The New MSI Claw Is Actually A FAST Gaming PC When You Add A Powerful eGPU 

Imagine spending $1500 and you’re still lagging lol

Wow! The Claw is finally somewhat useable! You just need an expensive GPU hanging out of it all the time that's all! 😂

Thanks. Still gonna get Legion Go

who is the 'we' its only ever you 😂

Wheres the ryzen 8700g with the high frequency ram benchmarks been waiting for along time!

I still think the ONEXEGPU is pretty useful for upgrading or having portable gaming power, no matter what pc you attach it to. A 7800 version would be great.

Wouldn't mirroring the display back to the Claw's display take up some of that bandwidth? It might be worth testing it with the main display disabled.

I'm guessing the CPU performance increased in the synthetic benchmarks because it didn't have to also work with iGPU?

I appreciate ETA prime for not trying to be a RU-vid celebrity by way of reviewing tech. I see too much of the other guys faces, I just want my fix.

Very nice!

Imagine buying a handheld PC just play it connected to its PSU, an external monitor and an external GPU. VERY HANDHELD!

The price of the eGPU is bullshit.

New Drinking Game! Take a shot every time you hear GPU! Lmao Good video as always.

Lord had mercy on MSI doing mistakes like this one

The 7600M XT is perfect for saturating the bandwidth on TB4/USB4, but doubling the bandwidth in Thunderbolt 5/USB4 80Gbps is gonna allow for 8600XT/5060/3090 levels of performance in the same powerbank-sized eGPU 😁

Do love how it looks and the set up , shame about the cost and no touch pad

What I would like is if the egpu can feed back into the main screen

Would be interresting if you could desactivate some P-cores or E-Cores since so many are kinda useless for gaming, and get some room for the iGPU to work more

I really would like to be able to game on the short rides I have, and be able to plug into a monitor and keyboard at work and get a few things done minimally. If you could test some other things like performance with adobe cloud photo editing and video editing for social media maybe I could rationalize making leaving my steamdeck at home.

@ETA waiting for Onexplayer x1 review as well. Thanks

The CPU is still having to manage both displays and the GPU must be having to pass back info to the claw display, need to have the claw display turned off in Windows settings to help with the stutters and GPU bottlenecking. Loved the videos you did about the different M.2 connectors for eGPUs, set up my own system with that info. Thank you for all the videos!

Add the Legion Go to the compare.. time for a smackdown

Does turning off the devices screen improve performance on the external monitor?

I like separate devices, handheld, gaming laptop, and maybe an Xbox series s, everything is just much easier to manage

Does the BIOS allow disabling cores ? Like what you can do on the K models on desktops ? That would be awesome!

Would it help making the eGPU primary display and turning off the display on the Claw?

Hi ETA! When you do a comparison video, could you please include a 6800u for a baseline? I suspect that if someone is considering an upgrade, that is where they are coming from. I've got a 6800u WinMax2, and I'm not sure if the new 8840u or an Intel would be a big enough upgrade.

Do you have updated video for new Intel Arc Driver for MSI Claw? Thank you for the review.

Hey, can you test raytracing on the msi claw igpu? Intel says it supports raytracing, and I don't see anyone covering its performance, it'd also be interesting to see how it stacks up against the ally and deck

I love thunderbolt & MSI center M

hopefully lunar lake and battlemage can make the intel handhelds better. atleast no beefy egpu needed!

you should put in video results from same gpu + amd handheld

I understand this device might be popular with some, but this seems like a stretch to say it performs well with an egpu. Of course it would! So does the Legion Go. And I believe the steam deck does as well at a lower price.

The claw is on life support!

After getting a Steam Deck, I don’t care if Sony released another handheld or not. I finally bought Final Fantasy VII Remake and Uncharted 4 for it from Steam’s spring sale, and I think Sony exclusives are coming to an end unless it’s coming from Nintendo since they’ve always been the strongest with first-party games since many third-parties started ditching them at making AAA titles since the N64. Steam Deck has officially become my favorite gaming device of all-time and arguably a top 5 purchase ever for me after owning it a month. I’ll have it over my modded PS Vita which I’ve owned for nearly 7 years. With all that said, I do have problems with it almost daily. Sometimes it crashes because of an update. Or maybe the keyboard won’t pop up. Yet, I can accept all of it because I only got it for $250 and it’s the 512 LCD. I got it for the same price as a used Switch OLED. I’ll be keeping my Steam Deck strictly for the PS2/GameCube/Wii emulation and the occasional AAA title once ported for PC. I could care less if I can never emulate Xbox 360 and PS3 on it because I find their libraries boring. My favorite AAA game on my Steam Deck so far is 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag which I bought for my Switch Lite back in October 2022. That game can also feel redundant but it holds my attention longer from the gameplay and the Caribbean scenery is beautiful. I’m still f*cking amazed by the Steam Deck. This was the device that really brought me back into gaming. I have a modded PSP, modded Vita, Switch Lite, and I emulate games on my Android smartphones. I also have an iPhone SE 2022 to play popular indie games found on other platforms. But it’s the Steam Deck that really brought me back from my gaming hiatus that lasted for about 17 years. The last time I really gamed on a home console was when I beat Twilight Princess on my Wii and rented and beat Metal Gear Solid 3 and God of War on my PS2 way back in 2007. After that, my focus was more into smartphones after the iPhone was announced. I only became a casual gamer playing games like Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies and Cut the Rope on my launch day iPhone 4. Steam Deck is my GOAT! I’m aware it’s not the strongest PC handheld out there. ROG Ally Z1 Extreme and Legion Go are more powerful. But I don’t want to play every single game out there because I’m not the biggest fan of many AAA modern games from Gen 7-9. So I don’t really need all that power. As long as I can play FF7R and Uncharted 4 on the go and they’re buttery smooth for the most part, I’m happy. *Steam* *Games* *(10)* Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Batman: Arkham Asylum Batman: Arkham City Batman: Arkham Knight DuckTales: Remaster Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade Shenmue III Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection The Witcher III: Wild Hunt Yakuza 0 Technically, 11 games since Uncharted is a two-fer. But I mainly bought it for The Thief’s End. I guess no God of War and Red Dead Redemption II for me. Then I got 10 games each for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Wii. May add another 10 for the Dreamcast since I’m considering putting those games back. Whatever console that I enjoyed owning that my Vita can’t emulate, I’ll put it in the Deck. Favorite Dedicated Gaming Devices 1. Steam Deck 2. PS Vita 3. Switch Lite 4. PSP 5. PlayStation 6. Dreamcast 7. PlayStation 2 8. Super NES 9. GameCube 10. Genesis 11. NES 12. Wii Favorite Video Games 1. Final Fantasy VII 2. Shenmue II 3. Tekken 3 4. NBA Street Vol. 2 5. Super Mario World 6. Ridge Racer (PSP) 7. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 8. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! 9. Street Fighter II: SCE (Genesis) 10. Super Street Fighter II (MAME) 11. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 12. Final Fantasy X I could afford a ROG Ally as many go for under $400 in OfferUp and it’s the Z1 Extreme version. It’s arguably the most returned device at Best Buy. But I hate Asus and Windows. I also don’t care for most modern games since Gen 7, so if my Deck can’t emulate PS3 games like Ally could because of its aging Zen 2/RDNA 2, I don’t care. And many of these Windows PC handhelds will get replaced every year. Steam Deck is all the power I ever need as long as it emulates PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Wii really well and it does. Then toss in the occasional AAA title released on Steam from Gen 7-9. It can play every single generation of video games.

Even a slow V8 is fast when you add a supercharger.

Better Title should be : We turned the MSI claw into a expensive / overpriced gaming PC

At this point a used xg mobile rtx3080/ti or rx6850mxt pricing will be reasonable enough to buy, and its 16gb vram should be good for 1080p gaming for the next 5years

Yes

Really cool setup, but the ONEXEGPU or GPD G1 are just too expensive for what they offer. There is not much competition in this space so they can get away with this pricing I suppose. I bought an Aorus gaming box without the GPU for €100, and I will probably put a 4060 ti in there for another €430 or so. I know it is not as portable as the 7600M solutions, but it gives much more bang per buck so to speak. In the EU, the GPD or OneX egpus come in around the €800 to €850 mark once local VAT is added.

Could you please test Warhammer 3 on one of your future videos with the claw

What is your monitor name ?

What's the lowest spec system that will work with an E-GPU?

Fast prius when you add buggati W16 to it?

I’ve considered picking up the new OneXPlayer Pro 2 that uses the same 155 Ultra and similar other specs. Without cost being a concern, I’d like to know is that unit going to be the best performance with the top trim, including the OneXGPU? 🙏

is it worth it?

A really nice option for those that don't have a gaming desktop but purchased a handheld like this.

Is it compatible with Steam Deck via OcuLink?

Legion go is still the goat of handheld for now

There is no saving this handheld

If i was going to use a large monitor with this setup i would rather just build a good gaming pc which would be way way way better than the claw and even cheaper

This is awesome but for the price of setting all this up and losing portability, a cheap laptop or mini pc might be a better option.

How tf did MSI think Intel Arc (and the mid range at that) could compete against the Ally or the Legion Go?

I just returned my Claw. Will buy again on sale when the performance and bugs are fixed.

Ok but I’m curious cuz nobody seems to remember the legion go everyone just says ohh just get a steam deck or a ally but what about the legion go

I see two immediate problems with the MSI Claw, and I am someone who has no problem with MSI. 1. Compared to the competition it sucks at gaming. Even more so if you take into consideration the price. Going the Intel route was a bit weird. Let's not forget Intel sucks at releasing drivers for the GPUs. Even worse in longevity than AMD GPU drivers. 2. If you get it to use as a desktop PC, it's over priced and under performing again. You would be better off getting a small factor pc or even a mini PC and then if you want to get a eGPU. I am not the target market for this product, I am poor and I lost all interest in portable gaming several years ago, but I do like the tech aspect.

I had the egpu in my cart then removed it halfway through the review. Haha

Can you please fix your vocal microphone noise gate? I notice every little stutter and glitch and it's very distracting, thanks.

thunderbolt 4 has more bandwidth than USB 4

Amazing performance

A handheld, portable device is nice to have. But if we start adding egpu, monitor, keyboard, mouse, USB hub for extra ports, and external HDD for more space, it's getting ridiculous. At this point, a laptop or PC is much better.

Why have you just dropped the legion go entirely? I dont see it compared in any of your handheld pc videos

Loved it. It's amazing to see mid range pc gaming getting this compact 🎉❤

Oh my goodness it's on life support 💀

I mean to be fair, most modern laptops and handhelds are gonna be fast if you add an egpu.

hey eta, would the intel arc control/drivers be natively compatible with an external egpu using intel arc dedicated card?

Was excited about this but guess amd still king in handheld space

The games must be rendered ONLY on the monitor to save thunderbolt's bandwidth. If you are showing the rendered image by the egpu back to the device screen you are using an extra bandwidth like on any other laptop with thunderbolt. You are not experiencing the best performance of this setup in this video, thus it is not representative.

If you stop sending videofeed back to rhe handheld you get Better performance from TB/USB4

Damn 102°C at a few frames > 5:49

Please somone answer me how to attach gpu to msi claw with thunderbolt 4 support 🙏

Great video. Now even less people will probably be interested in buying a Claw.

Why MSI didn't add an "entry level" laptop GPU such as RTX 4050 or its AMD equivalent?

Let’s admit it, the Claw was DOA. Having to add an external GPU for a portable hand held is a shame

Buy a GPU for a Claw not to lag?

None of them haven't yet accomplished what Valve did and that's weird, as if Valve has some copyright to making the best gaming system.

With ryzen apu in market intel Ultra dont seem any good

Let’s just be real. I had a rog ally and they just don’t perform that well.

XG Mobile 3080 and 4090 Left the Chat

Aokzoe A2 is the best

I have a feeling Nvidia is cooking something too.

The (Any thunderbolt 3/4 enabled PC) Is Actually A FAST Gaming PC When You Add A Powerful eGPU

I think this setup is impractical. What's the point of buying a handheld when u gonna plug it into an external GPU and a monitor anyway?

I honestly don't know why the CPU in this thing doesn't have just like... only 4 P-cores. Zero need for more than that, given what these are going to be handling. P-cores but they ride their own efficiency curve. This need for a super high core count is clearly unnecessary, as proven by the Steam Deck.

Very overpriced for what it is

Why this was tested with display in clone mode. This may some impact on I/O operations over this external GPU and device.

MSI Claw the palyable than ROG Ally

They lower down the price for it on their website but I'm in the US so I rather get it off of Amazon but yeah I got it for $800 so it's not that bad using it right now on my Legion go and my Mini PC and it's awesome for the price

Isn't there a video that shows the device using emulation?

Day 99 of asking for a PC for my college.

This turning into a meme at this point. its sucks even with egpu. the morefine s500+ 7840hs performs close to this without the egpu with 1/3rd the price.

that defeats the purpose of being a “portable” handheld, 🤦‍♂️

LoLL

Only 280 views in 4 mins let's fix that

Damn the msi claw look to be a disappointment. Like always, get a steam deck oled or ally

Buying pc and E-gpu separate and still downscale ? What a spinoff videos you have posted. MSI claw is just hand held not a desktop PC, Stop comparing.

its now also too chunky...who carry this bric around?

POWERFUL?????

Piss poor device, the Ally is way better

Three Claw videos in a row, a little variety would be appreciated. Maybe mix it up and do every other video. Thanks.