MSI unveils new Claw 8 handheld with Intel Arc G3 Extreme Panther Lake chip

Intel finally showed off its handheld-focused Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme chips yesterday (May 30). Team Blue positions it as a direct competitor to AMD’s Ryzen Z lineup which has historically been the only offering in the space. While Meteor Lake and Panther Lake did find themselves in handhelds, particularly ones from MSI, the off-the-shelf chips often had trouble keeping up. Now, the new MSI Claw 8 AI+ CG3EM is finally here with Intel’s newest top-shelf handheld silicon.

It is powered by the Arc G3 Extreme with a 14-core (2P + 8E + 4 LPE) CPU and a 12-core Arc B390 iGPU. The new Xe3 architecture supports features like multi-frame generation, something that wasn’t possible in older variants. The new MSI Claw 8 AI+ CG3EM comes with an 8-inch (1,920 x 1,200) screen with a refresh rate of 30-120 Hz thanks to variable refresh rate technology. A 80 Wh battery powers the handheld. Ideally, that should be enough for less demanding titles, but some newer ones could demand all the processing power offered by the Arc G3 Extreme.

Other MSI Claw 8 AI+ CG3EM include 32 GB of RAM and an unspecified amount of storage. It has space for one M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD, so capacity will likely cap out at 4 TB. For wireless connectivity, the handheld comes with a Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 radio. Two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports can handle all wired connections, including charging and data transfer. A micro SD card is also included for good measure, as is a 3.5 mm combo audio jack. All of this weighs 785 grams, which is not bad for something this powerful.

MSI hasn’t specified how much the new Claw 8 will cost, but earlier estimates pegged its MSRP at around the $1,500 mark. In simpler times, that would be exorbitant, but now, it is totally understandable given market conditions. MSI joins the likes of Acer and OneXPlayer as one of the first OEMs to release a handheld powered by the Arc G3 platform.