Monday, September 18th 2023
ASUS ROG Ally "Standard Z1 APU" Model Launches at $599
We have had to wait a bit longer for the launch of a lesser ASUS ROG Ally variant—the Windows 11 handheld gaming PC was officially revealed sporting an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU. A non-Extreme variant was teased to launch at a later date, which appears to be within the last couple of days—emerging first in North America. The more affordable—$599—offering has popped up for sale on Best Buy, and the ASUS store has a listing although it is currently "out of stock." This non-Extreme model's (RC71L-Z1512) arrival at retail coincides with Valve running a 20% price reduction on its Steam Deck handheld gaming range.
The $100 saving over the ROG Ally Extreme ($699) nets the customer largely identical features and specifications, apart from the main choice of APU. The Z1 non-Extreme chipset was analyzed earlier this month, with its "Phoenix 2" origin revealing usage of Zen 4c cores. The standard Z1 seems to be very similar in makeup to the mobile series Ryzen 5 7540U APU. The AMD Ryzen Z1 is a six-core Zen 4/Zen 4c APU with four RDNA 3 compute units, which is nowhere near as fierce as the "Phoenix 1" Ryzen Z1 Extreme—sporting eight cores (all Zen 4) and twelve RDNA 3 compute units.
Sources:
Best Buy, ASUS Store USA, VideoCardz
The $100 saving over the ROG Ally Extreme ($699) nets the customer largely identical features and specifications, apart from the main choice of APU. The Z1 non-Extreme chipset was analyzed earlier this month, with its "Phoenix 2" origin revealing usage of Zen 4c cores. The standard Z1 seems to be very similar in makeup to the mobile series Ryzen 5 7540U APU. The AMD Ryzen Z1 is a six-core Zen 4/Zen 4c APU with four RDNA 3 compute units, which is nowhere near as fierce as the "Phoenix 1" Ryzen Z1 Extreme—sporting eight cores (all Zen 4) and twelve RDNA 3 compute units.
24 Comments on ASUS ROG Ally "Standard Z1 APU" Model Launches at $599
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I just like pokin fun at da gammr crowd, who are the main folks that tend to wet their panties or get a stiffy when underwhelming, over-hyped stuff like this gets announced/released........
Like the mobsters always say: "It's not personal, it's just BUSINESS" ..:roll:..:shadedshu:..:p
Are they you pretending to be someone else ?
Are they the ones who wanna be you or me ?
Are they the ones that are, you know, not us ?
It's just so convenient and allows you to be far more comfortable gaming on the couch, in bed, or while travelling. Unexpectedly became one of my best tech purchases in recent years.It's surprisingly capable though, even in AAA games.
But my guess is that it will appeal more to people who want a handheld to primarily play indies and emulated games. That $100 savings could get you a lot of truly fantastic indie games that would run great on this version of the Ally.
Edit: forgot to say, I bought a Deck a few months back & totally agree that having a portable handheld that can play proper games whilst lounging on the sofa or wherever is great!
If its just for pure gaming, I believe it would still be better than the Steam Deck just for the display alone. You can always use RSR to upscale to 1080p with minimal image loss and native FreeSync support is very useful for those frame drops.
EDIT: Yeah, I don't think this Z1 can beat Van Gogh at 10W or 15W. Probably in more CPU-heavy games. At 25W/30W it should be able to. If they had made a 4-core Zen 4 CPU and paired it with 12 CUs of RDNA 3, it should be able to beat the Steam Deck even at lower wattage considering AMD's monolithic CPUs scale down nicely.
So yeah, I'd argue that the Z1 Ally has a place in the market.
Its not so bad at all... It seems that the limited TDP doesn't help the more robust version.
Interesting how only 4CU can achieve this performance.
I wonder if the same kind of deal is in effect today.
man, i really want to see Steam Deck 2 with RDNA3 APU
The form factor is good for travelling, laptops aren't portable, they need to be plugged in and you can't hold them while you use them. If you disagree, the most popular console of this generation and the last with kids and adults is the switch.