Intel-powered handhelds don’t look so bad anymore. A new update to MSI Center M fixes a bug in the default power limit configuration for MSI’s Lunar Lake-based models, and testing on the MSI Claw 8 AI+ shows sizeable performance boosts for gaming – up to 30% in some cases. A TDP slider bug was previously reported in a Center M update a couple of weeks ago.
Even though MSI recently released the Claw A8, its first AMD-powered handheld, that doesn’t mean its older Intel-based models are obsolete. In fact, the Z2 Extreme in the A8 is largely on par with the Claw 8 AI+’s Core Ultra 258V chip, based on gaming benchmarks posted online recently. And now the (up to) 30% gaming boost makes it all the more appealing.
MSI Claw 8 AI+ with updated PL2 setting is up to 30% faster for gaming
Thanks to benchmarks performed by TechPowerUp, which recently got to test the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and then retest it with the fixed setting, we can see the difference it makes. This particular model of the Claw is much improved over the original Meteor Lake-powered device, which had an underwhelming launch. The Claw 8 AI+ is one of the only handhelds with a Lunar Lake processor (alongside the 7 AI+); the majority of handhelds are AMD-powered.
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In our retest, Cyberpunk 2077 and Space Marine 2 achieved nearly a 30% performance uplift with this setting. The Lunar Lake-based MSI Claw AI+ A2VM handheld is the highest-performing device we have tested across the board, even surpassing AMD-based devices in our testing suite. In other games, baseline improvement is set at 10%, just as Intel had notified. Our testing confirmed that Lunar Lake is now the most powerful gaming CPU for handheld devices.
Source: TechPowerUp
What exactly does the fix do?
Let’s get a little more into the technical details of this fix. The default configuration for the MSI Claw 8 AI+ was incorrectly setting the PL1 and PL2 (power limits) to the same value. PL1 and PL2 are also known as Processor Base Power and Maximum Turbo Power, respectively. Intel’s official specification for Lunar Lake recommends that PL2 should always be at least 1W higher than PL1 – or set to its maximum TDP value, which is 37W.
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Due to the way the architecture works, increasing PL2 by just 1W (so they’re no longer the same value) helps unlock more performance, and that’s what the new MSI Center M update does – PL2 is now always locked at least 1W higher than PL1. Considering how important CPU power usage is on these compact handheld devices, it might not be surprising to see the kind of performance gains you can get from a seemingly simple fix like this.
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