But it hasn’t entered the market yet
Investigation: Intel changed the parameters of one of the Core Ultra processors after the announcement. Core Ultra 5 135H now has more cores in the iGPU
The MSI Claw portable gaming console based on Intel Core Ultra processors will be released sometime during the current half of the year, but The Verge journalists have already tried it out.
It turned out that the new Core Ultras are not very suitable for games yet. According to the website, Claw demos were stuttering and constantly suffered from performance hitches.
Smoothness — This is not what I see in the Intel Core Ultra chip, at least yet. The Intel Core Ultra processor-based engineering samples that MSI showed off at CES experience a bit of stuttering in gameplay and a lot of frame-stuttering. The chip currently has a default TDP of 24–27W, which is more than I would expect from a chip supposedly more efficient than AMD's. The fans seem relatively quiet under load, although it's hard to tell in a crowded room.
In addition, the journalist adds that in low consumption mode the new Core Ultras do not perform very well even in comparison with the Steam Deck platform, which is significantly less productive in absolute terms.
The processor definitely can't compete with the Steam Deck at lower power yet. When I set it to «Super Battery Saver» (15 W), as can be done with Deck, in the Assassin's Creed Mirage test, even at 720p resolution and the lowest settings there were performance problems. I saw an average of only 24 fps with huge drops in FPS.
Considering that the release of MSI Claw is probably still several months away, and the Core Ultra processors themselves are also just getting ready to hit the market, it is likely that the situation will improve significantly before release. But at a minimum, if someone wants a portable set-top box with a new Intel CPU, they should wait for tests of production samples after release.