MSI CLAW gaming handheld console visits Geekbench with Intel Core Ultra 7 155H

It has been just around 24 hours since MSI teased its first gaming handheld console. The company hasn't formally revealed the name, but thanks to a Chinese store promotional poster, we did eventually learn that it's called MSI CLAW. Now, the portable gaming device has visited Geekbench.

With that, we just got details on the core specs of the gaming handheld device. As speculated, the MSI CLAW will indeed be powered by the latest Intel Meteor Lake processor. Specifically, the Geekbench listing has shown that it relies on the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, a high-end mobile CPU with 16 cores and 22 threads.

Featuring 6 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 2 LP-cores, the MSI CLAW will bring double the number of cores found in the Ryzen Z1 Extreme chipset. That means, on paper, it's basically more powerful than the top-specced Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go (curr. $700 on Amazon), two of the direct competitors for MSI's upcoming gaming handheld.

On the graphics end, the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor brings the Intel Arc 8-Core iGPU. While the CPU's base TDP is 28W, it can reach 115W with Max Turbo Power. But it's not yet clear how MSI has configured the CPU for its CLAW gaming handheld.

Early benchmarks of the processor indicated that the CPU's Arc Xe-LPG graphics deliver a competitive performance against AMD RDNA 3 APUs, such as the Ryzen 8040 and 7040 lineups. The Intel CPU inside the MSI CLAW also brings many gaming-centric features, such as Xe Super Sampling.

As for the Geekbench benchmark score, the upcoming MSI gaming handheld with 32 GB of RAM achieved 1,1543 on multi-core and 2403 on single-core. To compare, the Asus ROG Ally (curr. $690 on Amazon) with AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme achieves similar scores. However, the MSI CLAW does have the potential to offer much better performance than its competitors with better drivers and optimizations.