The Asus ROG Ally’s price just leaked — and it's not as much as we expected.
Price has been the primary question we’ve had about the ROG Ally since it was announced. We originally thought it could cost around $1,000 (around £800 / AU$1,507), based on the handheld's specs. However, according to several sources, the ROG Ally won't cost nearly that much.
Take all of this with a grain of salt, but a leaked screenshot from Best Buy posted by Wickedkhumz, another leak from SnoopyTech, and data shown to The Verge by leaker Roland Quandt claims that the Asus ROG Ally will reportedly cost $699 (around £559 / AU$1,053).
This model supposedly packs the recently announced AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. AMD also announced the Ryzen Z1 chip, though it’s unclear whether or not there will be another model with that processor. But even if the Z1 Extreme-powered handheld is the only available model, it’s still just $50 more than the Steam Deck.
The ROG Ally measures 11.0 x 4.4 x 0.5 inches and weighs 1.3 pounds. In contrast, the Steam Deck measures 11.73 x 4.60 x 1.93 inches and weighs 1.5 pounds. Overall, Asus' handheld is smaller and weighs less than the Steam Deck.
The ROG Ally has a 7-inch display 120Hz 16:9 display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Asus says it can hit 500 nits of brightness. The Steam Deck also has a 7-inch display, but it has a maximum resolution of 1280 x 800 and a 60Hz refresh rate. Valve says the Steam Deck can hit 400 nits of brightness but it peaked at 170 nits of brightness in our lab test.
As mentioned above, the Asus ROG Ally packs a new AMD Ryzen Z1 series processor, which features RDNA3 architecture-based graphics. The new chips have up to 8 cores and 16 threads and have the efficiency of Zen 4 architecture, according to AMD. AMD's new processors are built on x86 architecture and are compatible with Windows 11.
The AMD Ryzen Z1 series is a custom Zen 4 RDNA3 4nm APU. The Steam Deck also uses an AMD APU, but its CPU is based on Zen 2 architecture while the GPU uses RDNA 2. This chip has four Zen 2 cores and eight RDNA 2 compute units. In comparison, the AMD Ryzen Z1 has six Zen 4 cores and 4 RDNA 3 compute units.
Asus claims the ROG Ally has double the performance of the Steam Deck. The company told Linus Tech Tips, who also previewed the system, that the Ally is twice as fast as the Steam Deck at 35 watts — with the latter topping out at 15W. The Ally might not hit 35W at launch but it would place the APU in AMD’s U-series chips, which go between 15W and 28W.
Outlook
At $699, the Asus ROG Ally stands a chance to go head-to-head with the popular Steam Deck. Price was one of our concerns about the ROG Ally but that’s now been resolved. Game compatibility is now the main thing we have questions about. Just because a game can run on Windows 11 doesn’t necessarily mean it will run well, especially considering the ROG Ally runs on a new processor. But if developers optimize games to run on the Ally as they do on Steam Deck, Asus’ handheld could give Valve’s device stiff competition.
The Asus ROG Ally is expected to release on May 11. We’ll have a review for you then. In the meantime, be sure to read our Asus ROG Ally hands-on preview to hear what we think of the handheld.
