HP Victus 16 (16-d1000) review

While some brands have celebrated their 30th birthday this year, others are young enough to just be accepted into the nursery. Yes, we are talking about the Victus series from HP. At first, it might appear as a slightly more premium version of the Pavilion Gaming series, but it aspires to be much more than that.

Was there a reason for HP to create this brand, though? Well, the answer to this question might not be as optimistic as HP would have wanted. Nevertheless, since we buy all the devices we test, we are proud of our independence. And this is why we can say that the Victus 16 should not have existed. Or at least not in this form.

We know that it is still very early in the review for you or us to draw any conclusions, but once you look at the specs sheet, you will find out that even the company wanted to do something about Lenovo and its Legion 5 and 5 Pro series. You see, HP has the Pavilion Gaming, and the Omen, while its competitor offers the IdeaPad Gaming, the Legion 5, the Legion 5 Pro, and the Legion 7. So, it is only natural to create a laptop that can take on the Legion 5s.

But before we get into more details, it’s worth noting that the Victus 16 (16-d1000) comes equipped with Intel’s 12th Gen processors, as well as a roster of graphics cards, maxing out with the RTX 3060 with 100W of TGP. Just for a comparison – the Legion 5 comes with a 130W RTX 3060.

On the bright side, the display options are pretty good. There are no TN options, while the IPS panels come in 60 and 144Hz iterations. Well, if we don’t count the 1440p unit with a 165Hz refresh rate, and an alleged full sRGB color coverage.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-victus-16-16-d1000/

Contents

Specs Sheet

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, you will find some paperwork, as well as a 200W power adapter.

Design and construction

Taking it out of the box shows that the entire laptop is made out of plastic. It is prone to fingerprints and the lid bends like crazy – not the optimal build quality. In addition to that, the base is flexy too and produces some weird noises when you twist it.

This is weird, considering the fact that the body is reasonably thick – 23.5mm, while the weight is 2.40 kg – not the thinnest and lightest gaming machine out there, but it is also not the bulkiest one.

With that said, the lid can be opened with a single hand, and the design itself looks quite pleasant. The bottom bezel of this device is really thick, while the other three are significantly slimmer. The top one even houses an HD Web camera as 99% of the laptops out there do. Unfortunately, the lid bounces very easily even when you lightly tap the machine.

Now, the keyboard is definitely a relief. It has a full-size NumberPad section and a backlight. It offers long key travel and clicky feedback, which make the unit pretty comfortable for gaming and for typing. The only exception here is the size of the Arrow keys. By the way, there is a dedicated button, which launches the Omen Gaming Hub.

As for the touchpad, well, it is really accurate, pretty large, and fast to respond to your input. By the way, you will be able to see a grill above the keyboard, but we believe it is sole purpose is ventilation (well, and decoration too).

Turn the device upside, and you will find the real speaker location. In addition to that, the bottom panel houses the ventilation grill, while the hot air is exhausted through two vents on the back, and one on the right side of the laptop.

Ports

On the left side, you will find the power plug, a LAN port, an HDMI 2.1 connector, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 1) port with DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery functions, an Audio jack, and an SD card slot. Then, on the right, there are two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports.

Disassembly, upgrade options, and maintenance

To open this device, you need to undo a total of 8 Phillips-head screws. Then, pry the bottom panel starting from the front.

Inside, we find a 70Wh battery pack. It lasts for nearly 10 hours of Web browsing, or about 9 hours of video playback. To take it out, remove the 6 Phillips-head screws that keep it in place, and unplug the battery connector from the motherboard.

You get two SODIMM slots, which fit DDR5 memory, working at 4800MHz. They also run in dual-channel mode. Storage-wise, there are two M.2 PCIe x4 slots, one of which supports Gen 4 drives.

Here, the cooling comprises two heat pipes shared between the CPU and the GPU, as well as a third one meant for the graphics card. It also connects to a separate heat sink. Furthermore, two heat spreaders take care of the graphics memory and the VRMs.

Display quality

HP Victus 16 (16-d1000) in our configuration is equipped with a 144Hz Full HD IPS panel with a model number BOE0AAD. Its diagonal is 16.1″ (40.9 cm), and the resolution is 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 137 ppi, and a pitch of 0.19 х 0.19 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 64cm (25″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

The viewing angles are excellent. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

The measured maximum brightness of 317 nits in the middle of the screen and 303 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 10%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6080K – warmer than the sRGB standard of 6500K.

In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work. The contrast ratio is good – 1050:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows HP Victus 16 (16-d1000)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 50% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results in factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of HP Victus 16 (16-d1000) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 13 ms.

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

HP Victus 16 (16-d1000)’s display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels at any point. This makes it comfortable for use during long work periods, without harming your eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Gloss level measurement

Glossy-coated displays are sometimes inconvenient in high ambient light conditions. We show the level of reflection on the screen for the respective laptop when the display is turned off and the measurement angle is 60° (in this case, the result is 53.1 GU, which is not too glossy).

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP Victus 16 (16-d1000) configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS BOE BOE0AAD.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Sound

HP Victus 16 (16-d1000)’s speakers produce a sound of good quality, albeit the maximum volume is a bit low. On the bright side, there are no deviations across the entire frequency spectrum.

Drivers

All drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/victus-by-hp-16.1-inch-gaming-laptop-pc-16-d1000/2101036104

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This device’s 70Wh battery pack lasts for 9 hours and 40 minutes of Web browsing, or 8 hours and 49 minutes of video playback.

CPU options

As of the time of writing this review, the Victus 16 (16-d1000) could be found with the Core i5-12500H or the Core i7-12700H.

GPU options

The choices regarding the graphics card are wider. You can pick of the GTX 1650, RTX 3050, RTX 3050 Ti, and RTX 3060 (100W).

Gaming tests

Metro Exodus	Full HD, Low (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)	Full HD, Extreme (Check settings)
Average FPS	137 fps	66 fps	32 fps

Borderlands 3	Full HD, Medium (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)	Full HD, Badass (Check settings)
Average fps	115 fps	87 fps	68 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands	Full HD, High (Check settings)	Full HD, Very High (Check settings)	Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
Average	100 fps	87 fps	57 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)	Full HD, Medium (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)	Full HD, Highest (Check settings)
Average	118 fps	111 fps	73 fps

[eBook Guide + Tools] How to MAX OUT your HP Victus 16 (16-d1000)

Your HP Victus 16 (16-d1000) can be Faster. LaptopMedia has tested thousands of models in the last 15 years, and we’re yet to see a notebook that couldn’t be made more powerful through modifications. And have you seen the most popular search on Google related to “how to make my …”? No? OK, here it is:

As you see, having a faster laptop is more important than having more hair.

Well, the main issue here is that there are thousands of advices on the Web. Some work, some don’t. Some are easy, some are complicated. Some are safe, and some are risky. If only there could be an Easy-to-Follow, Step-by-Step, and Laboratory-Tested guide by a proven organization, right?

That’s what we’ve done. We have hundreds of laptops scattered in our office, and we’ve spent a whole year testing different optimizations. We’ve chosen the ones that really make a difference, that are easy to implement without expert skills, and that are safe for your laptop in the long term.

🚀 What’s the performance boost I could expect?

There’s no general answer but we’ve reached more than 30% GPU Performance boost on some models, while typically it’s between 10% and 20%. You could always go beyond but we want to be sure that our advice will keep your laptop on the safe side in the long term. But you want to get the absolute maximum? We’ll show you how, and then it’s up to you.

We even set several World Records on 3DMark, one being our first Max Out for a specific laptop model – MSI Katana B13V.

We’d be happy to compete with YOU on the 3DMark rank lists, and see what YOUR laptop can do using our guide!

📦 What’s included?

📖 Our eBook includes All the tools you need, along with an Easy-to-follow guide for hassle-free:

⚡ GPU Performance boost by vBIOS replacement, Overclocking, and Undervolting
⚙️ Checking the hardware components and finding if you could get a significant boost by upgrading some of them
💾 Installing a clean Windows OS, with all the base settings you need
📋 Software optimization steps that really give a performance boost
⏩ Building a RAID Storage configuration for doubling sequential read/write speeds or protecting your data
🎯 Display Profiles bundle for a panel of your choice, enhancing the display for accurate colors, better experience, and protection of your eyes

🎁 To receive the Display Profiles bundle as a gift, simply email us your panel model through our “Contact Us” form.

💵 What is the price?

R&D on laptops isn’t easy nor cheap, especially when you’re not using cherry-picked review samples but real units instead. Our idea is to reinvest the profits from the sales back in our laboratory. However, we also want to make it a killer deal for everyone who is planning or has already spent on a gaming laptop, as this product would significantly boost the performance per dollar they get.

✖ But if these optimizations are easy, why don’t manufacturers do them?

There are a lot of reasons for the manufacturers to put boundaries on your machine, locking part of its performance:

📊 Market Segmentation: To create different product tiers, manufacturers often limit performance. This allows them to target various market segments and price points, encouraging consumers to pay more for higher-performing models.
❓Unknown Potential: Each unit’s performance varies. Checking each one individually isn’t feasible.
🏢 Regulatory Compliance: Certain regions have regulations regarding energy consumption, and manufacturers often place some boundaries to fit all standards.
🏭 Supply Chain Constraints: Limitations are imposed due to the current availability of components.
🫰 Cost-effective solutions: Often, less popular but important details are overlooked. For example, better RAM types can boost performance by up to 30%, but many users ignore this, and many online stores don’t even provide that info.
🔒 Security concerns: Many protections impact performance while being negligible for regular users. However, manufacturers don’t know if their laptops will be purchased by individuals or large corporations, so they can’t disable these features by default.

 

Not a bad performance bump in terms of Storage Speeds:

What are the default apps that impact performance the most?
What to do when RAID drives don’t show up?
How to optimize Windows further for maximum FPS gain in games?

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average P-core frequency; Average E-core frequency; CPU temp.; Package Power

Intel Core i7-12700H (45W TDP)	0:02 – 0:10 sec	0:15 – 0:30 sec	10:00 – 15:00 min
HP Victus 16 (16-d1000)	3.72 GHz @ 2.85 GHz @ 76°C @ 115W	3.33 GHz @ 2.58 GHz @ 78°C @ 96W	2.37 GHz @ 1.89 GHz @ 65°C @ 45W
Dell Vostro 16 7620	2.83 GHz @ 2.38 GHz @ 64°C @ 71W	2.73 GHz @ 2.24 GHz @ 70°C @ 66W	2.42 GHz @ 1.80 GHz @ 72°C @ 52W
Dell XPS 15 9520	3.18 GHz @ 2.56 GHz @ 95°C @ 87W	2.52 GHz @ 2.10 GHz @ 92°C @ 57W	2.11 GHz @ 1.70 GHz @ 81°C @ 45W
Dell Precision 17 5770	3.34 GHz @ 2.69 GHz @ 78°C @ 95W	3.30 GHz @ 2.66 GHz @ 87°C @ 92W	2.54 GHz @ 2.10 GHz @ 75°C @ 55W
MSI Pulse GL76 (12Ux)	3.29 GHz @ 2.76 GHz @ 77°C @ 97W	3.27 GHz @ 2.75 GHz @ 83°C @ 95W	3.14 GHz @ 2.68 GHz @ 86°C @ 85W
MSI Crosshair 15 (B12Ux)	3.27 GHz @ 2.67 GHz @ 84°C @ 97W	3.19 GHz @ 2.65 GHz @ 91°C @ 94W	3.05 GHz @ 2.47 GHz @ 88°C @ 80W
Acer Predator Helios 300 (PH317-56)	3.39 GHz @ 2.84 GHz @ 64°C @ 103W	3.53 GHz @ 2.76 GHz @ 71°C @ 100W	2.66 GHz @ 2.86 GHz @ 87°C @ 102W
MSI Stealth GS66 (12Ux)	3.84 GHz @ 2.82 GHz @ 83°C @ 124W	3.55 GHz @ 2.67 GHz @ 85°C @ 107W	3.19 GHz @ 2.42 GHz @ 83°C @ 85W
MSI Vector GP66 (12Ux)	3.81 GHz @ 2.91 GHz @ 81°C @ 116W	3.54 GHz @ 2.72 GHz @ 83°C @ 98W	3.30 GHz @ 2.57 GHz @ 79°C @ 86W
Acer Predator Triton 500 SE (PT516-52s)	3.25 GHz @ 2.52 GHz @ 89°C @ 80W	3.10 GHz @ 2.46 GHz @ 90°C @ 73W	2.93 GHz @ 2.38 GHz @ 91°C @ 66W

Although the Core i7-12700H inside this laptop could push itself to 115W in short loads, the frequency quickly mellowed down as soon as we got past the 40-second mark.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060	GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)	GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)	Max Fans
HP Victus 16 (16-d1000)	1535 MHz @ 75°C @ 100W	1536 MHz @ 76°C @ 100W	–
Lenovo Legion 5i Pro (16″, 2022)	1941 MHz @ 83°C @ 139W	1920 MHz @ 86°C @ 138W	–
Lenovo Legion 5 (15″, 2022)	1875 MHz @ 80°C @ 130W	1863 MHz @ 82°C @ 130W	–
MSI Pulse GL76 (12Ux)	1620 MHz @ 77°C @ 105W	1608 MHz @ 81°C @ 105W	1650 MHz @ 70°C @ 105W
ASUS ROG Strix G17 G713R (2022)	1827 MHz @ 83°C @ 139W	1825 MHz @ 85°C @ 139W	–
ASUS ROG Strix G15 G513R (2022)	1844 MHz @ 81°C @ 139W	1723 MHz @ 74°C @ 118W	–
ASUS TUF Gaming F17 (FX706, 2021)	1548 MHz @ 80°C @ 95W	1540 MHz @ 81°C @ 95W	–
HP Omen 17 (2021, 17-ck0000)	1861 MHz @ 72°C @ 129W	1857 MHz @ 73°C @ 130W	–
Lenovo ThinkBook 16p Gen 2	1535 MHz @ 69°C @ 75W	1517 MHz @ 76°C @ 75W	–
Lenovo Legion 5i (17″ Intel, 2021)	1886 MHz @ 75°C @ 127W	1879 MHz @ 76°C @ 127W	–
Lenovo Legion 7 (16″, 2021)	1867 MHz @ 70°C @ 126W	1858 MHz @ 74°C @ 127W	–
Lenovo Legion 5 (15″ AMD, 2021)	1831 MHz @ 75°C @ 129W	1815 MHz @ 80°C @ 129W	–
Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (16″)	1803 MHz @ 76°C @ 129W	1787 MHz @ 81°C @ 129W	–
MSI GP66 Leopard	1863 MHz @ 72°C @ 124W	1852 MHz @ 75°C @ 125W	1849 MHz @ 69°C @ 127W
MSI GP76 Leopard	1860 MHz @ 71°C @ 129W	1857 MHz @ 73°C @ 128W	1869 MHz @ 67°C @ 128W

On the other hand, the 100W RTX 3060 performs just as expected inside this laptop. Furthermore, it does so while staying at a temperature that is neither too hot, nor too cold.

Gaming comfort

We have to mention that HP offers an option that boosts the fans to their maximum allowed, depending on the performance mode. We didn’t use this function in either of the tests above. As a result, the laptop was not too loud. But you will still be more comfortable wearing headphones. Oh yes, and the hotspot measures only 43°C, which is great for a gaming device.

Verdict

What HP has presumably done wrong here is that they just copied the homework of the Pavilion Gaming department. To be frank, Pavilion Gaming is not exactly something worth copying in the first place. At the end of the day, this means that the Victus 16 (16-d1000) is not exactly featuring a fantastic build quality. We observed some squeaks when we tried to twist its chassis, while the lid turns itself into Bobblehead Joe when you accidentally bump the machine.

Quite the contrary, however, is the situation regarding the ports. Both inside and out. We are talking about two SODIMM slots for DDR5 RAM, and two M.2 PCIe x4 slots for fast storage, one of which supports Gen 4 SSDs. On top of that, the outside meets you with an SD card reader, a total of three USB Type-As, an HDMI 2.1 connector, and a LAN port. Unfortunately, there is no Thunderbolt connector, but on the bright side, the USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 1) port has the capability to output a DisplayPort 1.4 signal and supports Power Delivery.

HP Victus 16 (16-d1000)’s 144Hz IPS panel has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, a good contrast ratio, and a non-flickering backlight. Unfortunately, its color coverage is quite limited, which makes the image appear a bit dull. On the other hand, the 144Hz refresh rate is paired with quick pixel response times. This makes the gaming experience very smooth.

In addition to that, the keyboard feels comfortable, the touchpad is snappy, and the entire gaming experience is far better than we expected. Thanks to the super-fast Alder Lake processors, you will experience practically no bottlenecking, and you have to stand assured that you will be able to see every single frame that the GPU is pumping at your face.

On the other hand, creators won’t be able to take full advantage of the power of the Core i7-12700H, because it settles for a pretty low clock speed after no more than a minute of stress.

With that said, is this laptop good enough to trade blows with the Legion 5? Well, not quite. The latter comes with a significantly more powerful version of the RTX 3060, while its build quality is on another level. However, we can all pretend that the Pavilion Gaming brand does not exist anymore, and the Victus has taken its place. This is the only way it makes sense and feels right.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-victus-16-16-d1000/