Is the MSI Claw the next king of handheld PC gaming?
A king in the making? Why Lunar Lake makes the new MSI Claw special
OC3D is at IFA, and as part of Intel’s Lunar Lake launch event, we were hands on with the 2nd generation Claw handheld from MSI. This handheld is an engineering sample for MSI’s upcoming Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld, which is powered by Intel’s Lunar Lake processor.
If Intel’s Lunar Lake launch presentation made one thing clear to us, it’s that the handheld PC gaming market may soon be changing. The era of AMD dominance may soon be over, and the Claw 8 AI+ may lead the charge. This handheld may soon be the king of handheld gaming!
The new MSI Claw benefits from next-gen Intel Xe2 graphics
At IFA, Intel has claimed that their have achieved up to a 2x boost in performance per watt with their new Lunar Lake CPUs with Xe2 graphics. Xe2 is Intel’s next-generation GPU architecture. This new GPU architecture will come to desktops in the form of ARC Battlemage graphics, but it is coming first to laptops with Lunar Lake.
With Xe2, Intel are achieving both performance gains and power draw decreases with their new iGPU. That change both boosts gaming performance while increasing system battery life. Both of these aspects are good for future PC gaming handhelds.
When compared to their last-generation integrated graphics solution, Intel has achieved an average performance boost of 31% across a 45 game test suite. That’s great news for Intel. With The Division 2, we see performance gains as high as 80%, highlighting just how much better Intel’s new GPU architecture is.
AMD-beating integrated GPU performance!
AMD’s current-generation of gaming handhelds use AMD’s Z1 Extreme SOC. This SoC features Zen 4 CPU cores and RDNA 3 graphics. At IFA, Intel claimed that their new Arrow Lake CPU was 16% faster than AMD’s newer HX 370 chip on average. That chip features a stronger GPU than AMD’s Z1 handheld chip, and features the newer RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture.
If Intel can beat AMD’s newer HX 370 chip, they can easily best the Z1 Extreme chips that’s used in devices like the Lenovo Legion Go and ASUS ROG Ally. With this in mind, a Lunar Lake-powered Claw 8 AI+ handheld could easily become the best performing PC gaming handheld on the market.
Lunar Lake has access to the AI version of XeSS
Another upgrade to Lunar Lake is its inclusion of XMX AI units. This allows Intel’s new Xe2 GPU to utilise the AI accelerated version of the company’s XeSS upscaler. This allows Lunar Lake to benefit from high performance AI upscaling that delivers better results than AMD’s FSR 3.1 technology. Meteor Lake lacked XMX units, preventing it from benefitting from the AI accelerated version of XeSS.
I’m excited for the MSI Claw 8 AI+
The handheld PC gaming market is dominated by AMD-powered products. Now, Intel are ready to beat AMD at their own game with Lunar Lake. It looks like MSI will be the first to take advantage of Lunar Lake in a PC handheld. This make the MSI Claw 8 AI+ handheld, making it a product that we are very interested in.
Than handheld should be the best performing PC gaming handheld on the market. We have also heard that the device will feature a larger battery than the original (80Whr vs 53Whr). It also features a larger 8-inch screen. Add on Lunar Lake’s efficiency gains, and this handheld should have a much longer battery life than the original Claw 7. With Lunar Lake, MSI has made the PC handheld market exciting again!
You can join the discussion on Lunar Lake and MSI’s new Claw PC handheld on the OC3D Forums.
