Among the now seemingly endless stream of Steam Deck competitors, MSI’s Claw has sadly stood out for all the wrong reasons. Its launch was plagued by a myriad of issues, with performance chief among them. Not content to let its Intel Core Ultra-based handheld go down without a fight, though, MSI has worked hard to improve the device. Now, for the third time since Claw’s release, MSI has released a BIOS update that it claims provides double-digit percentile frame rate improvements.
For those in need of a refresher, this is the third time MSI has clawed out even more frames from the best CPUs Intel has to offer handheld devices. While the first BIOS update promised gains of up to 43.5%, the second claimed to provide improvements of up to 150%. Sadly, this third, latest version only offers up to 30%, but this is on top of the previous boosts, in fairness.
These benchmarks come from MSI itself, comparing performance from BIOS 106 to the latest 109 version. While the company has outlined its configuration, such as resolution and performance mode, there aren’t many details, so take any result with a due degree of scepticism.
That said, the results provided by MSI look promising. Forza Horizon 5 is the only game that benefits from the 30% improvement, which sees average frame rates jump from 59.4fps to 77.5fps. However, Fortnite sees a similar 28% bump, with frame rates improving from 62.12fps (oddly specific) to 87.3fps.
Averaging out the gains across the 16 titles tested by MSI, we’re looking at a 13% improvement overall. This does dampen the sheen of the BIOS update but it’s still a sizeable gain. That said, the performance floor set by Claw wasn’t spectacular to begin with.
It’s clear that MSI is aware of perceptions surrounding Claw’s performance in its follow-up comparisons to ROG Ally. The company claims that its device performs, on average, 26% better than Asus’ handheld in the top 100 most popular games on Steam.
Impressive as this feat sounds, MSI once again fails to provide enough meaningful information about its test setup to properly assess its claims. For instance, it’s unclear whether Claw was tested against an Ally with a Z1 or Z1 Extreme chipset as each provides markedly different gaming performance.
Commendable as MSI’s efforts are to bring Claw back from the brink, I fear the damage done may already be too great. While I don’t believe it should pause in improving the system for existing owners, it’s hard to see a way for it to truly recover without incentives like a massive price drop.
Here’s hoping that a Claw successor is still in the works and can right the wrongs of its predecessor. Until then, Steam Deck OLED reigns supreme in sales (and in my heart), with its only major competitors being ROG Ally and Legion Go.