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English => Reviews => Topic started by: Redaktion on May 11, 2023, 16:15:45

Title: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Redaktion on May 11, 2023, 16:15:45
The Asus ROG Ally is a powerful gaming handheld and a direct competitor for Valve's Steam Deck. Thanks to powerful hardware from AMD, which is based on the latest Zen4 Phoenix mobile processors, the gaming handheld even handles modern games smoothly.


https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Ally-Z1-Extreme-Review-Gaming-handheld-with-120-Hz-display-and-AMD-Zen4.716680.0.html
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Yeshy on May 11, 2023, 17:01:28
I would like to see 720p (or 800p) medium settings benchmarks in "recent" games (any of Returnal / Spiderman / Control / Witcher / SotTR)

having 60fps vsync/frame capped power results would also be interesting where applicable

(esp. compared to normal 780M and 680M)

Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Vilmir on May 11, 2023, 17:08:02
Less than 1 hour of gameplay on battery.
So you have to play near a plug, all the time. And for that price, you can get a way more powerful 15' with a 3060.
I am really puzzled by this new product category.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Abc on May 11, 2023, 23:59:10
Quote from: Vilmir on May 11, 2023, 17:08:02Less than 1 hour of gameplay on battery.
So you have to play near a plug, all the time. And for that price, you can get a way more powerful 15' with a 3060.
I am really puzzled by this new product category.

Well yes. If you can lug a 15" around you can get better performance. In fact, a desktop at $600 can have even more impressive performance if you do not care about portability at all.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: nbcheck_fan on May 12, 2023, 01:59:55
Amazing review! Thank you for your hard work! I am now waiting for the AOKZOE A1 Pro test and comparison. :)
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: jihadjoe on May 12, 2023, 04:09:17
I wonder if the TDP is configurable. Phoenix Point is certainly more efficient than the SoC in Steam Deck, if the Rog Ally can be configured down to 25W or even 15W this should result in much longer battery life when playing less demanding games.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Sivious on May 12, 2023, 05:26:03
Quote from: Vilmir on May 11, 2023, 17:08:02Less than 1 hour of gameplay on battery.
So you have to play near a plug, all the time. And for that price, you can get a way more powerful 15' with a 3060.
I am really puzzled by this new product category.

1. Have you considered you can just turn the resolution down or cap the FPS to get more battery life?
2. People want to play games laying down.
3. Seems like the Steam Deck's sold about a million units, so a lot of people are not nearly as puzzled as you are.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Kairoku on May 12, 2023, 11:36:02
What is the freesync range?
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: GameXGR on May 12, 2023, 13:25:53
Quote from: Vilmir on May 11, 2023, 17:08:02Less than 1 hour of gameplay on battery.
So you have to play near a plug, all the time. And for that price, you can get a way more powerful 15' with a 3060.
I am really puzzled by this new product category.
At 15 watt it already handily beats the steam deck and will get 2-3 Hours easily (almost all gaming laptops have worse battery life when gaming than that) , Turbo mode is only useful when hooking up an eGPU or docking it up (so it won't use up the battery), and laptops have to be plugged in as well to be anywhere near being up to their speed, and not to mention that a desktop is better if you care about price/performance. People still buy gaming laptops with <1 hour battery life and much worse price/performance than desktops because they want something portable, so people will buy Handhelds with worse price/performance and battery life (unless you are smart enough to not blast it in turbo all the time), for more portability.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Rawr on May 12, 2023, 16:22:30
Quote from: Vilmir on May 11, 2023, 17:08:02Less than 1 hour of gameplay on battery.
So you have to play near a plug, all the time. And for that price, you can get a way more powerful 15' with a 3060.
I am really puzzled by this new product category.

Gaming laptops will have around 1-2 hours of realistic gameplay when on battery too, not to mention a big hit on performance when on battery.

The steam deck has similar battery life so there is a demand for this.

Besides, if you play less demanding games, I can easily see this lasting 3-5 hours like the deck.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: TMMM on May 12, 2023, 20:13:42
Does it have HDR screen?
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: ViktrDm on May 12, 2023, 21:22:54
When will the xg mobile 4090 benchmarks be added?
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: SAimNE on May 13, 2023, 02:38:10
Looks like a somewhat solid piece of hardware, but it's really really strange that the steam deck wasn't in all the comparisons... it's kinda the most important benchmark to compare with.

Anyway it seems like in the vast majority of cases you'll still be playing on low, and with less optimization than you get with steamOS. I.e. hogwarts legacy ran at 40+ on steamdeck even before the performance patch and now runs at 60+.

I would think a more important comparison on these heavier games would be what this handheld gets at 720p, because almost everyone will sacrifice resolution to stay around 60fps or higher.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Will G on May 14, 2023, 00:00:24
I see resizeable bar disabled ?

Does it not support this feature. If it did what performance improvement would it give ?
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: asdflkjg on May 15, 2023, 07:42:35
Looks like the depth comparison may be off. Maybe you're using steam deck's max dimensions (including triggers and joysticks) vs. the Ally's min dimensions?
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Stratospheric on May 15, 2023, 13:30:13
Finally a modern device without AMOLED. Amen 🙏.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Dorby on May 15, 2023, 17:31:49
Quote from: TMMM on May 12, 2023, 20:13:42Does it have HDR screen?
HDR requires OLED or miniLED by default, so no.
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Pako on May 16, 2023, 17:21:05
Hmmm... Did you observe the performance drop when plugged in? (yes, plugged in as reported by The Phawx && DigitalFoundry)

As with every other overview of this device, I'm baffled that there is no mention about the gyro not being enabled yet. When will be the time to mention that?
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: d on May 17, 2023, 07:28:25
I saw the YouTube reviews and some of them mention the X button becoming stuck... what do you think, is this an issue worth mentioning and adding in the final score?
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: Dou on May 17, 2023, 15:32:03
What about the video ouptut of this usb-c port, is it capable of 4k 120hz with HDR in 4:4:4 ? via the Display Port 1.4 protocol + DSC ?
Title: Re: Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Review - Gaming handheld with 120 Hz display and AMD Zen4
Post by: MrGold on May 23, 2023, 15:42:59
Just an FYI, the TFLOP performance quoted here is FP16 tflops not FP32 (the more common one). FP32 performance is about 4.1 Tflops and even that is a bit misleadingas it would put it on par with the XBox Series S and the Ally is not on the same league. It can't output same performance and display resolution at similar settings.