Intel Arc G3 Handheld Internals Revealed As MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ Bares All

The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, one of the first handhelds to leverage Intel's new Arc G3 Extreme SoC, is set to release on June 23rd. Ahead of that release an Intel engineer has shared a peek at the handheld's internals.

For those unfamiliar with the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ or Intel Arc G3 Extreme, the short version is that the current mid-range of the handheld market is dominated by the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, which features a Radeon 890M iGPU. The AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme is an 8-core SoC based on AMD's Zen 5 architecture (with 3 Zen 5 and 5 Zen 5C cores), and its Radeon 890M iGPU features 16 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units.

While the Z2 has been successful in the $1000-$1500 price range, in handhelds like the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X, the graphics architecture is getting a bit long in the tooth. The iGPU in the Intel Arc G3 is newer technology that can outperform the Radeon 890M with most workloads in this price segment, and it's got a more powerful CPU too.

Over on LinkedIn, Jason Cheah, Global Lead of Intel's Digital Content division, posted the photo below, flexing the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+'s internals for the camera.


Cheah notes that Intel and MSI collaborated heavily on the design of the motherboard in order to shrink the PCB as much as possible without introducing thermal problems. Also notice that the main SoC is effectively centered on the board, as far away from the handgrips as possible. This should keep skin temps down everywhere a user is likely to touch, while gaming.

As Jason Cheah notes, the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ will arrive on shelves later this month. We look forward to seeing how well it competes with its Z2 Extreme-based rivals.