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Intel couldn't catch a break. Layoffs. Shakedowns. CPU crash torpedoes its reputation, pushing desktop gamers to flee to AMD. Apple and Qualcomm push Intel out of several flagship laptops. A gaming graphics card going MIA. But its Panther Lake laptop chip, the first on its all-important 18A process, has proven to be excellent – and a portable version could make Intel the leader in portable gaming chips.

I held the next generation handheld

The MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus – and its Intel chip – is pushing handhelds forward again.

On Monday, I spent two hours with an MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus handheld atop Intel's new Arc G3 Extreme. I came away thinking that next-generation handhelds had finally arrived. The real leap forward in performance and battery life we've been waiting for, but at a steep price.

For example, Intel claims its Arc G3 Extreme can deliver similar performance with half the power of AMD's flagship chip, with the MSI Claw consuming just 17 watts to do what takes 35 watts on the Xbox Ally X with AMD Z2 Extreme:

Or, it can run an average of 42% faster with the same 35 watts, making games like Battlefield 6, Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, Returnal, and Forza Horizon 6 playable at 1080p high and 60fps. (This is with 2x scaling, mind you, so we're talking about a 960 x 540 rendering resolution, but that's how I play demanding portable games myself.)

Intel claims the Arc G3 Extreme is so efficient that you can even game at 1080p and low settings with just 12 watts of power, head and often shoulders above the AMD chip:

And Intel says the chip can consume as little as 4 watts of power in the least demanding games – for nearly 12 hours of battery life on a charge.

We just haven't seen this kind of progress in portable gaming PCs until now.

The Steam Deck has set the bar in 2022 with an unbeatable combination of price and efficiency. By 2023's $549 Steam Deck OLED, you'll be able to comfortably play modern AAA games at low settings for two hours on a charge, and weaker games for up to eight. Windows competitors could run games smoother or at higher settings, but only while consuming significantly more power. Since then, this has been true for almost all handhelds, whether powered by an AMD Z1 Extreme, Z2 Extreme, 7840U, 8840U, HX370 or especially the AMD “Strix Halo” AI Max Plus 395.

Limited by relatively power-hungry chips, companies have found different ways to improve: The Asus ROG Ally The Xbox Ally added large gamepad-style pins that make a heavy handheld more comfortable.

But the MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus, the one with Intel's new chip, seems to have it all: an 80-watt-hour battery, pins, power, efficiency, drift-resistant Hall effect joysticks, and remarkably smooth gameplay on an 8-inch, 120Hz VRR display.

Check out these panes:

Intel didn't let me play every game I wanted, but I prepared knowing that Forza Horizon 6 would be on display. Before my demo, I played the first hour of the virtual Japan road trip on the Xbox Ally

At a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 and medium settings, I saw around 40 to 45 frames per second on the Lunar Lake MSI Claw with its chip set to maximum. I got maybe 50 frames per second from the Xbox Ally X with its lower native screen resolution of 1080p. The game doesn't even seem playable on Steam Deck at its native 800p resolution, I'm afraid - the game often turned into a choppy mess even at the lowest specs.

But the new MSI Claw with Arc G3 Extreme gave me 60-73 fps in Forza Horizon 6 at 1200p resolution, without any of Intel's "fake frames" enabled. It's just one data point, but it matches Intel's performance claims perfectly, eliminating some of my doubts.

And the new Claw did it while consuming just 43W of total system power, according to MSI's overlay, which means up to 1.8 hours of battery life on an 80-watt-hour battery. Xbox Ally

Intel could offer even more smoothness and power savings if you don't mind fake images. Battlefield 6 looked really buttery at 110-140fps with 4X frame generation, not that I could get by in multiplayer without plugging in a mouse, keyboard and larger screen, not to mention the latency. But this was Intel's new chip tuned to a TDP of 25W and a total consumption of just 38W, suggesting I could get a full two hours of gaming out of the 80Wh battery. After my two-hour session (which included a few photos, mind you), there was still 29% of the new Claw left in the tank.

The new Claw is also the most comfortable handheld I've ever held, with excellent weight balance and incredibly grippy textured grips. It's big, but it feels lighter than I expected, and I'm no longer worried about it slipping on sweaty hands. I'm a little less sure about the controls – the 8-way D-pad is very clicky, the bumpers feel a little hollow, the thumbsticks and triggers still have a slightly cheap feel like the previous Claw – but everything seems more than serviceable, even in the engineered sample I tried.

If you're wondering: Is a jump into handhelds a big deal if you can't actually afford it, Sean? ? you read my thoughts. Last week I wrote that the golden age of handheld gaming is already over due to rising prices, and it looks like you'll pay a lot for this handheld: $1,699.99 at Best Buy. That's still more than the $1,500 price tag the company was targeting to us and other journalists.

One way to look at it: it’s too much money, period. Gaming shouldn't be such a luxury!

Another thought: Compared to the $1,000 Xbox Ally X, that's a 70% price increase for 42% more performance on average, which doesn't sound great.

Either way, it's set to launch on June 23 and it looks like handhelds are finally getting back on track. I wouldn't be surprised if my next device has Intel Inside - when or if RAMageddon finally ends.

Update June 2: A Best Buy listing revealed the price will be $1,699.99, unless someone made a mistake.