MSI's Next Claw Gaming Handheld May Power Up With Ryzen AI Extreme
The specific chip rumored to be under consideration is AMD's Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme. That part doesn't exist, as far as we know. Back at CES, AMD did announce the Ryzen Z2 family, with the top-end part being known as the "Ryzen Z2 Extreme". However, it's easy to get confused, because the Ryzen Z2 Extreme is based on the very same silicon as the Ryzen AI 300 processors.
Haze's tweet with the curious "Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme" has sparked recent speculation.
So, whether the rumor is talking about the Ryzen Z2 Extreme or claiming that a new, different processor is under consideration isn't clear, but either way it will almost certainly be based on the same microprocessor design as the Ryzen AI 300 series parts. This gives them up to a potential twelve Zen 5 CPU cores and 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU compute units, although the Ryzen Z2 Extreme "only" has eight CPU cores enabled.
It's worth noting that the original source of this idea, French Xwitter user CodeCommando, simply said "AMD Z2 APU" when he posited this idea back in January. However, it seemed like CodeCommando was talking about another iteration of the current-generation Claw AI+, which has not yet materialized despite that the Intel-based versions are on the market.
All of MSI's extant gaming handhelds to date have used Intel processors, so any shift toward AMD is both interesting and a little disappointing—if only because it raises the question of whether MSI's Intel-powered handhelds are an endangered species. We were pleased with the Claw 8 AI+ when we tested it, and competition is always good for the consumer. If every handheld on the market is based on AMD hardware, it's a little uninteresting.
Still, it's hard to blame MSI if this really is the case. Intel has specifically stated that Lunar Lake was a one-off project and that there is no direct successor in the Panther Lake lineup. This means that there may not be a next-generation Intel processor for MSI to base a handheld on. Using full-fat laptop CPUs, as with the first-generation Claw, is pretty disastrous as they don't have the proper power management to handle this sort of workload. In any case, we're eager to see what Ryzen Z2 Extreme handhelds can accomplish.
