push your FPS to its absolute maximum.
• Game-Specific Settings: In some games, ray-traced reflections have a huge impact whilst ray-traced shadows are more subtle. You can often gain back significant performance by lowering or disabling one specific RT feature through the in-game settings without a major loss in overall quality.

Understanding Power Consumption and Cooling

Given Hong Kong’s electricity costs averaging HK$1.2-1.4 per kWh and the 220V electrical standard, managing power consumption whilst maintaining peak gaming performance requires careful consideration. HP OMEN systems are engineered with power efficiency in mind, allowing you to enjoy ray-traced gaming without excessive electricity bills. The intelligent fan curve management in the HP OMEN Gaming Hub automatically adjusts cooling performance based on thermal load, ensuring efficient operation whilst keeping your system quiet during less demanding tasks.

Future of Ray Tracing on OMEN

Like every other technological revolution, ray tracing will only improve with time. In 2025, we are at the cusp of even more widespread adoption of complete path tracing; however, the need for more powerful hardware will scale alongside technological advancement. Games launching in 2026 and beyond will be designed from the ground up with ray tracing in mind, making it less of a feature and more of a foundational element of game design. As NVIDIA continues to innovate with its next generation of GPUs and DLSS technology, you can be sure that future HP OMEN systems will be ready to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

For Hong Kong’s vibrant gaming community, this evolution means access to increasingly immersive gaming experiences that rival the visual quality seen in cinematic productions. The combination of cutting-edge hardware, intelligent cooling solutions, and space-efficient designs makes HP OMEN systems ideal for gamers in Hong Kong’s unique environment, where performance cannot be compromised by space limitations or challenging ambient conditions.

Ray Tracing Performance Across Different Gaming Genres

Understanding how ray tracing impacts various game types helps you make informed decisions about when to enable specific features. Different genres benefit from ray tracing in distinct ways, and knowing these nuances allows you to optimise your experience based on what you’re playing.

In open-world adventure games, ray-traced global illumination and reflections dramatically enhance environmental immersion, making expansive landscapes feel more realistic and dynamic. Racing simulations benefit enormously from ray-traced reflections, where accurate mirror surfaces and environmental reflections on vehicle bodies create stunning realism. Horror titles leverage ray-traced shadows and lighting to create genuinely unsettling atmospheres, where darkness and illumination play crucial narrative roles. Competitive multiplayer shooters, however, may see diminishing returns, as many professional players prioritise frame rate consistency over visual enhancements.

Monitoring Performance and Thermal Management

For Hong Kong gamers operating their systems in warm, humid conditions, monitoring GPU temperatures and performance metrics becomes essential for maintaining optimal system health. The HP OMEN Gaming Hub provides comprehensive monitoring tools that display real-time information about GPU temperature, clock speeds, and fan performance, allowing you to verify your system is operating within safe parameters.

During extended gaming sessions, particularly with demanding ray-traced titles, GPU temperatures will naturally increase. The HP OMEN Tempest Cooling Solution is specifically engineered to handle sustained thermal loads, but ensuring adequate ventilation around your desktop remains important. Position your system with sufficient clearance around air intake and exhaust points, and consider the ambient temperature of your gaming space when planning marathon gaming sessions.

Accessories to Enhance Your Ray Tracing Experience

To fully appreciate the visual fidelity that ray tracing delivers, pairing your HP OMEN desktop with complementary gaming accessories maximises your overall experience. High-quality displays that support high refresh rates and advanced colour accuracy allow you to see every detail that ray tracing provides, whilst premium audio solutions create the immersive soundscapes that complement stunning visuals.

Conclusion

After extensive testing across various titles, the verdict is clear: ray tracing is the future. The combination of dedicated ray tracing core hardware in HP OMEN desktops and the massive performance uplift provided by DLSS 3 means the performance of these machines has never been better. If you are still having trouble deciding which desktop to get, here is a quick breakdown:

• For the 1080p Gamer: An HP OMEN with an RTX 4060 Ti is your perfect entry point into the world of ray tracing, offering a smooth and beautiful experience in the latest titles.
• For the 1440p Enthusiast: The RTX 4070 and 4070 Ti configurations hit the absolute sweet spot, delivering high-refresh-rate ray tracing that will satisfy both graphics enthusiasts and competitive players.
• For the 4K Purist: If you demand the absolute best with no compromises, an HP OMEN powerhouse with an RTX 4080 or RTX 4090 is the only choice for breathtaking 4K gaming with all ray tracing features enabled.

For Hong Kong’s passionate gaming community, where space efficiency meets uncompromising performance demands, HP OMEN systems deliver ray tracing capabilities that transform gaming from entertainment into art. Whether you’re exploring neon-lit cyberpunk cityscapes or battling through photorealistic horror environments, these systems ensure you experience every reflection, shadow, and light ray exactly as developers intended. The future of gaming has arrived in Hong Kong, and it’s brilliantly illuminated by ray tracing technology.

Explore the complete range of HP gaming laptops and desktops to find your perfect ray tracing system today.