TL;DR
- ASUS held its ROG Ally launch event today.
- ASUS revealed the full specs, price, and release date.
- The AMD Ryzen Z1 model will be available in Q3 for $599.
- The AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme model will go on sale for $699 on June 13 with pre-orders starting today.
If you’ve been waiting to know more about the ASUS ROG Ally, today’s the day we got almost all of the pieces to the puzzle. ASUS held its launch event stream and gave us everything we needed to know about the ambitious PC handheld.
As we learned from previews and other confirmations, there will be two versions of the ROG Ally, and they’ll both run on Windows 11. The lower-spec variant will be equipped with an AMD Ryzen Z1 chip, capable of delivering 2.8 teraflops of processing power. While the beefed-up model contains an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC, which provides a whopping 8.6 teraflops.
Both versions sport a 1080p display that has 500 nits of brightness and a variable refresh rate ranging from 30Hz and 120Hz. We also knew some other general stats like Dolby Atmos, Wi-Fi 6E, UHS-II microSD storage, and having a quieter fan than the Steam Deck.
However, the launch event did a deep dive into the handheld’s specs. But it mostly focused on the Z1 Extreme model.
| ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) | |
|---|---|
|
Operating system |
Windows 11 |
|
Processor |
AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme |
|
RAM |
16 GB dual-channel LPDDR5 RAM |
|
Memory/ storage |
512 GB NVMe m.2 SSD |
|
Display |
7-inch IPS panel |
|
Ports |
3.5mm audio jack, USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 combo port with DisplayPort 1.4 support, UHS-II microSD card reader |
|
Battery |
40 WHrs |
|
Weight |
608g |
One of the most notable specs revealed is the processor. The processor is a eight-core/16 thread chip based on AMD Zen 4 core architecture with RDNA 3 graphics tech. This would be an upgrade from the Steam Deck’s Zen 3/RDNA 2 APU. According to ASUS, it’s capable of hitting CPU clock speeds up to 5.1GHz and GPU clock speeds up to 2.7GHz.
It was revealed that the Z1 Extreme version will sell for $699 with pre-orders starting today on Best Buy’s website. The system will release next month on June 13. However, the more cost-effective option, which will sell for $599, only received a launch window of Q3. As an added perk for buying the ASUS ROG Ally, you’ll get three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for free.
