MSI Claw leaked benchmarks reveal Steam Deck competitor might be slower than rivals

The upcoming MSI Claw handheld is the first to be based on the Core Ultra architecture, with Arc graphics. But, early benchmarks suggest that it’s slower than rival handhelds from Asus and potentially more.

The MSI Claw is an interesting handheld, which is one of the first to debut using Intel’s brand-new Core Ultra architecture. As such, it’s a bit of a breath of fresh air when compared to the Z1 or 7840U devices that we’ve seen come to market over the past six months, like the ROG Ally, Ayaneo Kun, and Lenovo Legion Go.

As such, handheld enthusiasts are watching the MSI Claw like a hawk, especially considering that it could go toe-to-toe with AMD chips when it comes to efficiency. However, a report from Videocardz suggests that you might not want to get your hopes up too high.

One BiliBili creator has had their hands on the MSI Claw early, and run multiple benchmarks of the handheld against the Asus ROG Ally. One thing to note is that this won’t be representative of a full review, and is only showcasing snapshots of performance.

MSI Claw leaked benchmarks

Dexerto

	Cyberpunk 2077 (900p, Low, FSR & XeSS Performance)	Shadow of the Tomb Raider (720p, High)	Red Dead Redemption 2 (900p, Low, FSR performance)	Resident Evil
MSI Claw	44.8 FPS	49 FPS	49.2 FPS	21-53 FPS
ROG Ally	59.8 FPS	53 FPS	60.2 FPS	51-68 FPS

The above benchmarks were all tested at maximum TDP for both devices, with the ROG Ally pulling ahead in pure performance. There were Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmarks at lower TDPs however, which tell a similar story, the ROG Ally can eke out more performance, especially at lower wattages, where the Ally ended up being 54% faster than the Claw at 15W in the Lara Croft title.

There are two variants of the MSI Claw, which offers fewer CPU cores. Additionally, because the MSI Claw is so far from release, it could also not have finalized drivers quite yet. But, if this early indication is anything to go by, you might be better off saving your pennies for a different Windows handheld.