AMD Z2 Extreme Outperforms Intel’s Lunar Lake in Latest Gaming Benchmarks: MSI Claw 8 at 17W Shows 8.5% Advantage, Reducing to 6% at 30W

Alright, here goes nothing. I’m gonna ramble a bit, so bear with me.

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You ever catch yourself in the middle of a tech battle and think, “Why am I this invested in a CPU showdown?” I mean, it’s just handhelds, right? But no, here I am, fully caught up in the AMD vs. Intel drama. Anyway — wait, hang on, got ahead of myself. Let’s rewind a bit.

So, here’s the deal: we’ve got MSI Claw A8 dancing with AMD’s new Ryzen Z2 Extreme, and its buddy, the Claw 8 AI+ with Intel’s Core Ultra 7 258V. This isn’t some casual meetup. It’s like Rocky vs. Apollo but, you know, with chips. They duked it out across different power levels. You can bet your last snack dollar that the 17-watt zone was like the Thunderdome of efficiency here.

Let me paint you a picture. Both these gizmos are anchoring at around $900 to a cool grand. So the talk isn’t about who’s cheaper, but who’s squeezing the most juice from their watts. Picture yourself gaming — all’s going well till your battery drains faster than you can say “low power mode.” That’s why the 17-watt dance is crucial.

AMD’s past chips under 20 watts? Disaster city. They were for laptops, not the handhelds we’re talking about now. But the Z2? Man’s got a makeover. It’s rocking eight cores (three for performance, five for efficiency, Zen 5 style), buzzes up to 5.0 GHz, and pairs with a GPU that’s got more compute units than my last attempt at diet plans — sixteen RDNA 3.5, to be precise.

Can’t ignore Intel, though. They’re on TSMC’s N3B node. Sounds fancy, right? But with fewer custom plays for manufacturers. Their memory is like a clingy friend — always attached! Which messes with the power consumption math if you ask me.

Back to AMD. Not only does the Z2 perform well at low power, it’s also throwing punches at 10 watts with a performance boost over its predecessor. Like, seriously, who invites the old overachieving cousin to the party just to show them up?

And get this, run ‘em through real-world games at 1080p and the numbers start telling secrets. The kind you didn’t hear from me. AMD’s ahead, especially on those 1% lows — making gameplay smoother than a well-rehearsed apology.

But Intel ain’t completely out of the league. Things heat up (literally) at higher power settings around 30 watts. It’s a back-and-forth shuffle; AMD edges ahead initially, while Intel pulls some moves when you give it more room to breathe. Does it really matter to us mere mortals though? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just tired of seeing blue and red all the time.

What caught me off guard? AMD can lock threads to smaller cores for a sneaky efficiency boost. Strategy, right? This means if you’re gaming on one of these handhelds at a cafe, sipping oat milk something-or-other, AMD’s got your back better than that overpriced caffeine hit.

Sum it up: If I were splurging on one — the MSI Claw A8’s AMD version seems to be the deal. Stronger GPU performance gives it that edge. Plop it in a dock, crank that TDP to 35 watts, and you’ve got extra elbow room.

Just remember, all this geeking out boils down to how you wanna game on the go. Or maybe it’s just me, realizing there’s a bit of tech nerd in everyone. Who knew?