MSI Claw's Latest BIOS Aims To Turbocharge Gaming Performance By Up To 30%
It's barely been three weeks since MSI dished out a BIOS update for its Claw handheld game console with claims of boosting gaming performance by up to a whopping 150%. Not resting on its laurels, there's yet another BIOS update available, this time with a more modest (yet still significant) performance gain of up to 30%, according to MSI's own internal benchmarking.
One thing that's interesting to note is that unlike the vast majority of Windows-based handhelds, MSI's Claw is powered by Intel's Meteor Lake platform with Arc graphics rather than a custom AMD system-on-chip (SoC) like the Ryzen Z1 Extreme and regular Z1. This is notable because we've seen Intel consistently deliver chunky performance gains to its Arc graphics through driver updates.
The main reason for that is because Arc has some catching up to do with the competition in older games, which paves the way for monstrous performance gains in select titles. To some extent, that's likely a big part of what we're seeing with MSI's Claw handheld. However, MSI doesn't go into fine grain details on how exactly it was able to achieve a "significant performance increase of up to 30%" through a new BIOS and update to its Center M utility.
"The latest versions of the E1T41IMS.109 BIOS (referred to as 109) and MSI Center M 1.0.2405.1401 (referred to as 2405.1401) for the Claw have been internally tested and shown to significantly enhance gaming performance. For instance, with the popular open-world racing game Forza Horizon 5, there was a performance increase of up to 30%. Other well-known games like Fortnite and Helldivers 2 also saw performance boosts of over 20% with the new BIOS and MSI Center M, providing a smoother gaming experience," MSI explains.
Additionally, MSI says its latest updates smooth out performance in all of Steam's top 100 most popular games. Going a step further, MSi claims its Meteor Lake-based handheld performs 26% better on average than the competition, and specifically the ASUS ROG Ally.
"For example, in the popular open-world survival game Valheim, the Claw can provide up to 90% more FPS. Other popular games such as Euro Truck Simulator 2, World of Warships, and Dying Light also see performance advantage of over 50%, delivering a smoother gaming experience," MSI says.
Beyond the benchmarks MSI shared, it also listed out a handful of recommended settings to get the most out of the handheld. Here's a look...
- User Scenario: Extreme Performance, Over Boost Enabled
- In-Game Resolution: Full HD 1080p (1920x1080)
- In-Game Graphics Quality: Low
- XeSS: Performance (if applicable)
- V-Sync: Off
- FPS Limitation: Off
Your mileage will vary by game, of course, but there you go. Looking ahead, MSI says it continues to "actively" work with Intel on optimizing the handheld and plans on dishing out more updates in the future. In the meantime, you can grab the latest BIOS and Center M update from MSI's website.
