Yesterday’s price and release date announcement for the Asus ROG Ally puts it in even closer competition with the Steam Deck: far from being a flashy, luxury alternative, the ROG Ally comes surprisingly close to the matching the Steam Deck on affordability. It could even outdo Valve’s portable PC on value, considering how the two devices’ specs compare.
I’m hoping to actually get my hands on a ROG Ally next week, after which this whole article will probably get replaced by something more hands-on. But for now, let’s weigh up its vitals next to the Deck, from the performance essentials of their processors and displays to the fine details of connectivity and microSD card support.
Asus ROG Ally vs Steam Deck: CPU, GPU, and RAM
Both the ROG Ally and the Steam Deck use AMD APUs (combined CPU and graphics processors, basically) that were built specifically for gaming performance in a teensy, handheld-ready package. There will eventually be two APU options for the ROG Ally, at least in the US, but the June 13th launch will only make the more expensive Ryzen Z1 Extreme version available.
| ASUS ROG Ally | Steam Deck | |
|---|---|---|
| APU | AMD Ryzen Z1 / AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme | AMD Van Gogh |
| CPU architecture | Zen 4 | Zen 2 |
| CPU cores / threads | 6 cores, 12 threads (Z1) / 8 cores, 16 threads (Z1 Extreme) | 4 cores, 8 threads |
| Max CPU clock | 4.9GHz (Z1) / 5.1GHz (Z1 Extreme) | 3.5GHz |
| GPU architecture | RDNA 3 | RDNA 2 |
| GPU compute units | 4 (Z1) / 12 (Z1 Extreme) | 8 |
| Max GPU clock | 2.5GHz (Z1) / 2.7GHz (Z1 Extreme) | 1.6GHz |
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR5 | 16GB LPDDR5 |
Jury’s out on the weaker, cheaper Ryzen Z1, but the more imminent Ryzen Z1 Extreme has the Steam Deck’s chip licked in the specs department. More CPU cores and threads, more graphics compute units, higher clock speeds across the board, newer and more efficient architecture… if it weren’t for the matching RAM, this would be a ROGwash.
That won’t necessarily mean that the ROG Ally will absolutely stomp the Steam Deck on games performance. It will be faster, for sure, but since they’ll be running on vastly different operating systems, actual performance differences will vary by game. The ROG Ally also has an extra drain on performance: its higher-resolution screen.
Asus ROG Ally vs Steam Deck: Display
There is some common ground here, namely the size, touchscreen capability and IPS panel tech. But the ROG Ally again aims higher, going for a Full HD resolution and a refresh rate that wouldn’t be out of place on a desktop gaming monitor.
| Asus ROG Ally | Steam Deck | |
|---|---|---|
| Screen size (diagonal) | 7in | 7in |
| Resolution | 1920×1080 | 1280×800 |
| Aspect ratio | 16:9 | 16:10 |
| Refresh rate | 120Hz | 60Hz |
| Touchscreen | Yes | Yes |
| Peak brightness (quoted) | 500 nits | 400 nits |
| Panel type | IPS | IPS |
| Adaptive sync | AMD FreeSync Premium | None |
Even on a relatively compact 7in screen, that’s a decent haul of extra pixels to keep the ROG Ally looking crisp, and a 120Hz refresh rate will allow less graphically intensive games to better show off their higher, smoother framerates. There are drawbacks to both specs – partly their higher power requirements, and partly how 1080p will stress the ROG Ally’s APU harder than 800p would – but these could well be acceptable trades for a brighter, sharper screen.
It’s encouraging to see FreeSync support on the ROG Ally as well. While you can manually change the Steam Deck display’s refresh rate, it doesn’t support a fully dynamic/adaptive sync technology unless you’re playing it on an external monitor. In pure handheld mode, it relies on V-Sync to prevent screen tearing, which (unlike FreeSync) adds a dash of input lag.
Asus ROG Ally vs Steam Deck: Dimensions and design
This looks like a simple tradeoff: would you rather have a thinner, lighter handheld PC, or a slightly heavier one with more inputs?
| Asus ROG Ally | Steam Deck | |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 608g | 669g |
| Dimensions | 280x113x39mm | 298 x 117 x 49 mm |
| Controls | Xbox-style controls with 2x rear buttons | Xbox-style controls with 4x rear buttons and 2x trackpads |
| Speakers | 2x front-facing, Dolby Atmos certification | 2x front-facing |
| Cooling fans | 2x | 1x |
| USB ports | 1x USB-C with DisplayPort | 1x USB-C with DisplayPort |
| External GPU connector | 1x Asus XG connector | No |
| Headphone jack | 1x | 1x |
| microSD slot | 1x | 1x |
| WiFi | WiFi 6E | WiFi 5 |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.2 | Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Fingerprint unlock | Yes | No |
| Haptic feedback | Yes | Yes |
Although the ROG Ally appears to squeeze more up-to-date tech into a smaller form factor – not unimportant, given this is a handheld – I wouldn’t count out the appeal of the Steam Deck’s overall design. Extra rear thumb buttons could make it outright better for those PC games that demand loads of separate key bindings, and its apparent extra thickness isn’t from general chunkiness. It’s from the deep, contoured hand grips, which make it a lot more comfortable to hold than, say, a Nintendo Switch, despite being bigger and heavier overall.
Asus ROG Ally vs Steam Deck: Storage
Once again, the ROG Ally opts for MAXIMUM SPECS, equipping itself with a PCIe 4.0 SSD and high-grade microSD card slot. The Steam Deck uses slower storage interfaces, though does offer more flexibility with capacities.
The non-Extreme ROG Ally model, set for sometime in Q3 2023, should match its bigger brother in having a 512GB SSD. Boy, it would be so annoying and embarrassing if Asus previously told me the standard Z1 model would only have a 256GB drive, which I’d then put in a news story, only for them to announce during the launch livestream that it would in fact be 512GB as well, so I’d have to go back and edit the story with far too much strikethrough text. Sooooo embarrassing, ha ha ha! Glad that never happened.
| Asus ROG Ally | Steam Deck | |
|---|---|---|
| Internal storage | 512GB SSD | 64GB eMMC / 256GB SSD / 512GB SSD |
| SSD interface | PCIe 4.0 | PCIe 3.0 |
| microSD card interface | UHS-II | UHS-I |
The ROG Ally’s choice of a whole new SSD generation should, in theory, give it a speed advantage; game load times tend to be quicker on PCIe 4.0 drives compared to PCIe 3.0 models.
It’s harder to say if its UHS-II microSD slot will yield similar benefits. This interface has a maximum read speed of 312MB/s, which is plainly faster than UHS-I’s 104MB/s, but those are theoretical and will rarely reflect actual transfer speeds. What’s more, whenever I’ve tested microSD cards on the Steam Deck, their gaming performance tends to come very, very close to equalling that of the top-spec 512GB SSD. That doesn’t leave much headroom for slightly faster microSD cards to find a clear advantage.
In any case, UHS-II is backwards compatible with UHS-I, so if you already have a UHS-I microSD card lying around, you can still pop it into the ROG Ally.
Asus ROG Ally vs Steam Deck: OS, game compatibility, and software
The Steam Deck’s game compatibility issues have been known since before it even went on sale. In practice, the Deck’s Linux-based SteamOS isn’t as restrictive as it sounds, and there are ways of getting non-Steam platforms like the Epic Games Launcher up and running. Even so, the ROG Ally is aiming to sidestep the compatibility question entirely through the use of Windows 11.
| Asus ROG Ally | Steam Deck | |
|---|---|---|
| Operating system | Windows 11 | SteamOS |
| Native compatible launchers | Steam, Epic Games Launcher, EA app, Xbox app, GOG, Ubisoft Connect, itch.io, theoretically anything else that runs on Windows | Steam |
| Control panel overlay | Yes (ROG Armoury Crate SE) | Yes (SteamOS) |
| Built-in upscaler | Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) | FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 1.0 |
You can, of course, install Windows on the Steam Deck and get the same compatibility benefits, though the ROG Ally will make all these other launchers available right out of the box. Through Asus’ ROG Armoury Crate SE software, it also copies one of the Steam Deck’s best features: a handy overlay providing quick access to display and performance settings.
Radeon Super Resolution is the ROG Ally’s upscaler of choice, and could come in useful when games with high hardware demands don’t want to run smoothly at native resolution. I’d give the edge here to the Deck’s FidelityFX Super Resolution implementation, though. FSR upscaling usually looks better than RSR, and because Valve baked it in at the OS level, it shares RSR’s usual advantage of working on any game regardless of developer support.
In truth, I’m also a little sceptical about how comfortable a typically mouse-operated operating system like Windows 11 will feel on a dinky handheld screen with no trackpads. The touchscreen will likely be useful for navigation, but ultimately it’s still a desktop OS being squished into a little pseudo-console. The Steam Deck’s version of SteamOS was built from the ground up to suit the device’s controls and screen, and even if it doesn’t support every launcher, still feels all the better for it.
.JPG?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=80&format=jpg&auto=webp)
Asus ROG Ally vs Steam Deck: Battery and power
The ROG Ally and Steam Deck both pack 40WHr batteries, something of a surprise given the ROG Ally needs to feed a faster and more pixel-rich display.
| Asus ROG Ally | Steam Deck | |
|---|---|---|
| Battery capacity | 40WHr | 40WHr |
| APU power | 9-30W (same for Z1 and Z1 Extreme) | 4-15W |
| Power supply | 65W | 45W |
That’s not enough to say that the ROG Ally will fall behind the Steam Deck’s battery life, at least not consistently. Valve’s handheld itself has showed how different games can produce vastly different uptimes, not to mention all the potential variables like screen brightness, flight mode, battery saving modes, speaker volume, or refresh rate changes. AMD’s Zen 4 architecture is supposedly a lot more power-efficient than previous generations, too.
Nonetheless, don’t expect the ROG Ally to last all day. The Steam Deck certainly doesn’t. Note also that the Asus ROG Ally uses a 65W charger, which will affect which USB hubs with power pass-through can adequately supply it while you’re playing.
Asus ROG Ally vs Steam Deck: Price
To some, this will be the most important piece of data there is. I’ve said it before but I am personally surprised that the ROG Ally isn’t more expensive, considering both its generally higher specs and Asus’ tendency to slap massive premiums on its ROG-branded gear. You only have to look at their gaming mice and keyboards to see that approach in action. But nope, the Z1 Extreme model is only $50 more than the equivalent 512GB Steam Deck. Once the standard Z1 model goes on sale, that will be $50 less.
| Asus ROG Ally | Steam Deck | |
|---|---|---|
| UK price | £699 (Z1 Extreme only, for now) | £349 (64GB) / £459 (256GB) / £569 (512GB) |
| US price | $599 (Z1) / $699 (Z1 Extreme) | $399 (64GB) / $529 (256GB) / $649 (512GB) |
Obviously there’s a difference between “cheaper than expected” and “cheap”, and the Steam Deck will remain the handheld PC to beat if you’re keen to minimise your outlay. A 64GB model with a decent 512GB microSD card will cost hundreds less than any ROG Ally variant.
When you’re also getting a higher-spec screen, newer APU, faster storage, and a much wider choice of compatible games? That could change things. Stay tuned our ROG Ally review, coming ASAP.
