Monday, June 15th 2026

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ Price Leaks: $1,800 Intel Arc G3 Extreme Gaming Handheld

MSI revealed the new Intel Arc-powered Claw 8 EX AI+ gaming handhelds shortly ahead of Computex 2026, but pricing was still a mystery at that point in time, with availability and pricing announcements slated for June 23. However, it appears as though MSI has listed the new gaming handheld ahead of the official announcement. According to the apparent premature listing for the Claw 8 EX AI+ (CG3EM-024US) will cost $1,799, which isn't far off the €1,500 predictions from early leaks and rumors.

The MSI online store listing also confirms that the Claw 8 EX AI+ will start shipping on June 23, suggesting that component and memory shortages have not severely hampered the brand's ability to produce at least an initial production run for the launch. Hardware specifications are also unchanged from what MSI showed off at Computex, with the handheld still featuring 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, a 1 TB PCIe SSD, and an 80 Wh battery, alongside an 8-inch, 1080p, 120 Hz display with VRR and 500 nits peak brightness. The MSI store listing confirms that the Claw 8 EX AI+ will launch with Intel's Arc G3 Extreme, and there doesn't appear to be any word on a version of the new MSI handheld powered by the regular Intel Arc G3, which has an Intel Arc B370 iGPU, which has 10 Xe3 cores instead of the 12 found in the G3 Extreme.
Source: MSI USA
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37 Comments on MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ Price Leaks: $1,800 Intel Arc G3 Extreme Gaming Handheld

#26
Apocalypsee
RaceT3chDidn't the original claw struggle to compete against steamdeck and ally cause it was a lot more expensive for worse performance with the intel processor?
Not worse per se, initially it's pretty rough but it's get better, prices drop significantly and Intel did give frame gen to Meteor lake iGPU despite missing the XMX engine.

The only real problem with it is battery life, playing triple A titles means your battery life is about an hour and a half at most.
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#27
lexluthermiester
Copilot and that price make this a non-starter. If MSI was looking to waste time and money, they succeeded wildly. Disappointing. Also, Windows 11 HOME?!? WTH are they thinking?
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#28
RaceT3ch
ApocalypseeNot worse per se, initially it's pretty rough but it's get better, prices drop significantly and Intel did give frame gen to Meteor lake iGPU despite missing the XMX engine.

The only real problem with it is battery life, playing triple A titles means your battery life is about an hour and a half at most.
hows the performance between original ally and claw now? cause I know on launch they were pretty far apart.
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#29
Apocalypsee
RaceT3chhows the performance between original ally and claw now? cause I know on launch they were pretty far apart.
Though I don't have the original Ally with me, from reading around the performance is pretty neck and neck between the two. There are some games that runs poorly on Intel like RE engine games like Pragmata, but I hope they could get a fix on this matter.
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#30
AusWolf
I wouldn't trust Intel GPUs considering how much they rely on the driver to run properly. Much more than even Nvidia as far as I know. If you have one game that they forgot to optimise for, there's a chance that you can't even run it.
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#31
LittleBro
AusWolfI wouldn't trust Intel GPUs considering how much they rely on the driver to run properly. Much more than even Nvidia as far as I know. If you have one game that they forgot to optimise for, there's a chance that you can't even run it.
This also applies to Intel CPUs. Look how much effort was put to Arrow Lake optimizations for Win11. Older Win10 is not supported at all (Arrow Lake can run Win10, but some drivers are unavailable).
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#32
AusWolf
LittleBroThis also applies to Intel CPUs. Look how much effort was put to Arrow Lake optimizations for Win11. Older Win10 is not supported at all (Arrow Lake can run Win10, but some drivers are unavailable).
Yep. And some people think I use AMD because I'm a fan. Far from it. I'm just much less of a fan of what Intel and Nvidia have been cooking recently (I used to use Intel + Nvidia for a long time in the past).
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#33
LittleBro
AusWolfYep. And some people think I use AMD because I'm a fan. Far from it. I'm just much less of a fan of what Intel and Nvidia have been cooking recently (I used to use Intel + Nvidia for a long time in the past).
Me too. While I do prefer AMD over Intel now, things might change with Nova Lake or when Intel abandons e-cores for good and brings back HT.
I still can't think of better CPU than i7-2600K. No matter how many Ryzen CPUs I owned after that, i7-2600K was a beast back then when Intel was making good CPUs.

I think AMD is stagnating in CPU segment for past two years. Where are those times when we got 15-20% IPC generational increases?
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#34
Kadath
lexluthermiesterAlso, Windows 11 HOME?!? WTH are they thinking?
I am not the target for this device since I have been on Linux for decades, but I don't really see the issue with the Home edition since you won't be joining a domain with it.
Or am I missing something here?
Posted on Reply
#35
Vayra86
Money Scraping Imbeciles

seems like a great way to explain the MSI abbreviation going forward.
Posted on Reply
#36
Craptacular
LittleBroRegular MSI Claw 8 AI has 32 GB and costs 930 €.
Lenovo Legion Go S has 32 GB RAM anc costs 620 €.
For how long? Seriously, look what happened to Steam deck.
Posted on Reply
#37
Parn
When I saw the Lenovo Legion Go 2, I thought it was way too expensive for a handheld. This MSI takes it to another level. With the current RAM/SSD crisis, this thing is basically DoA (except for those with too much $$$ to burn)
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