HP Victus 16 (Refurb): 16.1" FHD 144Hz, i7-13700HX, RTX 4060, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD; Microcenter In-store $649.99 (2024)

I would jump on this if I needed a laptop. Great deal, TU.

Sold out in every Micro Center even remotely near me.

I ordered two open box for pickup at $550 each before tax in the duluth location

5 in stock at North Jersey location. Great deal, TU.

Original Poster

Pro

This laptop is an absurdly good value for those with the risk tolerance to purchase a refurbished laptop (and still remains an extremely good deal at $730 if you add the $80 microcenter 1yr extension protection plan). At $650 this is basically the lowest you'll ever find a functionally full power rtx 4060 laptop for, even refurbished, and all it's other specs (besides the screen, and to a much smaller extent the battery) are actually incredibly good as well.
There's also currently a ymmv deal to get a microcenter $100 of any laptop coupon, that deal can be found here: https://slickdeals.net/f/17573511-microcenter-100-off-any-laptop-coupon

The specs page for this laptop can be found here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/prod...ku=7N4X6UA

The i7-13700hx in this laptop is functionally a desktop i7-13700k with lower power limits. It has 16 cores (8p+8e), and is exceptionally powerful for a laptop cpu, though power consumption is very high and power efficiency is rather poor. The 13700hx is overkill for gaming with the mobile rtx 4060, you'll essentially always be gpu bottlenecked. Likewise, the 13700hx is an excellent productivity cpu. with extremely powerful multithreaded performance. The igpu supports intel quicksync, which is a boon for any workloads involving video encoding/transcoding. Overall, the cpu in this laptop would be considered good in a $1000 laptop, at $650 its far exceeds expectations. That being said, battery life will likely be meaningfully worse compared to amd's zen 4 mobile offerings, this processor is better suited for a desktop replacement laptop.

The mobile rtx 4060 is the cheapest current gen nvidia mobile gpu that has 8gb of vram, which is a crucial threshold for gaming. Gpus with fewer than 8gb of vram are relegated to solely budget gaming even at 1080p. The next step up, the mobile rtx 4070, is around ~20% faster in gaming on average, while having the same amount of vram. In most respects the mobile rtx 4060 at ~$800 is the value sweetspot, since getting a laptop with good specs and a mobile rtx 4070 would usually be at least ~$250 more. The mobile rtx 4080 is massively superior in terms of performance and has 50% more vram, but laptops with the 4080 tend to be at absolute minimum $1600. The rtx 4060 in this laptop only has a tgp of 115w, meaning it is technically not a full power variant. However, performance scaling in gaming for the mobile 4060 stops at 100w due to nvidia's voltage limits, so you don't actually lose any gaming performance with the 115w tgp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMMrh6PpLI4

The screen in this laptop is by far the biggest disappointment in it's specs, and the primary downside for this laptop (though at $650 it's at least slightly more acceptable compared to the manufacturers putting similar screens on $1000+ laptops). The refresh rate of 144hz is decent, but the brightness of 250 nits and color gamut coverage of 45% ntsc (~62% srgb) are quite low tier. While a brightness of 250 nits should be sufficient for indoors areas without exposure to direct sunlight, it's very dim overall, and will be a detriment for use in medium light or higher environments. The 45% ntsc coverage is a huge detriment imo, colors will appear dull, washed out, and flat out wrong. I generally advocate that no one should purchase a laptop with 45% ntsc (~62% srgb) coverage at over $500 or so unless the other specs are absolutely incredible for the money. That being said, the specs in this particular laptop vastly exceed that threshold imo. This laptop supports advanced optimus according to a response an hp staff member left (the rtx 4060 connects directly to the display in discrete gpu mode, and can be switched without rebooting the laptop). However, the screen in this laptop does not support any form of vrr (aka g-sync or freesync). If you want vrr you'll need to connect an external monitor to either the hdmi 2.1 port (with the monitor also supporting hdmi 2.1), or over displayport 1.4 from the usb c port.

This laptop has two user accessible sodimm slots (occupied by 2x16gb ddr5 4800 sticks), supporting a maximum of 64gb and officially only up to ddr5 4800 speeds. Having 32gb of ddr5 ram is exceptionally good for a gaming laptop under $1000, usually 16gb is the most you'll find under $1000. When combined with the 13700hx, this laptop should be excellent for most productivity workloads without even needing a ram upgrade.

This laptop has two user accessible gen 4 m.2 2280 slots, one occupied by the 1tb gen 4 tlc ssd. Having 1tb is decent for any laptop under $1000, though it may be insufficient for those with productivity workloads.

The 70whr battery is somewhat low for an upper-midrange gaming laptop, though not terrible. That being said, when paired with a power hungry cpu like the 13700hx, I'd expect battery life to be fairly poor, even for a gaming laptop.

I'm not aware of any major issues with hp's "victus" chassis, but it is positioned as lower end sku compared to their "omen" chassis. It is quite large, bulky, and heavy, this is not a laptop designed with portability as a primary focus. This appears to be the costco specific model that microcenter is selling refurbished.

Overall, at $650, this is an incredible deal for a laptop with these specs. If you can get the $100 off any laptop coupon (linked above), it's an even more insane deal.

My plan was to purchase a desktop and additional lightweight laptop for occasional remote access. Is it a good idea to purchase this laptop instead of the desktop? I don't play games, but need a GPU for 3D rendering.

No one is going to mention getting this for $100 cheaper using the coupon online. I am getting this for $452 open box. Slick deal! Check this site for the other deal mentioning a coupon for up to 100 off

What does "incomplete" mean for open box laptops at Micro Center? Is it missing a charger or something?

Why can't Miami be open yet!!!!!

Victus is their cheaper gaming brand, and that screen is not suited for content creation/color accuracy.