MSI's upcoming gaming handheld is Intel powered, pictures and benchmarks leak early

[Daniel Sims]

Rumor mill: Although the Steam Deck inspired a new wave of rival handheld gaming PCs, there hasn't been much competition regarding internals, as they all run on AMD APUs. The Claw handheld from MSI could change that, as leaked images and benchmarks indicate that its Meteor Lake processor could trade blows with the Asus ROG Ally.

Leakers recently revealed a promotional image and benchmarks of MSI's upcoming Claw handheld gaming PC shortly before the company planned to announce the product at CES. The leaks indicate the system could be an Intel-powered counterpart to the Asus ROG Ally, but important questions remain.

A Twitter user uploaded a poster advertising a chance to win the Claw when buying an MSI laptop. The handheld in the picture resembles a ROG Ally painted black with an MSI logo at the bottom of the bezel. The shape and button placement look similar, although the vents are in different locations.

pic.twitter.com/XqPU0ECprz

– ÐÂлекÑÂей (@wxnod) January 5, 2024

Regardless of whether the image is genuine, two MSI Claw benchmarks have appeared on Geekbench, confirming its Meteor Lake internals. It uses a 3.8GHz 16-core Intel Core Ultra 7 155H with 32GB of RAM. Prior benchmarks of the processor show impressive integrated graphics performance compared to the AMD Radeon 780M that powers other handheld PCs, but the Intel 155H's CPU performance might still disappoint.

The two Claw benchmarks indicate different performance profiles, which, like on other handheld gaming PCs, would give players the choice to conserve battery life. The Claw's lower-end profile managed a 1,610 single-core score and a 9,693 multi-core score. Meanwhile, the high-end profile reached 2,404 in single-core and 11,543 in multi-core – quite close to typical ROG Ally results.

Click to view full comparison

Although the Claw's appearance and general performance have leaked, a clear picture of its gaming capabilities likely won't emerge until MSI officially showcases it at CES. Crucial details like screen resolution, refresh rate, wattage, and battery capacity remain unknown.

Furthermore, the Meteor Lake processor will give the Claw access to Intel's XeSS machine learning upscaling technology, which could give it an edge over AMD-powered systems in performance and image quality. Intel previously demonstrated tangible results from upscaling on Intel Core Ultra integrated graphics.

The company isn't the only one planning a Meteor Lake handheld. Emdoor revealed one in October featuring an undisclosed Meteor Lake H CPU, integrated graphics based on Intel Arc 5, a 1,920 x 1,200 LCD screen, and 32GB of RAM, though it still lacks a release date.

Meanwhile, Ayaneo and GDP plan to update their latest handhelds from Ryzen 7000 APUs to the Ryzen 8840U. It remains unclear how the shift will affect gaming performance, but the updated systems could gain access to AMD's XDNA1 AI processor, introducing AI capabilities similar to Meteor Lake's NPUs. Ayaneo recently showed one of its new clamshell handhelds running Forza Horizon 5.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101420-msi-meteor-lake-powered-handheld-leaks-through-pictures.html

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I’m waiting for RDNA 4 to upgrade my Ally. The problem is we have RDNA 3.5 before that, which seems to be RDNA 3 + AI acceleration which doesn’t help gaming. (It likely doesn’t help laptops either but it’s the hot thing right now)

 

[Superconductor]

If it's anything like their gaming laptops... no thanks!

 

[yRaz]

I’m waiting for RDNA 4 to upgrade my Ally. The problem is we have RDNA 3.5 before that, which seems to be RDNA 3 + AI acceleration which doesn’t help gaming. (It likely doesn’t help laptops either but it’s the hot thing right now)

The people I talk to at AMD have no idea what they're doing with RDNA3.5 yet. It's basically just a fix for the MCUs that lowered the performance of RDNA(significantly so, around 10-15% than designed).

And when I say they don't know what they're going to do yet, they don't know if they will release it as an APU only thing, have it as a 50 series refresh for the 7000 series, release it as the 8000 series or just skip it altogether and go straight to RDNA4 because RDNA4 is ready. They even called RDNA3.5 "RDNA4" internally for awhile.

As far as I'm aware, RDNA 3.5 likely won't be released and we'll go straight to RDNA4. It was mainly developed as a refresh if RDNA4 wasn't ready so they had something to compete with the 50 series but it was actually easier and faster to develop RDNA4 than it was to fix the MCU issue in RDNA3.

When I say AMD doesn't know what they're going to do with RDNA3.5 yet I mean they don't know if it's going to be everywhere and in everything or never released. I've made some friends in the industry and if there is anything that I've learned from eagerly listening to any rumor they have to tell it's that even the companies don't know what they're going to do until about 3 months of releasing a product. The only thing I do know for certain is that AMD doesn't know if they're even going to release RDNA3.5 so ignore every rumor you hear about it.

 

[user556]

Wounder if it's one of the TSMC made chips?

 

[wiak]

Intel

 

[Fearghast]

Intel

I know, I know, it seems like a joke that Intel might actually release something competitive, let alone efficient O.o
But they certainly have a lot of resources and if they will push this part of the market (smaller super efficient x86 SOCs), I could not be happier

It seems this and next year will be really interesting when it comes to portable PCs and Virtual Headsets.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

It doesn't make much sense given MeteorLake's inefficiency. But let's wait and let the (real) tests show how this competition will play out.

 

[Watzupken]

My main concern is the inconsistent game performance with Intel's ARC GPUs. Given that this is not a new product, and derived from the existing ARC dGPUs, there are clear evidences. While Intel have put in a lot of effort to improve their GPU drivers, I fear it is still not ready at this point. So if gaming is not the primary use case, I can still recommend Intel's CPU+ GPU solution. Given this is a dedicated gaming console, I think any potential buyer should wait and see how this performs before buying.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

The people I talk to at AMD have no idea what they're doing with RDNA3.5 yet. It's basically just a fix for the MCUs that lowered the performance of RDNA(significantly so, around 10-15% than designed).

And when I say they don't know what they're going to do yet, they don't know if they will release it as an APU only thing, have it as a 50 series refresh for the 7000 series, release it as the 8000 series or just skip it altogether and go straight to RDNA4 because RDNA4 is ready. They even called RDNA3.5 "RDNA4" internally for awhile.

As far as I'm aware, RDNA 3.5 likely won't be released and we'll go straight to RDNA4. It was mainly developed as a refresh if RDNA4 wasn't ready so they had something to compete with the 50 series but it was actually easier and faster to develop RDNA4 than it was to fix the MCU issue in RDNA3.

When I say AMD doesn't know what they're going to do with RDNA3.5 yet I mean they don't know if it's going to be everywhere and in everything or never released. I've made some friends in the industry and if there is anything that I've learned from eagerly listening to any rumor they have to tell it's that even the companies don't know what they're going to do until about 3 months of releasing a product. The only thing I do know for certain is that AMD doesn't know if they're even going to release RDNA3.5 so ignore every rumor you hear about it.

Good info to know. And explains Nvidia’s ‘it depends on what AMD does’ plans.

Hopefully, fab availability and the AI craze don’t prevent skipping to RDNA 4 for customers of both companies.

 

[yRaz]

Good info to know. And explains Nvidia’s ‘it depends on what AMD does’ plans.

Hopefully, fab availability and the AI craze don’t prevent skipping to RDNA 4 for customers of both companies.

As I understand it, AMD is likely to skip RDNA3.5 as a 7x50 series refresh, go straight to RDNA4 because fab capacity is limited and just issue a very significant price drop on RDNA3 as a preemptive response to the 40 super series.

The only card they really have to worry about is the 4070ti super and if they could issue a price drop of the 7900xtx to 850 then they'd basically steal all of nVidia's glory. Then they have the 7600xt 16B for 299 coming out and that would be a midrange king FOR YEARS

 

[ScottSoapbox]

As I understand it, AMD is likely to skip RDNA3.5 as a 7x50 series refresh, go straight to RDNA4 because fab capacity is limited and just issue a very significant price drop on RDNA3 as a preemptive response to the 40 super series.

The only card they really have to worry about is the 4070ti super and if they could issue a price drop of the 7900xtx to 850 then they'd basically steal all of nVidia's glory. Then they have the 7600xt 16B for 299 coming out and that would be a midrange king FOR YEARS

I agree that seems likely.

I could potentially see 3.5 hitting certain APUs to use the 10% performance uplift to lower power by turning down clocks a bit. But that might not be worth the hassle for what would be a lower end part.

 

[yRaz]

I agree that seems likely.

I could potentially see 3.5 hitting certain APUs to use the 10% performance uplift to lower power by turning down clocks a bit. But that might not be worth the hassle for what would be a lower end part.

Well the MCU issue prevented the memory from being clocked higher and/or running at a lower latency but seeing as the 7000 series used GDDR7 but APUs use either DDR5 or LPDDR5 then the MCU problem doesn't really cause an issue. So going straight to RDNA4 in APUs actually makes more sense for performance than using RDNA 3.5. RDNA3 is being used in APUs because, and this is a gross over simplification, theyre recycling chiplets they can't use in other places.

If they would have finished RDNA 3.5 before RDNA4 then they would have could a mid generation refresh. But at this point AMD has had RDNA4 working for a couple a months now and are already developing products for its launch this fall.

The rumors I've been told as to what is likely to happen is we will see an RDNA4 launch this fall or even as early as this summer with RDNA4 hitting APUs in the ryzen 9000 series in early 2025. The MCU fix just took too long

 

[RudyBob]

There is a market for that. When I am on the road I do books

 

[Nanochip]

Competition is good. I wish Intel well and hopefully meteor lake is the beginning of a new more power efficient Intel. AMD is doing great things with Ryzen, and meteor lake and I hope the upcoming lakes like arrow, nova, lunar, panther are competitive in terms of performance price and power efficiency.

 

[toooooot]

It will be interesting to see AMD and Intel finally completing with their integrated gaming graphics.

 

[Gars]

AMD is failing
to keep worm your hands in the long cold winter

 

[BobHome]

I know, I know, it seems like a joke that Intel might actually release something competitive, let alone efficient O.o
But they certainly have a lot of resources and if they will push this part of the market (smaller super efficient x86 SOCs), I could not be happier

It seems this and next year will be really interesting when it comes to portable PCs and Virtual Headsets.

Makes me wonder how much MSI is getting from Intel so they can try to get a foothold in the market.

 

[Fearghast]

Makes me wonder how much MSI is getting from Intel so they can try to get a foothold in the market.

I see it as a partnership - MSI wants a part of that Steam Deck pie - even if it will still run horrid Windows and Intel wants to prove they can be used in portable PCs - so more companies will buy chips from them.
Intel probably provides a really interesting discount on their SOC, so MSI won't buy AMD one ... but it can be even more straight forward as MSI might think that their customer as just gullible peasants and bigger number is more important than real performance and battery life.