Asus Quietly Begins to Sell Cheap ROG Ally Console with Non-Extreme CPU
by Anton Shilov on September 20, 2023 8:30 AM EST
With a plethora of news coming from Intel early this week, it went almost unnoticed that Asus has begun to sell an inexpensive version of its ROG Ally portable game console. Unlike the original one, this unit carries AMD's Ryzen Z1 non-extreme accelerated processing unit that offers tangibly lower performance, which makes the gaming systems considerably less capable.
The original Asus ROG Ally portable game console for $699 is based on the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme system-on-chip featuring eight Zen 4 general-purpose cores and a Radeon GPU featuring 12 RDNA 3 compute units (768 stream processors). By contrast, the cheaper Asus ROG Ally is powered by the vanilla AMD Ryzen Z1 that has six Zen 4 cores and a Radeon GPU with four RDNA 3 compute units (256 stream processors), which translates into a 25% lower general-purpose performance and a whopping 67% lower graphics performance.
While a 20% lower CPU performance will inevitably affect game performance, it will not be a substantial performance drop; a 66% lower GPU performance will however dramatically drop framerates. Those gamers accustomed to the original ROG Ally performance based on the Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC will probably find framerates on the cheaper model in demanding games unplayable.
The cheaper version of the ROG Ally (RC71L-ALLY.Z1_512) is priced at $599 and can be ordered directly from Asus and Best Buy. By contrast, the higher-end version of the ROG Ally is officially priced at $699, and the unit is listed by virtually all retailers, including Amazon and Newegg. Whether $100 justifies up to 66% graphics performance degradation or not is something for everyone to decide, but it should be noted that getting an ROG Ally with Ryzen Z1 Extreme at its MSRP is pretty hard.
Asus says that the only difference between $699 and $599 ROG Ally is the SoC, so the cheaper model still has a 7-inch display with a resolution of 1920x1080 and a 120 Hz refresh rate, 16 GB of LPDDR-6400 memory, a 512 GB SSD, and similar controls. Unfortunately, it is impossible to upgrade the handheld game console, and the only way to improve its performance if it is not enough is to attach an external GPU using the company's proprietary ROG XG Mobile connector, which will cost well over $1000.
Source: TechPowerUp
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Dante Verizon - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
"While a 20% lower CPU performance will inevitably affect game performance, it will not be a substantial performance drop; a 66% lower GPU performance will however dramatically drop framerates"The difference won't be that big because in a TDP scenario and limited bandwidth, the iGPU with 12CU cannot express its full potential.
dontlistentome - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
Indeed, but 12 CUs at crippled clock will still easily beat 4 maxed out on power and performance.meacupla - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
The 12CU vs 4CU does make a huge difference.Z1 extreme pulls ahead consistently.
However, the CPU 8 core vs 6 core works in weird ways. The Z1 ends up being faster in a lot of benchmarks for pure CPU stuff.
This is in both 15W and 25W TDP modes.
NextGen_Gamer - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
It's been hard for me to find reliable reviews on the ROG Ally due to its Windows nature. Like when you mention the Z1 vs Z1 Extreme comparison, do we know for certain that both systems were tested using the same Windows 11 install, same Windows updates applied, same drivers across the board? Because all of those things can affect scores, especially in TDP constrained environments like handhelds.meacupla - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
There are only a bunch of reviews/comparisons from reputable and reliable sources out right now.Samus - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
It seems they should have considered four Zen 4 cores to keep the iGPU prioritized. Most of these games aren't CPU limited with such a weak GPU. I'm worried the decisions here are more marketing than engineering but what do I know I didn't design the thing maybe cutting CPU cores won't have a big impact on thermal headroom...Dante Verizon - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
six cores and 6CU seems like the perfect balance for efficiency.Skeptical123 - Thursday, September 21, 2023 - link
It looks like the main reason they launched this version was to have an option with a lower price point. Even if the $699 is a lot better value a lot of people may not be able or willing to go past a $599 sticker price.It’s likely ASUS never intended for an alternative SoC version but the $699 version was selling enough units they looked at their options to make a version with a lower cost to entry. It’s even possible Best Buy reached out to ASUS directly to lobby for a cheaper version.
FWhitTrampoline - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
Only 4 RDNA3 CUs and way less TMUs and ROPs enabled and that device is just too close to the Z1 Extreme based Ally. And there needs to be some direct Steam Deck to Ally(Z1 Non Extreme) testing as that's the competition there for this SKU.That Proprietary Plug solution is also a big minus because that limits the device to only the ASUS eGPU solutions. So I would avoid that until the price differential is at least $150 US dollars. And what about any SD card reader issues?
meacupla - Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - link
Hopefully they make an Ally2.