Thank you for showing how quiet the fan is!! At last someone really pointed this and it's VERY important to me, I hate loud fans especially in handheld :) This is really great that MSI made the most silent handheld, I'm impressed :)
Bro, I hate noise too! To the point of using Ally/LeGo at 20/18 W TDP max despite them being connected to the power source all the time. Glad to hear I'm not alone in this, cos I've already started thinking that I'm 😅
@@adravil_sunderland Hehe I am also using LeGo at 20W with custom curve (HC) where it's near silent at ~80C. It's strange that from the box LeGo is such noisy even at 15W while keeping ~65-70C. My Rog Ally at 17W (1st gen) is louder then LeGo at 20W but I'm a little tired of configuring 3rd party software for this and hooping it won't break after next windows update - I'd like handheld which can pull that 30W max power while not being jet engine (like most laptops) so I'm also happy to hear I'm not alone :)
Intel and Msi finally hit a home run. This thing is nearly perfect besides the slightly tough $900 price point. It's justified though with hefty upgrades with 80wh battery, 32gb ram, 1tb ssd, solid 8' 120hz VRR display (not being Oled is the only thing keeping it from perfection), and a finally competitive and solid Intel Apu ( wasn't a fluke that Intel got their act together on the Gpu front, as we have seen with their new Battlemage Budget/Entry Level King B580). The only Handheld I'm looking forward to more is the new Legion Go 2 Oled that is being announced at CES. If it gets the upgrades it needs over the original Legion Go (16>32 Gb, 49wh battery> 80wh battery, and finally adding VRR to now go along with the new Oled display), along with the new Z2 Extreme Strix Point Apu (seemingly 8 Zen 5 cores, and 16 Cu of Rdna 3.5), it will probably be the top dog if the pricing is right (ideally $800, but will probably $900 to match the Msi Claw 8+).
Enjoy it while it lasts. Intel will become irrelevant again next year as they are not making a Lunar Lake successor and AMD is still barely trying when it comes to tuning these processors to ultra low power
@terribletimes902 what are the facts behind your assumption? Even if intel goes out of business nvidia and Qualcomm are making APUs AMD will do their best , not to lose to them
@@50H3i1 The facts are Intel themselves said they consider Lunar Lake a one off product that was too niche to continue development on, and the fact that before Lunar Lake’s design, they were losing horribly between 10-20W against AMD. They will go back to losing horribly and only really being useful in 30W+ where they have better single thread for power hungry gaming laptops and the like. At least their iGPU is still really good but I don’t see them competing in handhelds again if they are abandoning the design philosophy behind Lunar Lake. It’s not that they will go out of business. It’s that they already admitted they are effectively giving up on this segment.
@@50H3i1 As for Qualcomm, they are gonna fold in this segment too as soon as Nvidia unveils their own much rumored ARM APU. If that doesn’t end up happening, I guess I could see them and Windows on ARM improving enough to take over this segment. While Lunar Lake’s iGPU is better than the AMD’s 890M, it still only ties against Apple’s base M3 GPU. Apple silicon tier APUs for Windows on ARM would be amazing.
Almost every fair and reasonable person by now has recognized that Battlemage is a quality product (as evinced by it being nearly constantly out of stock, and all the positive reviews). There are only rare outliers like MLID (Moore's Law is Dead) that have an agenda against Intel Arc and are trying to downplay it or even throw shade at it.
I totally agree! A quiet fan is such a game-changer for handhelds, and it’s awesome that MSI prioritized that in the Claw 8 AI+. It makes a huge difference for a more enjoyable gaming experience!
Thanks for the review. Lunar Lake brought a lot of improvement over Meteor Lake in less than a year. Quite competitive with Strix Point while having AI based XeSS upscaling and frame generation. I'll be getting a Claw 8 soon, and hopefully we'll see a Panther Lake (Xe3) based successor around CES 2026.
Yeah if XeSS is getting more widespread adoption in games, Intel might become the best choice in pc handheld gaming. Pretty wild to think about, but I am glad AMD gets some serious competition in that category
Wow Man! just wow, You are THE MAN in our handheld community... All I wantt this year is Legion Go 2 vs Ally 2 vs MSI Claw 8 to decide for my next handheld... Now I've got 33% of information what to expect... Salute Brother! Amazing effort for Us. ...also 900p compare for AAA games will be amazing to watch, it was a sweet spot resolution for Ally and great compromise betwen 720p and 1080p.
Currently have the first gen ROG ally and the MSI claw with the ultra 7 155h A1M and the MSI claw is my preferred can’t wait to pick up that new MSI claw.
@@Dracossaint i saw an opportunity to buy one and i took it and ive loved it since i play god of war, black myth wukong and diablo 4 with some switch games and havent had any issues and i really liked how the buttons light up so its a beautiful looking console to be honest
Thank you for this review! Waiting until the end of CES to see what else is coming but I definitely want to get a PC handheld soon. Just want to invest in something that will last a long time and will play new AAA games
Thank you. I really appreciate the unbiased review and information. The benchmarks with different games as well as the the comparison to new gpus also helped a lot. It seems like upcoming handheld PCs are going to be based on preference. Although I preordered this, part of me may still be leaning on the LL Go2 with the rumored OLED screen. I hope you can get your hands on that as I would enjoy to see a review.
In SteamOS (at least with the Steam Deck) this AutoTDP Mechanism also seems to work for AMD. When a fps cap is enabled both GPU and CPU reduce clocks and voltage to lower operating points (depending on each load a operating point is chosen that is enough to make the component deliver the result in the frame time budget for the frame cap). So this „killer feature“ will be soon accessible for all other Handhelds that support SteamOS (which seems to be aimed to roll out to more devices in Q1 25)
I'd love to see some benchmarks under linux, maybe bazzite or holo iso? I know intel has been improving their linux drivers for gaming as well, but their discrete cards still lag on linux vs windows compared to nvidia's proprietary linux driver, or AMD under radv or amdvlk. If this thing is doing so well on windows, maybe we will see steamos on intel soon for even better battery life.
Always appreciate the informative uploads! I managed to preorder this on Amazon. Its gone from unavailable, to gone all together, to coming soon on Best Buy...
Still nice to see overall the gaps are still in my opinion marginal versus the ally, 10-15 more fps in some games isn't worth having to sell and spend like 400$ for that upgrade. the only major plus to me is getting updates straight from intel.
@@strangetoucan it's only in certain games and considering the ally has AFMF 2 which only adds a little input lag it's definitely not worth the upgrade for most people.
@strangetoucan When the Ally X gets 15 fps more than the Steam Deck it's a big deal, but when the MSI Claw 2 gets 15 fps more it's no big deal. Funny how that works.
@@cyberedge881 I mean xess 2 is definitely doing a lot of leg work to get that 15 more fps in some games. I never told anyone it was worth an upgrade to the ally from the steam deck unless you're into multiplayer games that you can't play due to anti cheat on the Deck. The difference between them besides the efficiency of the Intel chips is negligible in my opinion. To go through the pain and selling my ally and then fork up 500$ isn't justified for my personal situation, I would do it for 20-30 more fps and more battery life. Otherwise I'll stick to my og ally that I personally upgraded myself to match the rog ally x in battery and upgraded RAM to 32gb.
The fact that it can do decent RT or Global Illumination is actually big. I play a lot of Path of Exile 2 on my Ally X right now, and with GI turned on the game looks much better but performance drops to sub 30. Running XESS + GI on a larger screen is tempting.
@DarrenPC It's the fact that XeSS Frame Gen are hardware level like Nvidia unlike FSR uses software, the downside is that only 1-2 games currently support XeSS FG, but once it's supported across multiple games then it becomes a no brainer, XeSS upscaling just looks alot better than FSR and nearly in DLSS level
@@LuisPerez-5 Why don't you make Minecraft or Cyberpunk as good as they look without path tracing so we call them a gymick, there's a reason why every single company investing for it.
@TRX25EX because it's what looks good. People like shiny things. The hit to performance is not worth it. Companies are focused on making the game look better and don't make interesting games anymore. I prefet a true 60FPS without RT than RT with every AI upscaling and frame generation enabled.
Thanks a lot for your hard work 👏 I skipped the comparison to the OG Claw since that device shouldn't have happened 😂 It would have been nice to have a max TDP performance comparison between the Ally X and the Claw8+ for the times you are docked or at home plugged and want to get the best possible experience. But I understand that you focused the review on a endurance/travel stand point.
watching this on my lunar lake laptop. Battery life for me is huge, at 30% brightness, 60hz display setting, I can get 22hrs of TH-cam playback and about the same doing light browsing. I use a mixture of native and cloud gaming and I don't think entry level gpu's are necessary any more
Well since everyone is wishing it, happy new year from Brazil! Also, why do i get i feeling msi lied when showing performance over rog ally x? Those 20w tdp comparisons don't look too hot for the claw 2, especially considering the upcoming z2 extreme (that i guess it's just an hx370 renamed???).
I'm most worried with Intel about support for older games...not just DX 11, but 10, 9, 8, 7, 6... At first older games were unplayable on ARC, but I guess they're mostly okay now? The fact this can use normal drivers and not just special ones like Z1/Z2 is what makes me WAY more interested... wish this had trackpads, and would prefer 720p or 900/1080p + mini-LED or OLED + HDR, but this still looks shockingly promising! Wow, I LOVE how quiet it is!!! That's a huge deal for me. Eww...the fact you even have to patch something as recent as Arkham Knight... I don't know...I *NEED* strong backwards compatibility. If Ally X and Ally 2 could just run real AMD drivers...
HX370 is using 890M 16CU part while the upcoming Z2E is apparently using 880M with 12CU, its closer to 780M. So i'm expecting whatever next handheld using amd Z2E is gonna be similar to the previous Z1E in terms of graphic prowess.
@@PixelatedWolf2077 the opposite. RT cores are just a quick scam intended to ease the development of new games (since nonrt lightning/shadow/reflection is hella hard yo implement). In the long run functionality of rt cores/ai cores etc would be incorporated by the microcode of the main cores (exception is encoding cores since it essentially gives gpu a micro boost to nullify the load of encoding. Essentially it's an additional micro gpu to boost the main gpu)
@@serhii_himself_98 I dunno, in games like FH5, I haven't seen a real drop turning on it's rather light RT settings that it has. I commonly use them for the photo mode when I take pictures in it and I've got quite a ton of hours in a game like that, almost 1.5K.
I'm impressed with how solid Intel is doing recently with their non desktop CPU launches. Low end GPUs that have enough VRAM and large generational leaps (whether it be performance or power efficiency) in graphics for both desktop and APU segments is impressive compared to what they were achieving before.
Very cool. Just a tip. The software you are using to calculate percent difference is doing it in a misleading backwards way, by using the claw as the 100% reference point it significantly under estimates percentage increases over lower fps levels. For example an increase from 40 to 50 is 25%, a decrease from 50 to 40 is 20%. So when yours saying the claw is x% faster that is objectively wrong as you need to do the percentage increase from the lower figure, or else say, the ally is doing 80% of the frames of the claw (but the claw is 25 not 20% faster). Pedantic but those percentage graphs are misleading. Good video though but wonder why you didn't go up to 25w on the claw vs ally and stuck at 20w?
Lunar Lake really is Intel's first truly comprehensively good product in years. I've been saying since it was announced that Lunar Lake would be fantastic for these little gaming handhelds.
On AMD you can use a similar function called "Chill" which allow you to limits GPU to 30 fps. It is also worth limiting available CPU power in Windows to 80%, which will completely block turbo clock in every CPU. Max CPU clock of ROG Ally will be 3.2 GHz even in 30 watt mode. For example Spiderman on medium details with FSR on 25 watt mode will use only 11 watt max (CPU 3.2 GHz, GPU 800 MHz)
@@danr8267 On handhelds, "Chill" feature is difficult to use because most games are already at 30 fps. But limiting CPU is a great way to increase GPU performance. Energy is shared between CPU and GPU, so if you limit CPU then GPU can use higher clocks. It also increase battery life On a standard PC, "Chill" feature is a great way to reduce noise. Many PC games use 60+ fps which is unnecessary. For example I had 70 fps in strategy Miasma Chronicles and my computer was very loud. When I forced 30 fps then PC was nearly silent
Thanks for such a detailed review. I'm in a rather unique situation where I can still return my ROG Ally X until Jan 14 (day before supposedly the Claw comes out). My number one priority is the same 80w battery and the 8 inch vs 7 inch screen. How do the ergonomics feel of the Claw given the slightly larger size and significant more weight, compared to the advantage of the 33% bigger screen. I mostly play turned based and big screen games (planet coaster) where i feel like the real estate would make a huge difference. Is it worth returning and swapping for the screen upgrade? i used to have a legion go as well but the ergonomics were terriblle (bulky and way too heavy). I am very pleased with my ally x except for the 7 in screen size.
im in the same boat i have until the 15th to return my ally x, got it for 699 at bestbuy on sale. my beef is i also put a 4 tb ssd in it that wont work on the claw (claw uses 2230 ally x is 2280} i also put a dbrand skin and case on it. Now i can return the 4 tb drive to amazon and sell the dbrand case on mercari and return the ally x to best buy, and im really considering it because i returned the legion go for the ally x strictly for the bigger battery and now i really miss that bigger screen. Neither of them are fitting in my pocket so i would perfer the larger more ergonomic grip and the 8 inch screen. Also the claw 8 ai plus isnt available ANYWHERE. its even being scalped. Best buy says coming soon i beleive the 15th, so if its there that day i think im gonna go for it. Ally x is solid tho, armory crate is way better than when i last tried it, the og ally i had for a few days before returning for various issues. The controls, the battery, everytthing. The allyx is almost perfect really. I just want it to have more grip like the steam deck and a larger screen, which seems to be what the claw 8 has.
design is really clean, i like it a lot, really hope that someday can provide competitive price with oculink or usb4 ver 2 or tb5....... that is my main factor deciding what to buy
One suggestion, one critique, one thing that's interesting: A big difference between Lunar Lake and everything else on x86 is the RAM on package, so TDP on Lunar Lake should lead to a lower device power consumption. Including those numbers would be very helpful. And yes, those can differ between devices with the same APU/SoC, but especially here it makes sense. Actually, I forgot the critique, maybe I'll add it later, when I remember ... :P (I guess, it was the TDP in stone way.) As you mentioned the compatibility and embracing more DXVK. I nowhere saw anyone, as far as I know, testing game compatibility with Intel on Linux. Right now, Battlemage Linux performance isn't great, but compatibility is something, that's worthwhile looking into it because as long as the Vulkan driver is good, it should work.
Going to wait a week or so and get me an open box claw 8. Seems like something I can use until the Legion Go 2 releases. Tired of playing on these 7” screens
I have an Ally X and Steam Deck at the moment so I probably don’t need this but I still appreciated the video. It’s good to see Intel having some success. Next we need Microsoft to step up with Windows. Fun to watch this space.
Great strides for Intel but I had the original OneXPlayer (Intel 1165G7 APU) so I know firsthand that serious driver compatibility issues can really kill enthusiasm here. Not only with old games, but sometimes some new game comes out, entirely untested on Intel graphics, and it just won't start or has massive issues. That will keep me away from Intel graphics for years to come. Sad part is that Intel can barely do anything about it beyond just keep going to gain real market share on the GPU side. They keep it up long enough, keep delivering value vs. AMD and Nvidia, and they'll force developers to get their games working on Intel.
If this had a trackpad I'd be interested. These are handheld PCs, not consoles. Its windows based on top of that. They need a track pad that is easily thumb usable from the standard ergonomic position. Having the trackpads on the steam deck makes so many games that literally wouldnt be playable without peripherals actually enjoyable once you get used to using them.
In my opinion if you have a rog ally x. Wait for the next actual gen of handhelds. Hx370 is a halfway point and the intel chip is also. However if you have the original claw, either of the current new handhelds with the hx370 and intel 258v are an actual upgrade.
I feel really sorry for anyone who actually bought the first MSI claw, but I'm really happy about this competition in the handheld PC market. Imagine how heated the competition could get if the rumors about Nvidia working on a mobile ARM gaming SOC. All this plus the second coming of Steam OS, and 2025 is looking interesting!
I do wish it had a bigger screen. I'll be waiting for legion go's announcement and then decide between the two. It's really hard to go back after playing on a 8.8" screen.
@tjveith I had an ally, sold it recently. It's good for older games, but playing fps games on a 7" screen is not that fun for me. Bigger the better lol
Love that competition is brewing for the GPUs on these handhelds. AMD has been very slow to offer any real performance gains. Next gen will be interesting to see.
If the ally x had a 8 inch screen wouldn't that be as heavy as the claw 8. When you were comparing the weight differences i noticed you never mentioned this. A bigger screen would obviously add more weight to a device. But I'm very disappointed in the 2230 ssd that limits me to a 2tb upgrade. When i purchased my ally x I upgraded the stock 1tb to a nice 4tb Samsung 990 pro with heatsinc on day one. I wish these companies would make it easy to swap in a bigger drive by making it as simple as adding storage similar to a ps5.
I got an msi claw 135h a few weeks ago and it plays alot of games really well but some do struggle for sure , however i also have an msi ge 76 raider laptop with a 3080ti so its just fun playing different games on the claw.
I think I might pick one of these up. I love my Steam deck but there are a couple of games I’ve been playing with friends that were either pretty annoying to get setup to work on the deck or just don’t work at all.
As great as Intel catching up is, if performance is roughly similar then people should still go with AMD due to drivers. Intel really needs to put everything they have into improving their drivers. People don't want to worry about whether a game will even launch or run.
Just to clarify, when you use Intel's software to control TDP are you setting the Claw into Manual mode? I was just curious in case I end up buying one in a few weeks as not having to constantly change settings would be a big selling point for me. Also thanks for the extensive review, it was awesome.
cant wait to see what this can do with Bazzite.but not being able to beat the Z1E at 20 watts when this should be nearly 1.5x more powerful on paper is concerning but i would lay alot of this on drivers hence why the strix point is getting nearly 10fps or more in just about every game
@@CEONo1984 Well, Risen 2 I have yet to finish, and Risen 3 which he specifically demonstrated not running in this very video, for example. You want my whole backlog list lol? I wish there was a compilation somewhere where people could report on game workability, like ProtonDB but for ARC. Like, I've found people testing the same 50 or so popular, recent games, and it's good to know about those, but I am an idiot when it comes to buying games and have almost two thousand that I haven't heard about compatibility one way or the other.
My biggest concern is if all games are able to fill the entire screen? Find all that screen space to be a waste if the entire screen isnt being utilized.
Hello Phawx. One question about the claw 8; does the msi has included an integrated functionality for battery protection from overcharging - in case the user forget the device plugged, when the battery is fully charged- like the "Battery Care" the Ally X has ? This is a useful detail, and since we do not have the device, we can only ask.
Pretty sure you should have compared total system power, not package power. 258V at 15W is the same as amd on 10W, because the memory is on package. Overall, it's a competitive chip, but Intel won't make a successor for it.
It honestly looks like Intel Driver side cleanup would shore up most of the gaps in performance. It clearly CAN trade blows with 370 when it wants to. Intel has been working on GPU drivers for like 2 years, and AMD has been for decades so. It may not be something that happens in the next few years but Intel is at least demonstrating their technology has a sound foundation once the software and drivers are there.
Lossless Scaling? Your Can even 4x your FPS where AFMF will only 2x your FPS. I tried AFMF on my Legion Go and Lossless Scaling IS Still by miles Better than AFMF.
I expect some of the areas where the Claw struggles in to improve dramatically as Intel gets a better handle on their drivers. Basically, fine wine technology.
@@Patrick73787 I will need to take whatever GPD puts into their Win Max 2 ;) I just do not consider Batman Arkham Knight an "Older Game". I expect at least games from that era to work without manual patching. In tel needs to do something about that.
@@shariarrahman7562 Yeah, he had to manually patch that game. That is why I specifically mention it. From a device that expensive and with the latest hardware in it, I do not want to manually patch games and do the tinkering. That is what he says, Intel should at least add some automatic compatibility option.
The charts at 20:20 really need to be better color coded. It's very hard to read, especially since there's no flow to which configuration is which. A blue hue for the new one and green for the old or something to differentiate without having to look at the words to the left.
why are you not covering the device at 30 watts? I want to know the power of this thing. Your testing 15, 20 and 25 watts. Theres a significant jump in performance (relatively speaking) between the different wattages. Cover 30 watts please
I'm still waiting to see what Lenovo brings to the table with the rumored Lenovo Legion Go 2 announcement at CES 2025. The leaked images of that unit look as though they've fixed basically all of my gripes with the original unit in terms of ergonomics. If it has a larger battery, 2280 NVMe support, and that rumored OLED display, it will be a day one buy for me. The Z2 Extreme would be sweet, but not 100% necessary. If that doesn't materialize, this is on my list. Too bad about the 2230 NVMe support though. Side note: Am I hearing HX370 or HX3070? Might just be a dialect thing.
Really curious about the AutoTDP-like feature. I didn’t go down the rabbit hole of setting it up on my Ally because of reading others’ complaints of micro-stutter with it. How does frame pacing feel with these Intel features?
@LuisPerez-5 Yes, it didn't exist back then. But MSI were working on this while gearing up for the release of the original Claw. And the original Claw, while it offered an alternative to the Ally, Steam Deck, and LeGo, it was mostly ignored or laughed at because of how it failed to compare to these handhelds. MSI knew the Claw was not going to compete with the other handhelds and didn't bother to give it the support that it needed because they were working on the Claw 8.
@LuisPerez-5 Considering how quickly after the original claw released, they announced the Claw 8 MSI knew they were going to be pushing out a much better product not long after the original Claw. The OG Claw came out in March of this last year. The Claw 8 was announced in June, just a few months later. R&D, testing, planning, all of the stuff for the Claw 8 would have had to be going on in the background when they were releasing the OG Claw. MSI knew they were going to be releasing a better Claw, so their original customers who bought the OG Claw kind of got the shaft. Remember, the original Claw came out in March of 2024, and the Claw 8 is coming out in January 2025. Less than a year after the previous one. In the world of tech, that's really quick considering the jump in power. The Ally is not quite the same, the Ally X released just a little over a year after the first one. The Ally X is not a next gen performance upgrade. It's more akin to the Steam Deck to the Steam Deck Oled. It's a mid gen refresh that improved over the original, clearly taking feedback from the faults of the original. It's still the same processor, just a better battery and better ram, they fixed the SD card issues, added another usb port with better egpu support. And even then, OG Ally users got an improvement with Asus improving the software experience for the Ally X that they brought to the OG Ally.
Would you say that you personally notice a positive difference using hardware based XeSS over FSR? Perhaps in games like Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk? I think that better upscaling would definitely sell it for me over more raw performance from the new AMD chips. Thank you
Also just to add if you ask me I think AMD didn't plan RDNA 3.5 to become Z2E but instead the RDNA 4, it's Intel competition that made them change their mind hence AMD handhelds became all over the place where some launching some avoiding some confused
Intel might have a good driver now but that’s never been their issue it’s being able to send more driver updates without changing the chipset give it atleast 6 months before you say they figured it out
Thank you for showing how quiet the fan is!! At last someone really pointed this and it's VERY important to me, I hate loud fans especially in handheld :)
This is really great that MSI made the most silent handheld, I'm impressed :)
Bro, I hate noise too! To the point of using Ally/LeGo at 20/18 W TDP max despite them being connected to the power source all the time. Glad to hear I'm not alone in this, cos I've already started thinking that I'm 😅
@@adravil_sunderland Hehe I am also using LeGo at 20W with custom curve (HC) where it's near silent at ~80C. It's strange that from the box LeGo is such noisy even at 15W while keeping ~65-70C. My Rog Ally at 17W (1st gen) is louder then LeGo at 20W but I'm a little tired of configuring 3rd party software for this and hooping it won't break after next windows update - I'd like handheld which can pull that 30W max power while not being jet engine (like most laptops) so I'm also happy to hear I'm not alone :)
I wonder if some of that 110g extra weight is more heatsink as the claw seems to be so incredibly quiet. This is vital to me too.
Your thumbnail to video transition on mouseover, holy cow that's clean.
Been waiting for this since you announced it on Patreon.
Really happy with the overall outcome of this video
@ThePhawx great video!
Intel and Msi finally hit a home run. This thing is nearly perfect besides the slightly tough $900 price point. It's justified though with hefty upgrades with 80wh battery, 32gb ram, 1tb ssd, solid 8' 120hz VRR display (not being Oled is the only thing keeping it from perfection), and a finally competitive and solid Intel Apu ( wasn't a fluke that Intel got their act together on the Gpu front, as we have seen with their new Battlemage Budget/Entry Level King B580).
The only Handheld I'm looking forward to more is the new Legion Go 2 Oled that is being announced at CES. If it gets the upgrades it needs over the original Legion Go (16>32 Gb, 49wh battery> 80wh battery, and finally adding VRR to now go along with the new Oled display), along with the new Z2 Extreme Strix Point Apu (seemingly 8 Zen 5 cores, and 16 Cu of Rdna 3.5), it will probably be the top dog if the pricing is right (ideally $800, but will probably $900 to match the Msi Claw 8+).
You and me are in the same boat
Competition is always a W for customers
Only if they are R P and not M R
Enjoy it while it lasts. Intel will become irrelevant again next year as they are not making a Lunar Lake successor and AMD is still barely trying when it comes to tuning these processors to ultra low power
@terribletimes902 what are the facts behind your assumption?
Even if intel goes out of business nvidia and Qualcomm are making APUs AMD will do their best , not to lose to them
@@50H3i1 The facts are Intel themselves said they consider Lunar Lake a one off product that was too niche to continue development on, and the fact that before Lunar Lake’s design, they were losing horribly between 10-20W against AMD. They will go back to losing horribly and only really being useful in 30W+ where they have better single thread for power hungry gaming laptops and the like.
At least their iGPU is still really good but I don’t see them competing in handhelds again if they are abandoning the design philosophy behind Lunar Lake. It’s not that they will go out of business. It’s that they already admitted they are effectively giving up on this segment.
@@50H3i1 As for Qualcomm, they are gonna fold in this segment too as soon as Nvidia unveils their own much rumored ARM APU. If that doesn’t end up happening, I guess I could see them and Windows on ARM improving enough to take over this segment. While Lunar Lake’s iGPU is better than the AMD’s 890M, it still only ties against Apple’s base M3 GPU. Apple silicon tier APUs for Windows on ARM would be amazing.
Been waiting for this review. A nice treat for new year! Happy New Year The Phawx!
Thanks for the killer review. The variety in the benchmarks was really awesome, thanks for including every chip you did.
GHAADDAMN THANK YOU CAREY. Nobody else has been bullish on battmage but i knew you would come through.
Happy new year from Australia
😂 Intel Lunar Lake is a solid platform
What do you mean No one? I’ve been bullish on Lunar Lake and battlemage since they announced. I knew it was a winner, but did you care? NOPE
He's complementing Lunar Lake here
Almost every fair and reasonable person by now has recognized that Battlemage is a quality product (as evinced by it being nearly constantly out of stock, and all the positive reviews). There are only rare outliers like MLID (Moore's Law is Dead) that have an agenda against Intel Arc and are trying to downplay it or even throw shade at it.
good, we need someone to push AMD
I totally agree! A quiet fan is such a game-changer for handhelds, and it’s awesome that MSI prioritized that in the Claw 8 AI+. It makes a huge difference for a more enjoyable gaming experience!
Thanks for the review. Lunar Lake brought a lot of improvement over Meteor Lake in less than a year. Quite competitive with Strix Point while having AI based XeSS upscaling and frame generation. I'll be getting a Claw 8 soon, and hopefully we'll see a Panther Lake (Xe3) based successor around CES 2026.
Yeah if XeSS is getting more widespread adoption in games, Intel might become the best choice in pc handheld gaming. Pretty wild to think about, but I am glad AMD gets some serious competition in that category
Wow Man! just wow, You are THE MAN in our handheld community... All I wantt this year is Legion Go 2 vs Ally 2 vs MSI Claw 8 to decide for my next handheld... Now I've got 33% of information what to expect... Salute Brother! Amazing effort for Us. ...also 900p compare for AAA games will be amazing to watch, it was a sweet spot resolution for Ally and great compromise betwen 720p and 1080p.
Currently have the first gen ROG ally and the MSI claw with the ultra 7 155h A1M and the MSI claw is my preferred can’t wait to pick up that new MSI claw.
Send me the Ally. I can put it to good use
Why did ya get the claw if ya dont mind me asking? Not trying to poke the bear. I am curious about your train of logic
@@LuisPerez-5 i gave it to my wife she only plays palworld on it
@@Dracossaint i saw an opportunity to buy one and i took it and ive loved it since i play god of war, black myth wukong and diablo 4 with some switch games and havent had any issues and i really liked how the buttons light up so its a beautiful looking console to be honest
@@dxramos so you liked the way it looked, gotcha. Thank you kindly
Love the benchmarks. Thanks
Thank you for this review! Waiting until the end of CES to see what else is coming but I definitely want to get a PC handheld soon. Just want to invest in something that will last a long time and will play new AAA games
Thank you. I really appreciate the unbiased review and information. The benchmarks with different games as well as the the comparison to new gpus also helped a lot. It seems like upcoming handheld PCs are going to be based on preference. Although I preordered this, part of me may still be leaning on the LL Go2 with the rumored OLED screen. I hope you can get your hands on that as I would enjoy to see a review.
In SteamOS (at least with the Steam Deck) this AutoTDP Mechanism also seems to work for AMD. When a fps cap is enabled both GPU and CPU reduce clocks and voltage to lower operating points (depending on each load a operating point is chosen that is enough to make the component deliver the result in the frame time budget for the frame cap). So this „killer feature“ will be soon accessible for all other Handhelds that support SteamOS (which seems to be aimed to roll out to more devices in Q1 25)
Great video, I was hoping to get my hands on one but as of now, this can't be bought in Canada, which is dumb. Happy New Year Cary, all the best!
I'd love to see some benchmarks under linux, maybe bazzite or holo iso? I know intel has been improving their linux drivers for gaming as well, but their discrete cards still lag on linux vs windows compared to nvidia's proprietary linux driver, or AMD under radv or amdvlk. If this thing is doing so well on windows, maybe we will see steamos on intel soon for even better battery life.
Always appreciate the informative uploads! I managed to preorder this on Amazon. Its gone from unavailable, to gone all together, to coming soon on Best Buy...
Still nice to see overall the gaps are still in my opinion marginal versus the ally, 10-15 more fps in some games isn't worth having to sell and spend like 400$ for that upgrade. the only major plus to me is getting updates straight from intel.
Since when are 15 FPS more not a big gain
@@strangetoucan it's only in certain games and considering the ally has AFMF 2 which only adds a little input lag it's definitely not worth the upgrade for most people.
@strangetoucan
When the Ally X gets 15 fps more than the Steam Deck it's a big deal, but when the MSI Claw 2 gets 15 fps more it's no big deal. Funny how that works.
@@cyberedge881 I mean xess 2 is definitely doing a lot of leg work to get that 15 more fps in some games.
I never told anyone it was worth an upgrade to the ally from the steam deck unless you're into multiplayer games that you can't play due to anti cheat on the Deck.
The difference between them besides the efficiency of the Intel chips is negligible in my opinion.
To go through the pain and selling my ally and then fork up 500$ isn't justified for my personal situation, I would do it for 20-30 more fps and more battery life. Otherwise I'll stick to my og ally that I personally upgraded myself to match the rog ally x in battery and upgraded RAM to 32gb.
Intel has had historically bad drivers for gaming so this has a lot more to prove
Thanks for this review. The best one! The 8i+ is just a dream machine... except in France for the price at 999€ !
What is amazing in this handheld and game changer is the XeSS + frame generation + Ray Tracing performance, it's way better than FSR
The fact that it can do decent RT or Global Illumination is actually big. I play a lot of Path of Exile 2 on my Ally X right now, and with GI turned on the game looks much better but performance drops to sub 30. Running XESS + GI on a larger screen is tempting.
@DarrenPC It's the fact that XeSS Frame Gen are hardware level like Nvidia unlike FSR uses software, the downside is that only 1-2 games currently support XeSS FG, but once it's supported across multiple games then it becomes a no brainer, XeSS upscaling just looks alot better than FSR and nearly in DLSS level
Ray tracing is a gimmick that needs to die
@@LuisPerez-5 Why don't you make Minecraft or Cyberpunk as good as they look without path tracing so we call them a gymick, there's a reason why every single company investing for it.
@TRX25EX because it's what looks good. People like shiny things. The hit to performance is not worth it. Companies are focused on making the game look better and don't make interesting games anymore. I prefet a true 60FPS without RT than RT with every AI upscaling and frame generation enabled.
Thanks a lot for your hard work 👏 I skipped the comparison to the OG Claw since that device shouldn't have happened 😂 It would have been nice to have a max TDP performance comparison between the Ally X and the Claw8+ for the times you are docked or at home plugged and want to get the best possible experience. But I understand that you focused the review on a endurance/travel stand point.
watching this on my lunar lake laptop. Battery life for me is huge, at 30% brightness, 60hz display setting, I can get 22hrs of TH-cam playback and about the same doing light browsing. I use a mixture of native and cloud gaming and I don't think entry level gpu's are necessary any more
Almost bought a super nice Acer Lunar Lake for 900
@PixelatedWolf2077 i got a Lenovo 7i for $1000. It runs super quiet, even under load
Well since everyone is wishing it, happy new year from Brazil!
Also, why do i get i feeling msi lied when showing performance over rog ally x?
Those 20w tdp comparisons don't look too hot for the claw 2, especially considering the upcoming z2 extreme (that i guess it's just an hx370 renamed???).
MSI tested many more games than the ones showcased in this video.
Same TDP is actually 2 watts less then the ally since the on package ram takes 2 watts which makes the claw more impressive.
I'm most worried with Intel about support for older games...not just DX 11, but 10, 9, 8, 7, 6...
At first older games were unplayable on ARC, but I guess they're mostly okay now?
The fact this can use normal drivers and not just special ones like Z1/Z2 is what makes me WAY more interested... wish this had trackpads, and would prefer 720p or 900/1080p + mini-LED or OLED + HDR, but this still looks shockingly promising!
Wow, I LOVE how quiet it is!!! That's a huge deal for me.
Eww...the fact you even have to patch something as recent as Arkham Knight...
I don't know...I *NEED* strong backwards compatibility. If Ally X and Ally 2 could just run real AMD drivers...
HX370 is using 890M 16CU part while the upcoming Z2E is apparently using 880M with 12CU, its closer to 780M. So i'm expecting whatever next handheld using amd Z2E is gonna be similar to the previous Z1E in terms of graphic prowess.
Do the 800M parts have RT cores or at least ones that can do RT better than the previous Z1E?
@@PixelatedWolf2077AFAIK amd doesn't have RT cores, they are doing software RT
@@serhii_himself_98 ohhh I see. Yeesh that might hurt them in the long run
@@PixelatedWolf2077 the opposite. RT cores are just a quick scam intended to ease the development of new games (since nonrt lightning/shadow/reflection is hella hard yo implement). In the long run functionality of rt cores/ai cores etc would be incorporated by the microcode of the main cores (exception is encoding cores since it essentially gives gpu a micro boost to nullify the load of encoding. Essentially it's an additional micro gpu to boost the main gpu)
@@serhii_himself_98 I dunno, in games like FH5, I haven't seen a real drop turning on it's rather light RT settings that it has. I commonly use them for the photo mode when I take pictures in it and I've got quite a ton of hours in a game like that, almost 1.5K.
Happy New Year The Phawx!!!
Thanks for the detailed and insightful review
Think I'll pick one of these up when they release, thanks for the review!
Thanks was waiting for someone to post an actual informative video on this apu vs the z1 8840u and hx370. Knew it would be you
Another solid thumbnail transition 👌🏾 be I've ever seen very underrated
Best review I've seen so far, happy new year!
I'm impressed with how solid Intel is doing recently with their non desktop CPU launches. Low end GPUs that have enough VRAM and large generational leaps (whether it be performance or power efficiency) in graphics for both desktop and APU segments is impressive compared to what they were achieving before.
Very cool. Just a tip. The software you are using to calculate percent difference is doing it in a misleading backwards way, by using the claw as the 100% reference point it significantly under estimates percentage increases over lower fps levels. For example an increase from 40 to 50 is 25%, a decrease from 50 to 40 is 20%. So when yours saying the claw is x% faster that is objectively wrong as you need to do the percentage increase from the lower figure, or else say, the ally is doing 80% of the frames of the claw (but the claw is 25 not 20% faster). Pedantic but those percentage graphs are misleading. Good video though but wonder why you didn't go up to 25w on the claw vs ally and stuck at 20w?
Lunar Lake really is Intel's first truly comprehensively good product in years.
I've been saying since it was announced that Lunar Lake would be fantastic for these little gaming handhelds.
Really strange how they thrive in GPU Space but fumble in CPU space as if these are different Companies.
@DavidBerger-g2h Intel doesn't thrive in the GPU space at all. I think you are being mislead by click bait videos and article titles.
They're not thriving currently, but they're picking up steam quite a bit, it helped that Lunar Lake did good AND it's Battlemage B580@DavidBerger-g2h
Incredible review, thanks so much for your time and effort. :)
On AMD you can use a similar function called "Chill" which allow you to limits GPU to 30 fps. It is also worth limiting available CPU power in Windows to 80%, which will completely block turbo clock in every CPU. Max CPU clock of ROG Ally will be 3.2 GHz even in 30 watt mode. For example Spiderman on medium details with FSR on 25 watt mode will use only 11 watt max (CPU 3.2 GHz, GPU 800 MHz)
Any downsides to using that feature.
@@danr8267 On handhelds, "Chill" feature is difficult to use because most games are already at 30 fps. But limiting CPU is a great way to increase GPU performance. Energy is shared between CPU and GPU, so if you limit CPU then GPU can use higher clocks. It also increase battery life
On a standard PC, "Chill" feature is a great way to reduce noise. Many PC games use 60+ fps which is unnecessary. For example I had 70 fps in strategy Miasma Chronicles and my computer was very loud. When I forced 30 fps then PC was nearly silent
You are an excellent TH-camr! Thanks for the solid videos
Would you be willing to do a video on Bazzite on the new claw. Very curious how it would work with Windows out of the way.
Really nice, Intel has done a good job!
Also you did a great job, thank you.
Happy new year 🎉
Been waiting for this, killer review.
Thanks for such a detailed review. I'm in a rather unique situation where I can still return my ROG Ally X until Jan 14 (day before supposedly the Claw comes out). My number one priority is the same 80w battery and the 8 inch vs 7 inch screen. How do the ergonomics feel of the Claw given the slightly larger size and significant more weight, compared to the advantage of the 33% bigger screen. I mostly play turned based and big screen games (planet coaster) where i feel like the real estate would make a huge difference. Is it worth returning and swapping for the screen upgrade? i used to have a legion go as well but the ergonomics were terriblle (bulky and way too heavy). I am very pleased with my ally x except for the 7 in screen size.
Totally agree, everything is fine is ally x except the screen. Its too smolll and it has big bezels, yikes.
i would return the ally x and get myself the new claw. size matters.
@@UnLoCoSs thanks for sharing!
solid option. 8 inch with VRR.
im in the same boat i have until the 15th to return my ally x, got it for 699 at bestbuy on sale. my beef is i also put a 4 tb ssd in it that wont work on the claw (claw uses 2230 ally x is 2280} i also put a dbrand skin and case on it. Now i can return the 4 tb drive to amazon and sell the dbrand case on mercari and return the ally x to best buy, and im really considering it because i returned the legion go for the ally x strictly for the bigger battery and now i really miss that bigger screen. Neither of them are fitting in my pocket so i would perfer the larger more ergonomic grip and the 8 inch screen. Also the claw 8 ai plus isnt available ANYWHERE. its even being scalped. Best buy says coming soon i beleive the 15th, so if its there that day i think im gonna go for it. Ally x is solid tho, armory crate is way better than when i last tried it, the og ally i had for a few days before returning for various issues. The controls, the battery, everytthing. The allyx is almost perfect really. I just want it to have more grip like the steam deck and a larger screen, which seems to be what the claw 8 has.
design is really clean, i like it a lot, really hope that someday can provide competitive price with oculink or usb4 ver 2 or tb5....... that is my main factor deciding what to buy
One suggestion, one critique, one thing that's interesting:
A big difference between Lunar Lake and everything else on x86 is the RAM on package, so TDP on Lunar Lake should lead to a lower device power consumption. Including those numbers would be very helpful. And yes, those can differ between devices with the same APU/SoC, but especially here it makes sense.
Actually, I forgot the critique, maybe I'll add it later, when I remember ... :P (I guess, it was the TDP in stone way.)
As you mentioned the compatibility and embracing more DXVK. I nowhere saw anyone, as far as I know, testing game compatibility with Intel on Linux. Right now, Battlemage Linux performance isn't great, but compatibility is something, that's worthwhile looking into it because as long as the Vulkan driver is good, it should work.
I am convinced and I am buying one
Going to wait a week or so and get me an open box claw 8. Seems like something I can use until the Legion Go 2 releases. Tired of playing on these 7” screens
I have an Ally X and Steam Deck at the moment so I probably don’t need this but I still appreciated the video. It’s good to see Intel having some success. Next we need Microsoft to step up with Windows. Fun to watch this space.
Great strides for Intel but I had the original OneXPlayer (Intel 1165G7 APU) so I know firsthand that serious driver compatibility issues can really kill enthusiasm here. Not only with old games, but sometimes some new game comes out, entirely untested on Intel graphics, and it just won't start or has massive issues. That will keep me away from Intel graphics for years to come. Sad part is that Intel can barely do anything about it beyond just keep going to gain real market share on the GPU side. They keep it up long enough, keep delivering value vs. AMD and Nvidia, and they'll force developers to get their games working on Intel.
That's weird, ETA prime showed off Cyberpunk running maxed out with Ultra Ray Tracing @50 fps.
Although I am still super happy with my original ally, I am excited that intel became so much better in just a year.
I am so excited for this! Since I had a Legion go 7" is just not enough screen real estate
If this had a trackpad I'd be interested. These are handheld PCs, not consoles. Its windows based on top of that. They need a track pad that is easily thumb usable from the standard ergonomic position.
Having the trackpads on the steam deck makes so many games that literally wouldnt be playable without peripherals actually enjoyable once you get used to using them.
In my opinion if you have a rog ally x. Wait for the next actual gen of handhelds. Hx370 is a halfway point and the intel chip is also. However if you have the original claw, either of the current new handhelds with the hx370 and intel 258v are an actual upgrade.
I feel really sorry for anyone who actually bought the first MSI claw, but I'm really happy about this competition in the handheld PC market. Imagine how heated the competition could get if the rumors about Nvidia working on a mobile ARM gaming SOC. All this plus the second coming of Steam OS, and 2025 is looking interesting!
Damn the claw is the new low wattage mega king , very great for indie games wow 😮😮❤
no the steam deck is
jesus steam deck is old museum tech 😂@@ThaexakaMavro
Thanks for the amazing content.
I do wish it had a bigger screen. I'll be waiting for legion go's announcement and then decide between the two. It's really hard to go back after playing on a 8.8" screen.
An 8" screen is quite comparable. If you bought an Ally X with a 7" screen it would be much more noticeable.
@tjveith I had an ally, sold it recently. It's good for older games, but playing fps games on a 7" screen is not that fun for me. Bigger the better lol
Love that competition is brewing for the GPUs on these handhelds. AMD has been very slow to offer any real performance gains. Next gen will be interesting to see.
Duck me The Phawx has a 43,43 minute video about the new Claw and Im ready for it!
If the ally x had a 8 inch screen wouldn't that be as heavy as the claw 8.
When you were comparing the weight differences i noticed you never mentioned this.
A bigger screen would obviously add more weight to a device.
But I'm very disappointed in the 2230 ssd that limits me to a 2tb upgrade.
When i purchased my ally x I upgraded the stock 1tb to a nice 4tb Samsung 990 pro with heatsinc on day one.
I wish these companies would make it easy to swap in a bigger drive by making it as simple as adding storage similar to a ps5.
You can get an adapter to fit the 2280 but you have to put heat sink on the adapter too.
Very excited to see what 2025 brings .🎉
Thanks for all your work on these systems.
You are the Gamers Nexis of Handheld Computing imho.
I got an msi claw 135h a few weeks ago and it plays alot of games really well but some do struggle for sure , however i also have an msi ge 76 raider laptop with a 3080ti so its just fun playing different games on the claw.
Yes but playing at 720p on a 1200p screen will be a pixel disaster
Happy New Year from New Zealand.
Happy New Year!🎉🎉
Thanks for this video!!! great end to the year! Happy New Year sir!
I think I might pick one of these up. I love my Steam deck but there are a couple of games I’ve been playing with friends that were either pretty annoying to get setup to work on the deck or just don’t work at all.
I was about to say something about AMD supporting Integer scaling but I had no idea they didn’t have it for mobile parts, that’s ridiculous
As great as Intel catching up is, if performance is roughly similar then people should still go with AMD due to drivers. Intel really needs to put everything they have into improving their drivers. People don't want to worry about whether a game will even launch or run.
Just to clarify, when you use Intel's software to control TDP are you setting the Claw into Manual mode? I was just curious in case I end up buying one in a few weeks as not having to constantly change settings would be a big selling point for me. Also thanks for the extensive review, it was awesome.
I can't wait to get mine
cant wait to see what this can do with Bazzite.but not being able to beat the Z1E at 20 watts when this should be nearly 1.5x more powerful on paper is concerning but i would lay alot of this on drivers hence why the strix point is getting nearly 10fps or more in just about every game
amazing, thanks!
For this price with VRR, I am almost willing to overlook the lack of oculink. But I play a lot of older games that I fear will never run on ARC...
What games? I have 1 gen Claw and run games even from 90s.
@@CEONo1984 Well, Risen 2 I have yet to finish, and Risen 3 which he specifically demonstrated not running in this very video, for example. You want my whole backlog list lol?
I wish there was a compilation somewhere where people could report on game workability, like ProtonDB but for ARC. Like, I've found people testing the same 50 or so popular, recent games, and it's good to know about those, but I am an idiot when it comes to buying games and have almost two thousand that I haven't heard about compatibility one way or the other.
My biggest concern is if all games are able to fill the entire screen? Find all that screen space to be a waste if the entire screen isnt being utilized.
Hello Phawx.
One question about the claw 8; does the msi has included an integrated functionality for battery protection from overcharging - in case the user forget the device plugged, when the battery is fully charged- like the "Battery Care" the Ally X has ?
This is a useful detail, and since we do not have the device, we can only ask.
I love My LEGION GO❤❤❤
Same, but the controllers were not comfortable for me. I will be getting the Legion GO 2 for sure !
Pretty sure you should have compared total system power, not package power. 258V at 15W is the same as amd on 10W, because the memory is on package. Overall, it's a competitive chip, but Intel won't make a successor for it.
It honestly looks like Intel Driver side cleanup would shore up most of the gaps in performance. It clearly CAN trade blows with 370 when it wants to. Intel has been working on GPU drivers for like 2 years, and AMD has been for decades so. It may not be something that happens in the next few years but Intel is at least demonstrating their technology has a sound foundation once the software and drivers are there.
FSR/RSR & AFMF work so well on handhelds that I can’t see myself moving away from AMD for handheld gaming in the foreseeable future.
Lossless Scaling? Your Can even 4x your FPS where AFMF will only 2x your FPS.
I tried AFMF on my Legion Go and Lossless Scaling IS Still by miles Better than AFMF.
@@yellow-cupra2434- it works pretty well, but you have to dork around with it. The AMD stuff Just Works.
@@yellow-cupra2434those are not real frames.... And it's easy to tell
I just want to know one thing. How many hours can I get playing Slay The Spire? I hope at least 5
@@WhatLiesBeneath24 8 hours
Intel is cooking Holy generally tempted to drop the Ally X lmao
I expect some of the areas where the Claw struggles in to improve dramatically as Intel gets a better handle on their drivers. Basically, fine wine technology.
The drivers are a killer for me. If not even Batman Arkham Knight runs well, this absolutely dsqualifies Intel for me.
Idem sur MSI Claw A1M
If you play older games then get AMD instead.
@@Patrick73787 I will need to take whatever GPD puts into their Win Max 2 ;)
I just do not consider Batman Arkham Knight an "Older Game". I expect at least games from that era to work without manual patching. In tel needs to do something about that.
The video literally has him playing Batman Arkham Knight....
@@shariarrahman7562 Yeah, he had to manually patch that game. That is why I specifically mention it. From a device that expensive and with the latest hardware in it, I do not want to manually patch games and do the tinkering.
That is what he says, Intel should at least add some automatic compatibility option.
The charts at 20:20 really need to be better color coded. It's very hard to read, especially since there's no flow to which configuration is which. A blue hue for the new one and green for the old or something to differentiate without having to look at the words to the left.
TBH, I'll take a heavier handset for a larger screen. The Ally X may be light but the screen is too small. I want 8" minimum.
Yes the only thing lacking in ally is 8 inch screen I think the ally 2 is probably 8 inch
why are you not covering the device at 30 watts? I want to know the power of this thing. Your testing 15, 20 and 25 watts. Theres a significant jump in performance (relatively speaking) between the different wattages. Cover 30 watts please
I'm still waiting to see what Lenovo brings to the table with the rumored Lenovo Legion Go 2 announcement at CES 2025.
The leaked images of that unit look as though they've fixed basically all of my gripes with the original unit in terms of ergonomics.
If it has a larger battery, 2280 NVMe support, and that rumored OLED display, it will be a day one buy for me. The Z2 Extreme would be sweet, but not 100% necessary.
If that doesn't materialize, this is on my list. Too bad about the 2230 NVMe support though.
Side note: Am I hearing HX370 or HX3070? Might just be a dialect thing.
graphs were a little confusing 26:50 .. grey vs dark grey could b more informative. ty for vid / benchmarks
Can you define an AMD optimized segment in your usage here in this video?
Really curious about the AutoTDP-like feature. I didn’t go down the rabbit hole of setting it up on my Ally because of reading others’ complaints of micro-stutter with it. How does frame pacing feel with these Intel features?
The important thing can̈ it run big games no more talk
Comes all down to pricing and compatibility
The killer feature is the price unfortunately a real deal breaker .
How is the price a deal breaker? For everything it includes, it's totally worth the price.
Basically the original MSI Claw should have never came to market, and this is what the MSI Claw should have been.
The processor didn't exist back then
@LuisPerez-5 Yes, it didn't exist back then. But MSI were working on this while gearing up for the release of the original Claw. And the original Claw, while it offered an alternative to the Ally, Steam Deck, and LeGo, it was mostly ignored or laughed at because of how it failed to compare to these handhelds. MSI knew the Claw was not going to compete with the other handhelds and didn't bother to give it the support that it needed because they were working on the Claw 8.
@MrSupersonic2012 And you know this how? That's like saying the Ally should have never come out and the Ally X is the one they needed to release first
@LuisPerez-5 Considering how quickly after the original claw released, they announced the Claw 8 MSI knew they were going to be pushing out a much better product not long after the original Claw. The OG Claw came out in March of this last year. The Claw 8 was announced in June, just a few months later. R&D, testing, planning, all of the stuff for the Claw 8 would have had to be going on in the background when they were releasing the OG Claw. MSI knew they were going to be releasing a better Claw, so their original customers who bought the OG Claw kind of got the shaft. Remember, the original Claw came out in March of 2024, and the Claw 8 is coming out in January 2025. Less than a year after the previous one. In the world of tech, that's really quick considering the jump in power.
The Ally is not quite the same, the Ally X released just a little over a year after the first one. The Ally X is not a next gen performance upgrade. It's more akin to the Steam Deck to the Steam Deck Oled. It's a mid gen refresh that improved over the original, clearly taking feedback from the faults of the original. It's still the same processor, just a better battery and better ram, they fixed the SD card issues, added another usb port with better egpu support. And even then, OG Ally users got an improvement with Asus improving the software experience for the Ally X that they brought to the OG Ally.
@MrSupersonic2012 How? Considering the Ally X has the same processor just a bigger battery and more RAM
Would you say that you personally notice a positive difference using hardware based XeSS over FSR? Perhaps in games like Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk? I think that better upscaling would definitely sell it for me over more raw performance from the new AMD chips.
Thank you
In terms of image quality Dave2D preferred the XeSS upscaling on the Claw 8 over FSR on the Ally X.
@ thank you for the info
Also just to add if you ask me I think AMD didn't plan RDNA 3.5 to become Z2E but instead the RDNA 4, it's Intel competition that made them change their mind hence AMD handhelds became all over the place where some launching some avoiding some confused
Sooo is it worth a buy ?? I have a legion go... do I have a go at this or wait for legion go 2
I would wait for the Legion Go 2, OLED VRR with Z2E
Intel might have a good driver now but that’s never been their issue it’s being able to send more driver updates without changing the chipset give it atleast 6 months before you say they figured it out
How does the 258V compare to the HX370 in the 30W zones?
Is the HX370 still outperforming the 258V roughly by 25%?
That is great video! However, How did you manage to lock the 155h processor to 15 watts?