The new-generation MSI Claw consoles and their Intel chip are ahead of ASUS' ROG Ally X and its AMD chip.
Only a few days ago, MSI confirmed some persistent rumors, while correcting these rumors on an important point. So, yes, MSI does indeed have two new portable consoles in the pipeline, extending the partnership between the Taiwanese manufacturer and Intel, the company behind the processors. But no, they won't be released after CES 2025 in Las Vegas (January 7-10). No way! MSI is going even faster than the rumors, since the two consoles in question are already available for pre-order and should be available from December 26... in certain countries at least. What a shame to miss Christmas by just a few days!
MSI pits its Claw 8 AI+ against ASUS' ROG Ally X © MSI
All joking aside, the most important thing may not be this double announcement. MSI has actually pushed the nail further by giving the first indications of the performance of its machines. We're talking here about consoles equipped with a Lunar Lake-generation Intel Lake Core Ultra 7 258V processor with 4 Lion Cove and 4 Skymont cores, whether we're talking about the MSI Claw 8 AI+ or the MSI Claw 7 AI+. MSI is the only manufacturer to place its trust in Intel, while all its competitors rely on AMD. Up until now, we've scoffed at the idea of MSI going it alone, but - provided the information is confirmed - MSI seems to have a few trump cards up its sleeve.
Indeed, the Taiwanese company reports that its Claw 8 AI+ is well ahead of one of the most powerful AMD machines currently available, the ROG Ally X from ASUS. In the best-case scenario, we're talking about +117% more performance - that's on the Metro 2033 game - but even on average, MSI can boast a further +20% advantage over the rival machine. The difference is interesting, of course, but it's the conditions of these tests that have piqued our curiosity. Indeed, we suspect that MSI favored the most favorable terrain for its console, and in this case, it set the graphics options to "low", but retained the Full HD definition. More importantly, the power supply was set to 17 watts.
Performance comparison between the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and the ASUS ROG Ally X at 17 watts © MSI
We suspect that at 25 or 30 watts, things would have been different, and perhaps even to the advantage of the ROG Ally X, but we prefer to remember that at 17 watts, Lunar Lake processors clearly have a card to play, and in the world of portable consoles - or even laptops - that's no mean feat: 17 watts of power obviously means lower power consumption and proportionately greater autonomy. Of course, you can always play close to an outlet, but the whole point of a portable console is to be... portable. So if Lunar Lake allows you to break the two-hour autonomy barrier of most current consoles, we say yes!
