And an average increase of 25% in 1% Low FPS, though only at 17 W or lower.
Intel seems to have been on the gaming performance improvement grind lately, and it’s now claiming a significant uplift in its new low-power chips thanks to driver updates. This is particularly good news for us PC gamers because it means some high-end handhelds and low-power laptops should get a free boost for gaming.
In a blog post announcing the uplift, Intel says: “As part of our continuous platform optimizations, we are rolling out a power management update that improves gaming performance for Intel Core Ultra 200V systems (codenamed: Lunar Lake) with built-in Intel Arc 140V and 130V GPUs.”
In particular, this should be good news for those of you with an MSI Claw 8 AI+ (or a Claw 7 AI+, which is mostly the same but with a smaller battery), as it features an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V chip with Arc 140V GPU that should benefit from this update. We reckon this is the best high-end handheld gaming PC even without this driver update, but we won’t say no to free extra performance.
The update should roll out officially to more Lunar Lake devices (such as the Asus Zenbook S 14 that we also tested), but for now it’s only official for the Claw 7/8 AI+.
Intel shares its own benchmarks in a few games, with results averaging 10% increased average fps and 25% increase to 1% low FPS figures—ie, a 25% increase to the averate frame rate of the lowest 1% of measured frames. This is why Intel says, “we’re improving not only performance but also smoothness for a great gaming experience.” Better 99th percentile performance equals smoother overall gameplay.
This driver update comes not long after another free Intel performance boost, the previous one being for Intel Core Ultra 200S (desktop) processors. That one, which required a BIOS update, boosted “fabric, die-to-die, and memory frequencies.” This new one for low-power mobile chips is a “power management update” packaged in a driver update, so no low-level fiddling is required.
Given this is a power management update, the “performance benefits”, Intel says, “are observed primarily at or under the common default power level of 17W.”
Many Claw 8 AI+ gamers, we’re sure, will want to crank the handheld up beyond this. In our handheld testing we usually compare for 30 W performance (although we do test with default power limits, too, especially for battery life). I suppose this driver update, if Intel’s performance claims bear out, will give gamers more of an incentive to stick to default (or lower) power modes.
Which isn’t a bad shout anyway, really, unless you’re trying to play some really demanding AAA titles. The Claw 8 AI+ can handle pretty much any handheld-oriented game with ease, and its stellar battery life is one of its main draws, so it might make sense to lean into that and opt for some low-power, long battery life gaming especially if performance is improved at lower power.
If you have a Claw 7/8 AI+, you might already have this update installed. Intel says it’s available for these handhelds “on Intel graphics driver 32.0.101.6734 and newer, and will be enabled for other Intel Core Ultra 200V systems soon, following validation with our OEM partners.”
We’re currently past this driver version, so if you have automatic updates on it might already be installed. If not, you can install it via the MSI Center, or download and install directly from Intel. Presumably the latter should be possible for other Intel Core Ultra 200V devices, even if it’s not yet officially OEM validated.
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