Official MSI benchmarks put the Claw 8 AI+ handheld at 20% higher performance than the current best gaming handheld

The MSI 8 AI held in someone's hands, with an RGB lit background

(Image credit: MSI)

MSI's upcoming Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld appears to perform around 20% better than our current favorite gaming handheld—the Asus ROG Ally X—at the same power consumption level. In some games, it might even reach 113%, but there are some odd games in the company's benchmark ringer.

The scores come from MSI's own official, in-house benchmarks, which ETA PRIME shared on their YouTube channel after checking out the Claw 8 AI+ at a recent MSI event (via WCCFtech).

MSI Claw 8 AI+ official benchmarks. — (Image credit: MSI)

The Claw 8 AI+ and its 7-inch sister are to be the first major handhelds to ship with Intel's Lunar Lake Ultra 7 258V chip, which we've already had a little play around with in other machines. Turns out it's pretty nippy, which bodes well for the MSI handhelds.

We saw the non-Hyper-Threaded Ultra 7 258V CPU manage 27 fps in Metro Exodus, in fact, so as long as the Claw 8 AI+ doesn't suffer from too much thermal throttling—a big hurdle for the best gaming handhelds—we should get some great frame rates out of the Claw. Here's hoping, anyway.

Having been obsessed with game mechanics, computers and graphics for three decades, Katie took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni and has been writing about digital games, tabletop games and gaming technology for over five years since. She can be found facilitating board game design workshops and optimising everything in her path.