MSI Claw claims up to 40% performance boost with new driver, BIOS

MSI’s Claw looks like a lot of PC-based gaming handhelds that have come out in the last year to compete with the Steam Deck. But underneath it’s packing something wholly unique for the form factor: an Intel CPU and integrated GPU. And Intel’s new-ish Arc GPUs sometimes make huge gains with a little software tweaking. MSI claims that the latest updates can give it some big boosts.

According to a forum post from last week, Claw owners should install both the latest BIOS for the custom-built mobile system (based on a Core Ultra 5-135H) and the latest driver for the Intel Arc graphics. Doing so can boost performance in games from 10.3 percent (Helldivers 2) to a whopping 43.5 percent (F1 ’23.).

If those benchmarks seem a little optimistic, well, they are. But they might not be complete balderdash. We’ve seen dramatic improvements from new drivers in Intel’s Arc discrete GPUs before and the Claw is both new and unique with its Intel-powered mobile form factor. The Core Ultra 5-135H CPU appears in the Claw and just a couple of other commercial products like some of the newest Dell Precision laptops.

It’s quite possible that Intel has tweaked its software enough to see these kinds of big gains…or that the initial release of the Claw came with software that was less than optimal. Either way, I’d be pretty keen to check the new stuff out. You can get the new drivers via Intel’s dedicated page or the Claw’s Live Update tool and the BIOS update tool is available right here.