MSI Claw: 35–45% faster than AMD
Intel's new G3 chip in the MSI Claw handheld gaming PC is 35 to 45% faster than AMD's best current handheld chip.
Snapshot · This Week in Tech (Audio)
TWiT 1090: Flock of SQLs - Apple & Microsoft Grapple With Soaring Hardware Prices
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Jun 29, 2026
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Intel's Comeback: MSI Claw & the Handheld Gaming Revolution
At 15:00 · chapter starts 10:20
Handheld gaming is one of the fastest-growing segments in the industry, sparked by the Nintendo Switch and refined by the Steam Deck, and now Windows is in the game with a vengeance. Daniel Rubino reviewed the MSI Claw, which uses Intel's custom G3 handheld chip — a processor Intel specifically designed for this form factor, breaking from its previous habit of using power-hungry laptop chips. The result is extraordinary: the G3 is between 35 and 45% faster than AMD's top handheld chip, enabling games like Cyberpunk 2077 to run at around 90fps. Intel's XeSS AI upscaling and frame generation technology pushes frame rates even further. The device can be docked to a TV via Thunderbolt 4 for 4K gaming, connected to an eGPU, and used as a full PC. It is, Rubino says, the handheld they've all been waiting for — but at $1,799, it costs roughly $500 more than it should because of the RAM shortage, against a natural ceiling of about $1,299. Nonetheless, Best Buy was already sold out. Leo Laporte notes the irony that Intel, which infamously fumbled mobile with the ill-fated Atom chip, is now leading in a mobile-adjacent category.
Intel's Comeback: The MSI Claw Is the Handheld Gaming PC We've Been Waiting For
Intel was written off in handheld gaming — then they built a custom chip for it. The MSI Claw with Intel's G3 is 35-45% faster than AMD's best handheld chip, runs true AAA games at 60-100fps, and can dock as a full PC. It's $500 too expensive because of the RAM crisis, but it sold out anyway.
x86 vs ARM: Why Intel Isn't Dead Yet
Intel's x86 architecture isn't inherently less efficient than ARM — it just came from a desktop pedigree instead of a mobile one. The Core Ultra 3 generation finally combines performance and efficiency, and with NVIDIA joining the ARM ecosystem via RTX Spark, the battle lines have redrawn. If your laptop gets 10 hours of real use, does the extra efficiency even matter?
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