MSI Claw Review Units Observed Trailing Behind ROG Ally in Benchmarks

[T0@st]

Chinese review outlets have received MSI Claw sample units—the "Please, Xiao Fengfeng" Bilibili video channel has produced several comparison pieces detailing how the plucky Intel Meteor Lake-powered handheld stands up against its closest rival; ASUS ROG Ally. The latter utilizes an AMD Ryzen Z1 APU—in Extreme or Standard forms—many news outlets have pointed out that the Z1 Extreme processor is a slightly reworked Ryzen 7 7840U "Phoenix" processor. Intel and its handheld hardware partners have not dressed up Meteor Lake chips with alternative gaming monikers—simply put, the MSI Claw arrives with Core Ultra 7-155H or Ultra 5-135H processors onboard. The two rival systems both run on Window 11, and also share the same screen size, resolution, display technology (IPS) and 16 GB LPDDR5-6400 memory configuration. The almost eight months old ASUS handheld seems to outperform its near-launch competition.

Xiao Fengfeng's review (Ultra 7-155H versus Z1 Extreme) focuses on different power levels and how they affect handheld performance—the Claw and Ally have user selectable TDP modes. A VideoCardz analysis piece lays out key divergences: "Both companies offer easy TDP profile switches, allowing users to adjust performance based on the game's requirements or available battery life. The Claw's larger battery could theoretically offer more gaming time or higher TDP with the same battery life. The system can work at 40 W TDP level (but in reality it's between 35 and 40 watts)...In the Shadow of the Tomb Raider test, the Claw doesn't seem to outperform the ROG Ally. According to a Bilibili creator's test, the system falls short at four different power levels: 15 W, 20 W, 25 W, and max TDP (40 W for Claw and 30 W for Ally)."




The MSI Claw is expected to launch in April, so early review units could be running on immature chipset drivers—VideoCardz points out that Intel provides: "access to their Arc GPU drivers for the Meteor Lake series, no matter the product, which made these (MSI Claw) tests possible."



The Shadow of the Tomb Raider (High Quality preset, 720p) comparison footage showed the ROG Ally reach an average of 53 FPS on its 20 TDP profile, while MSI's Claw lagged behind at 40 FPS average on a 20 TDP setting. Bumping both up to a 25 W power settings resulted in average frames per second increasing to 54 and 47 (respectively). Maximum TDP settings were implemented for the Cyberpunk 2077 (low preset, FSR and XeSS) side-by-side, netting the Ally 59.8 and the Claw 44.8 FPS on average.



The MSI entry level SKU also made an appearance, as observed by VideoCardz: "Some reviewers also had the opportunity to test the second variant of the MSI Claw, reportedly equipped with the Core 5 Ultra 135H processor and an integrated Arc GPU featuring 7 Xe-Cores. This configuration includes 2 CPU cores and 1 Xe-Core less than the Core 7 Ultra 155H. Despite the relatively minor spec differences, a performance gap was observed in a test, specifically in Cyberpunk 2077."

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[CyberCT]

This is disappointing if true. That being said, the Ally is powerful enough for nearly anything I play, so even if with driver updates it matches the Ally, it should be fine.

 

[trparky]

But why?

 

[docnorth]

I think MSI Claw has an edge on synthetic benchmarks, like timespy. This could mean (no surprise here) that Intel still needs work on their drivers to be competitive in games.

 

[Kapone33]

Why do I think this will be too expensive to succeed vs cheaper and faster (In Gaming) handhelds. They have not even showed this off on their MSI Gaming channel but the pricing was a little bit crazy.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

I think the marketing writes itself.

"MSI presents the Intel-powered handheld, The Claw. This is what you've always wanted. The Ally without the performance for more money! Huzzah! Come one, come all! Stock is extremely not limited."

I'm just wondering what store will offering this on clearance in six months. I bet someone will find a way to make this thing a great mini-PC with a built-in screen once it's down to $300 or so.