Yesterday, MSI announced its entry into the handheld gaming space with a teaser. The first teaser showed a rough concept of this handheld, confirming more information for CES 2024 on 8 January.
However, just a few hours after the teaser, a huge leak revealed more details. This handheld is called the MSI Claw, and it will ship with Intel hardware, including Arc graphics.
Why it matters: This handheld will be the first major device to rely on an all-Intel setup in the handheld segment. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against the competition
According to leaked Geekbench scores, MSI will take a different route from all the AMD handhelds. Instead of AMD APUs featured in the likes of the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, MSI is relying on the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H.
This CPU ships with 16 Cores and 22 Threads, with up to 4.8 GHz clock speeds. The chip boasts a base TDP of 28 Watts but can go up to 115W with Max Turbo Power. However, because this is a handheld, the chip might not reach its maximum potential TDP.
Relying on Intel, MSI’s handheld will include 6 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 2 LP-cores. This is a completely different architecture than AMD’s Zen lineup found in other handhelds, which relies on more traditional cores instead of the hybrid approach Intel is taking.
In terms of graphics, this handheld could outpace the competition. Using 8 Xe-Cores with clock speeds as high as 2.25GHz, this chip has recently outmatched the Radeon 780M in the Ryzen 7 7840HS in terms of GPU performance.
MSI Claw will possibly feature up to 32 GB LPDDR5X maximum memory. That, for reference, is double the amount most other handhelds offer. However, it is understood that there will be multiple configurations with different prices.
This marks the first time a major company is preferring Intel over AMD for their handhelds. Intel has historically avoided this segment, providing basic iGPUs for its processors.
However, with the launch of Intel’s Core Ultra 100H series, we might see a paradigm shift in the handheld space. Still, details about the display, price, and other parts of the MSI Claw are yet to be revealed.
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News Reporter
Abdullah is an avid gamer who primarily plays single-player titles. If you can’t find him anywhere, he’ll probably be at his desk playing The Witcher 3 for the millionth time. When he isn’t playing games, he’s either reading or writing about them.
