MSI Claw with Intel Meteor Lake APU loses to ASUS ROG Ally with AMD Ryzen APU in gaming tests

Both of the gaming handhelds have the same screen size, the same resolution, and 16GB of LPDDR5-6400 memory. The biggest difference between the two handhelds is that Intel powers the MSI Claw, and AMD powers the ASUS ROG Ally. Now, the handhelds are in the hands of gamers and benchmarkers and have been tested against each other... who wins? AMD.

The benchmarking involved testing the handhelds at different power levels, which is one of the most important parts of a gaming handheld: power levels and what drains the battery (and provides the most performance on the go). The MSI Claw has a bigger battery inside than the ASUS ROG Ally, so you'd expect more battery life... but that's where Intel's stumbles with Meteor Lake in a gaming handheld rear their head.

MSI's new Claw gaming handheld can run at up to a 40W TDP, but it falls in between 35W and 40W most of the time, which is a 10W increase over the 30W max from the ASUS ROG Ally. In some Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark runs, the Intel Meteor Lake-powered MSI Claw handheld lost to the ASUS ROG Ally.