Friday, April 21st 2023
ASUS ROG Ally Will Have Two Versions, Non-Extreme APU Version Spotted
The latest entry from Geekbench database pretty much confirmed that the ASUS ROG Ally will have two different versions, featuring two different Ryzen Z1 custom APUs. While both are AMD's Phoenix APUs with Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 GPU architectures, they will have different specifications, with the Ryzen Z1 Extreme featuring an 8-core/16-thread configuration with 12 Compute Units (CUs) GPU, the Ryzen Z1 non-Extreme will end up with a 6-core/12-thread CPU configuration and 4 RDNA 3 CUs.
The Ryzen Z1 Extreme SKU was detailed yesterday, and this newest leak also confirms two different versions of the ASUS ROG Ally handheld console, as previously leaked. The entry in Geekbench database also shows a small difference in clock speeds between those two Ryzen Z1 SKUs, with the base frequency of 3.2 GHz and Boost of 4.9 GHz (4,939 MHz) for the non-Extreme. The Ryzen Z1 Extreme has a base frequency of 3.3 GHz and Boost up to almost 5.1 GHz (5,062 MHz).
The non-Extreme Ryzen Z1 SKU will have a big impact on the GPU side, as this SKU will pack 2 CUs (4 RDNA 3 CUs) as shown in the Geekbench entry. This means it will have just 256 Stream Processors. The Ryzen Z1 Extreme iGPU was already detailed to pack 6 CUs (12 RDNA 3 CUs), for a total of 768 Stream Processors, making it significantly more powerful.
As detailed earlier, the ASUS ROG Ally will come with a 7-inch 1920x1080 resolution screen with 500 nits of brightness, 120 Hz refresh rate, and a 7 ms response time. It will pair up the Ryzen Z1 APU with 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM in dual-channel mode (at least for the Ryzen Z1 Extreme version), and feature 512 GB of PCIe Gen 4 M.2-2230 internal storage.
Unfortunately, we still do not have a precise launch date or any solid hint about the price, but ASUS did announce it will be available worldwide and could come sooner than anyone expected.
Sources:
Geekbench, via Videocardz
The Ryzen Z1 Extreme SKU was detailed yesterday, and this newest leak also confirms two different versions of the ASUS ROG Ally handheld console, as previously leaked. The entry in Geekbench database also shows a small difference in clock speeds between those two Ryzen Z1 SKUs, with the base frequency of 3.2 GHz and Boost of 4.9 GHz (4,939 MHz) for the non-Extreme. The Ryzen Z1 Extreme has a base frequency of 3.3 GHz and Boost up to almost 5.1 GHz (5,062 MHz).
As detailed earlier, the ASUS ROG Ally will come with a 7-inch 1920x1080 resolution screen with 500 nits of brightness, 120 Hz refresh rate, and a 7 ms response time. It will pair up the Ryzen Z1 APU with 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM in dual-channel mode (at least for the Ryzen Z1 Extreme version), and feature 512 GB of PCIe Gen 4 M.2-2230 internal storage.
Unfortunately, we still do not have a precise launch date or any solid hint about the price, but ASUS did announce it will be available worldwide and could come sooner than anyone expected.
23 Comments on ASUS ROG Ally Will Have Two Versions, Non-Extreme APU Version Spotted
If the product is good, I suppose I can excuse that.
Wonder what software they're expecting to run on it? An asus-customized W11 image, or another fork of Arch Linux?
The specs on this are better than The Deck, but we'll see how well it actually performs (especially after a few months of particulate buildup on the heatsink)
Yea yea I know, supposedly 2 different audiences, but just sayin :D
LinusTechTips has a video up on their usage of an engineering prototype that is probably closer to production than being an alpha/beta product.
If Ryzen is finding its way into so many handhelds, it won't be long for a company to make an x86 phone that can actually game.
and neither are OLED, so meh.
Although I would like to see a phone that is Windows capable and has a decent GPU.
Article says 4CUs
Either way, I agree that the lower-end version is going to be worse than the Steamdeck.
RDNA3 isn't enough of an improvement over RNDA2 to make up for such a dramatic drop in GPU performance compared to the Steam Deck's 8CUI'm impressed by Proton. The games that don't run are largely multiplayer-focused with Windows-only anti-cheat, and the Deck isn't a good platform for that genre of gaming in the first place, regardless of whether it could run those games or not - they're games where playing on a small screen with a controller is a huge disadvantage and where any disadvantage hurts the enjoyment.
That $399 Steam Deck includes a decent carry case and an expensive 45W GaN USB-C charger. The Steam Deck is almost certainly subsidised to promote SteamOS and gain Valve's marketshare. Presumably, neither Valve nor Microsoft are subsidising Asus to make the Ally ;)
It's hard to say at this point, but leaks and deleted tweets indicate that the travel case is an optional accessory for the Asus Ally, rather than an included extra and whilst the 512GB Steam Deck is $649, you can upgrade the $400 Deck to a 512GB 2230 M.2 for $50 and 15 minutes of a guided iFixit video using nothing more than some plastic picks and a screwdriver. Having done it once for my own Deck, I'm confident I could swap the SSD in under 10 minutes without damaging anything.
Presumably Steam Decks will now feature 10% discount during major holiday sales. I picked mine up for £315 in the last sale and spent the £35 savings on a used SSD from ebay and a third-party dock/stand. In my experience, the kind of emulation/retro titles that the $699, GPU-deprived Ally is aiming at don't need NVMe storage; They load damn-near instantly off MicroSD card.
I was surprised how good DOOM ran using vulkan. with 60 fps on Ultra (unbelieveble). I have installed all my steam library, and then some on the steam deck, and still have about 1 tb free,
I bought it for diablo 4. But it seems diablo 2 resurected also is running well. To bad destiny 2 doesnt work. But ive played a bit of 3dshooters, and playing them with controllers is bad.
What workes best are isometric games, like diablo, and maybe stuff like tombraider or whitcher, and presumably racing games.
For this money, i dont think the Rog ally will beat the price.
It seems OneXPlayer 2 might indeed seems a better alternative than the rog ally, since it comes with 32 gb ram option, which in windows enviroment, would be sorely needed.
They are interesting devices but I don't have a long or stable enough commute to warrant such a thing,
What do you play, iRacing?
I used to play a bit with PSP or gameboy emulators years ago when I had longer trip times but currently I haven't really found the urge with shorter travels and stopovers
Although, "Self driving" cars could make driving games on your commute a reasonable option.
And by self driving I mean cars that can travel down the highway safely without human attention.
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Any info on iGPU base/boost clock speeds? If 800MHz is the cap, I can't imagine this achieving very high average framerates.
Edit: some quick and dirty math suggests sub-GT 640 performance...
A low-end part from the Kepler era