An MSI Claw handheld based on the forthcoming Intel Panther Lake handheld chip has just appeared for sale at an Italian retailer. If the details are genuine, the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ looks set to have an amazing spec, including 32GB of RAM, an 8in 120Hz screen and that new Intel chip.
Spotted by regular tech leaker @x86deadandback on X, the new handheld is shown for sale at online Italian store Ollo, with a whopping price tag of €1,599 (around $1,873 US / £1,382). MSI has yet to officially announce the device, so it’s not known if this price is accurate, but 32GB of RAM won’t be cheap in these times, and neither will Intel’s latest chip.
According to the description on this site, this particular model’s full name is the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ CG3EM-013IT. That gets you an Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip, rumoured to be the top model in the lineup, along with a 1TB SSD, 32GB of RAM, and an 8in 1920×1080 120Hz touch-screen. It also reportedly has a Void Purple colour.
Intel first announced it was planning a Panther Lake handheld chip at the CES tradeshow in January 2026, and MSI was one of the partners listed on the slide, along with Acer, Foxconn, and Microsoft, among others.
Intel has been tight-lipped about release dates since, with UK general manager, Simon Wilyman, telling us that “there are going to be products coming to market sooner rather than later,” in an interview in March.
Since then, rumours have appeared about two handheld Panther Lake chips, the Intel Arc G3 and the Arc G3 Extreme. According to leaks, both these chips feature two P-cores, eight E-cores, and four low-power E-cores in the CPU portion, with a top clock speed of 4.7GHz.
The difference between these two models is reportedly the GPU, with the Extreme model apparently featuring 12 of Intel’s Xe3 cores running at up to 2.3GHz, compared to 10 Xe3 cores clocked at 2.2GHz on the standard version.
If those specs are genuine, this MSI handheld could be seriously powerful. I tested a Panther Lake chip with 12Xe3 cores in my Intel Core Ultra X9 288H review, and was surprised to find I could happily run Cyberpunk 2077 on the low ray tracing preset at 1920×1080, with XeSS on the Quality setting netting an average 55fps frame rate. F1 25 and Clair Obscur Expedition 33 were also playable at decent settings.
Unlike AMD’s handheld chips, there’s a good chance this new chip will also support Intel’s XeSS multi frame-gen tech, which could make 120fps gaming on that 120Hz screen a reality.
We’re hoping to hear more about Intel’s Panther Lake handheld chip, and its supporting devices, at the Computex tradeshow. In the meantime, check out Sam’s MSI Claw 8 AI+ review to see how a current Lunar Lake handheld performs.
