MSI Launches New Claw 8 AI+ and Claw 7 AI+ Gaming Handhelds

[Vayra86]

Significantly better power lmao.

View attachment 374329

Where are the power numbers here? I just see numbers. Of laptops

 

[StimpsonJCat]

What exact benefits does including the acronym A.I. into its product name bring to the customer? Does it play the game for you?

 

[Cheeseball]

Yep Intel said the same thing about the first Claw. MSI Gaming even did a 2.5 hr live stream on how good it was. Then the reviews launched and the bloodbath begun. At least they get all the sales of people that don't like AMD APUs for whatever reason. Btw the Steam Deck is not old but this is moot as the next generation of AMD handhelds is around the corner and will push the Ally and Steam Deck even lower in price. There is also the fact that the Steam Deck is much cheaper than the Claw and does not need MSI Center to run properly.

This may actually beat the Z1 Extreme as it only has 4P+4E cores without HT (so it's more similar to the Steam Deck's Aerith/Sephiroth APU) with 8 Xe (Arc) cores, which already does beat 780M at the same TDP.



Hopefully MSI got the cooling down right for their 2nd generation handhelds, but it should be easy since its only 4+4 cores.

Where are the power numbers here? I just see numbers. Of laptops

The only issue I can see is if MSI screwed up the cooling for these 2nd gen. Claws, but it shouldn't be hard as its just 4P+4E without HT. Take note, in the video he power-limited the 258V to the TDPs that should be attainable in handhelds, especially since the ROG Ally X also goes up to max 30W TDP stock.

Also that Zenbook S14 only has one fan with two heatpipes, so should be more or less like the cooling systems of the handhelds. I had to double check this, but it actually has two fans on two heatpipes:



Doesn't change anything since both ROG Allys and the 1st gen MSI Claws have dual fans as well.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I gave the Claw A1M series a bad score (I even returned my Claw, LOL) as it needed 35W to 45W TDP to even beat the Z1 Extreme handhelds and the minimum stock TDP was 20W , but that just shows the inefficiency of Meteor Lake CPUs and early Arc graphics.

 

[Vayra86]

This may actually beat the Z1 Extreme as it only has 4P+4E cores without HT (so it's more similar to the Steam Deck's Aerith/Sephiroth APU) with 8 Xe (Arc) cores, which already does beat 780M at the same TDP.

View attachment 374476

Hopefully MSI got the cooling down right for their 2nd generation handhelds, but it should be easy since its only 4+4 cores.

The only issue I can see is if MSI screwed up the cooling for these 2nd gen. Claws, but it shouldn't be hard as its just 4P+4E without HT. Take note, in the video he power-limited the 258V to the TDPs that should be attainable in handhelds, especially since the ROG Ally X also goes up to max 30W TDP stock.

Also that Zenbook S14 only has one fan with two heatpipes, so should be more or less like the cooling systems of the handhelds. I had to double check this, but it actually has two fans on two heatpipes:

View attachment 374480

Doesn't change anything since both ROG Allys and the 1st gen MSI Claws have dual fans as well.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I gave the Claw A1M series a bad score (I even returned my Claw, LOL) as it needed 35W to 45W TDP to even beat the Z1 Extreme handhelds and the minimum stock TDP was 20W , but that just shows the inefficiency of Meteor Lake CPUs and early Arc graphics.

If you have a real review we can read, with numbers we can count on, I'm all ears. We're NOT talking about laptops with a much bigger battery in them. We're talking about handhelds that mostly need to play games on an IGP at a specific power budget. If they are capped at 30W... they'll drain twice as fast as a Deck. How are they doing capped at 15W? This also does not take into account the battery drain from the screen, which is a significant part of the whole handheld affair, but 120hz IPS 1900x1200 with 500 nits peak brightness screams inefficiency. The lower contrast rating will promote higher brightness values, further increasing battery usage. Been there done that... you wont be playing long.

The numbers ain't there for the specific handheld implementation yet, but so far, every more powerful APU in a handheld, especially Intel ones, have been a guarantee for a fast draining battery. So sure, you have 40 FPS now instead of 25. But you can play one level. Yay! If we then start insinuating Lunar Lake is different... yeah. Real numbers pls, or its all bullshit. You can't cheat on gaming metrics. Its full utilization, so it wants full SoC power more often than not, so anything that promotes being super performant is also going to be super power hungry. The world of chips didn't magically change with Lunar Lake.

I think the importance of the chip used in a handheld and its raw peak performance numbers are grossly overestimated. This is not the metric that truly matters for this form factor. Quality of life is where its at. Optimized experience and options. The non-Decks are getting better and with Steam OS support will improve tangibly, but the optimized experience most certainly in my view also includes an OLED screen. Its an immense gain, and its utterly silly to pay north of 600 bucks for fast hardware only to play it on a subpar screen, when that money gets you an OLED that supports and improves the entire device's experience massively.

Frankly all I see in the handheld space aside from Deck is cheap, quickly thrown together copycats that quickly get improved upon, a bit like how companies release mobile phones every year. This is not The Way. I view them as shitty Android siblings whereas the Deck provides the Apple experience - without the Apple price point.