I assume it will take a few more years , If it has a 2+4 Zen6/zen6c pcu + rdna 5 . its going to be a powerful little machine , ( prob around 2-3x performence , steamdeck chip was not a valve only chip , it was a duel project with a Augmented reality project , i assume they will make a special steamdeck 2 chip that's going to be perfect)
This is an amazing video. Really! You present the numbers neutrally and demonstrate the pros and cons of both devices. Well done, we need more videos channels to take this approach.
(This exact test is why I returned the Z1 non extreme for the Z1 Extreme Ally, great device but I need the extra performance. For $399 on sale it was not bad, but it made me miss my Steam Deck too much) for those wondering, I have the Z1 non extreme Rog Ally and I ran the test with the same settings. Rdr2 720p 15 watts Minimum FPS 23 Max FPS 66 Average FPS 43 Rdr2 720p 30 watts Minimum FPS 25 Max FPS 93 Average FPS 51 Rdr2 1080p 15 watts Minimum FPS 20 Max FPS 30 Average FPS 25 Rdr2 1080p 30 watts Minimum FPS 25 Max FPS 34 Average FPS 29 Dying Light 720p @ 15 watts Average FPS 45 720p @ 30 watts Average FPS 53 1080p @ 15 watts Average FPS 27 1080p @ 30 watts Average FPS 32 GTA V 720p @ 15 watts Average FPS 70 720p @ 30 watts Average FPS 80 1080p @ 15 watts Average FPS 33 1080p @ 30 watts Average FPS 42
Thank you very much for your comment. I wish there were more comparisons out there between the Z1 and the LCD deck being that they're the budget devices. I think there's a good portion of people debating getting something that's steam deck equivalent and runs windows.
@@reggiexp69 yes it is the z1 edition these test were ran on, I have a Steam Deck, a Rog Ally z1 extreme and I had a z1 non extreme, some test i did the z1 non extreme did out perform the steam deck whereas they had the same settings , but in these 3 games with the exact same settings as the video above it reflected as shown on these numbers. The z1 non extreme is a great device, especially at $399 because the specs as a general pc will out perform the steam deck, but in gaming performance it won some and lost some. I say if you plan to get a Steam Deck and intend to install windows, than get the z1 non extreme on sale, in windows the ally non extreme is fast, no on-screen keyboard not showing up issues, and it will perform well enough and even better by changing a setting or 2. But I purchased my z1 non extreme for $399 and my z1 extreme for $491 openbox (which openbox is hit and miss, you might be better off with a z1 non extreme new rather that a open box z1 extreme....but thats a different story that I sorted out myself)
@@GetOffMyTech 399$ is cool but as a european... its 499€ for a z1 and 650€ for a z1 extrem and i got my refurbished 512 gb steam deck lcd for 379€ what is a steal for me. a couple days ago the 64gb for 299€ and 256gb 339€ came back in stock i would have prefered a 64gb and upgraded it my self but at the time they only had 512gb refursbised, saw a deal today of a new z1 extrem for 585€ what is crazy cheap even 2nd hand they still want 500-600€ and u never know if its the z1 or extreme model til u receive it... for 500€ i would try a z1 extrem and see how i like it vs steam deck lcd. but for now am glad with my cheap steam deck :)
Best comparison on youtube hands down. I've been looking for one for a long time, which shows the actual max power the Ally has compared to the Deck, everyone seems to bottleneck it's performance to match the SD's limitations in power consumption. THANK YOU!
😂😂😂я тебя разочарую он специально показывает такую производительность на Ally что бы это говно покупали.Где он взял на Oled в DOOM 40 кадров😂😂😂😂.У меня лично в DOOM и DOOM ETERNAl идут в 80-90 ФПС на ультрах 😂😂😂😂
Having all 3 I gotta say, overall Ally is the best but Deck OLED is my preference..... I know it sounds stupid but that's reality, Ally to me is just better in nearly every way, but I loved Deck OLED more 😂
i dont know man... besides outright power its hard for me to make a case for the ally, owning both i can reel off a list of reasons why the deck is better while i start struggling with reasons for the ally after power and VRR. The decks battery is significantly better, the whole user experience is more refined, steam input is so powerful in comparison to the ally alternative which is just keymapping, steam input is a whole community driven custom input software. Often ill come across a game i just cant play on my ally that i can on the deck because there is a community made setup ready to go. I want to say the Ally display is better in some ways because it is, the resolution difference is noticeable but the deck OLED display is often wow especially in a dark room. i think the deck is more comfortable, has better sticks, touch pads are super useful in many games (playing rimworld a lot right now for example, easy on deck, wank on ally) I love my ally but i like the OLED deck more... and i dont struggle to find reasons why at all lol
@@jinx20001 As much as I love my Deck OLED but tbh it's a bit overrated in my opinion, people tend to forget how much they missing without Ally.... What I like about Deck OLED are these: 1. Battery life is another level 2. Once setup it's easy to use and doesn't cause issues, more user friendly 3. OLED screen (only slightly I prefer it as VRR in Ally + Ally having one of best LCD screen colors/contrast I saw in handheld hence OLED not major upgrade to me. Now if we look what I prefer in Ally: 1. Dare I say this but software: reason being I can get same as Deck experience using Steam big picture, my Ally setup in a way where it launches into steam big picture which is configured to match Deck UI, for emulation I used Emudeck like I have on my Deck, they literally offer same experience apart of some features of both, these features are device control which I prefer Ally on due to more customisability in settings..... But the biggest software advantage is the amount of games supported + games stability overalls, it's just way ahead in this, so many games on Deck I struggled to run or can't even run, but on Ally it supports them all without issues, new games launches are even worse on Deck. 2. Ergonomics and comfort is simply better, having that trackpad on Deck is nice but I use joysticks 95% of time than trackpads, sacrificing their positioning not ideal for me. 3. Ally speakers simply alot better, Deck OLED improved over Deck but Ally still ahead in this 4. CPU boost "off" performance simply exceed deck even at 15W and at 22W it's not even comparable 5. Having windows simply makes life easier outside of gaming, Desktop experience of Deck exceeded my expectations but Windows still way ahead in desktop mode 6. Game pass, this is big one to me, in a handheld I like to try multiple games sometimes, game pass enables that for me for cheap and now the app runs so seamless on Ally makes it even better 7. Charging speed is something I didn't like Deck on, expected better tbh, while Ally spot on, but battery size plays a role also in here, so still prefer having Deck battery over Ally charging speed the reason I love Deck OLED more is because how impressive battery management is, I used to carry Powerbank with Ally all the time but with Deck OLED I forget about it..... I didn't expect Deck to have as many game launching issues as I faced but once they solved then it's not a problem anymore, Ally is same experience once it's setup properly like I did, it's just a sweet little device Overall my ultimate device will be: Ally with Deck OLED battery life..... Hence I said to me Ally is the best still, but I love Deck OLED more, it's like a slower more fun car vs a car Better in every way but less smiles
@@jinx20001 Honestly, the Ally is better plugged in, but the OLED is the better handheld. Better battery life, better ergonomics and even the weight is the same if you got the Limited Edition OLED despite a 25% bigger battery. I'll take the OLED all day every day. VRR is nice but I never run with my frame rates uncapped because it crushes the battery anyway. I'm looking to get a Legion Go though. That big screen is a real differentiator and I'm willing to bet the performance will be as good or better than the Ally with some software fixes.
The worst part about Rog Ally, is that everyone call the Rog Ally Extreme.. just Rog Ally also.. so looking at benchmarks, you have no idea what model they test.
Very good video. Thank you for your dedication. As a side note, I have noticed that playing games on the SD with their own "Steam Deck" mode is the best way to play them, even better than going all the way to low settings.
23:08 "double framerate double power" Except the ROG Ally would probably run within 10% of the same performance at 20 watts as it does at 30 watts, while getting (approximately) 1.5x better battery life. The Z1E chip is almost always going to give you the best performance per-watt at 20 watts. Similarly Steamdeck usually sees diminishing returns in performance per-watt when power draw is above 10 watts.
I agree, I never use 30W. The only reason I test it is because most people will just use the default profiles and Turbo is 30W. I prefer 17W at 900p myself on the Ally. I feel it's a great mix and I use RIS (Radeon Image Sharpening) so it looks extremely close to 1080p and awesome FPS :)
The SD performance is impressive! Personally, if I didn't already have so many games on Xbox and Gamepass and didn't get the Ally for such a super low price? I would've definitely chosen a SD OLED. Couldn't justify re-purchasing so many games on Steam for hundreds of dollars.
It has surprised me as well. I've been blown away by what it can run and how long the battery lasts. And I completely get not wanting to re-buy a bunch of games. The Xbox is also an awesome console for 4k gaming. Super quiet and amazing graphics. If I wasn't solely in the Steam eco system for games, I'd have gone the microsoft route.
SD are very good at low TDP but way more hotter (20° more on SD @12W!!) and VRAM's consumers than Ally. Ally is way more versatile IMO, happy with mine :)
Super interesting behavior between the 12w and 15w. The ROG Ally seems to struggle at 12w compared to the steam deck but at 15w it seems to gain a much better bump to performance over the steam deck. My take away is that 15w is the sweet spot for the Ally.
So basically if you choose to play games mostly at 720p and an 18-20W TDP, you're likely to get a super smooth 60 fps experience in most games on the ROG Ally X, is that correct? Plus, the Ally X has a native landscape 120Hz screen, which means there will be less compatibility issues with older games due to the screen orientation and resolution compared to the Steam Deck's native portrait screen. That is awesome!
You can see that the APUs are memory bandwidth starved at 1080p. The deck only has 4 cores, so it makes sense it does better at lower WATTS. I'd love it if you put Nobara on the Ally with the community patches and compared the performance vs Windows.
its kinda wild how good the steam deck is at lower wattage, we know the ally and other 7840u devices need some juice to wake up properly, most likely thanks to the extra cores that all need juice for stability. Im always impressed how good my deck is at low wattage, some games i can legit play at 3w and get 12 hours out of the battery, my ally needs 10w just to get going really, i can play some games at 7w like dead cells and achieve 4 hours battery or so but its just not performant at all below 10w. I think the decks performance at low wattage is more impressive than the ally at 30w plus because with all that juice the only thing you can think of is that battery drainage, you can almost watch it drop in real time its so bad. The extra power is nice to have but really not realistic away from the wall. In the real world the deck kills it.
Steam Deck gets 90-95% of its perf at 12w. Going to 15w is almost useless. At 12w the fan is quiet and battery life is 2hrs minimum. Its crazy how performance Valve made thw thing on such low power.
I've really been enjoying it. I was playing a game called Dungeon Defenders last night and saw over 7 hours of battery left at a 45FPS cap. Then I loaded up Doom 3 and it was still over 6 hours. I played for a while last night and still have 86% this morning, crazy good battery.
What an amazing time for players we live in! Lately I am playing Forza Horizon 4 and Rise of the Tomb Raider in 60 fps on my Steam Deck LCD lying in my bed 😊
I really wish you would clarify in the title or in the description if it's the Ally Z1 or Z1 Extreme. It makes so much more sense to compare the Z1 non-extreme to the Steam Deck.
I actually return my oled steam deck , don’t get me wrong beautiful screen , but men does tedious steps you need for certain games to work it’s a pain , purchase the rog ally n no regrets downloaded every launchers without problems and run every game across every launcher with no problems.
It depends on which games you’re running, I myself don’t sit hours playing my devices, But you can’t go wrong with any device you pick , you buy what you like, the end of the day it’s your money spend it how you want.
what was the Ally vram setting? may explain some of those lower fps compared to the SD in some of those games. Also if you can add more games that recently came out like Baldurs gate 3 to your benchmarks would be very appreciated. Want to see how the SD runs newer games as longevity is also a factor to consider when purchasing. As valve stated no true successor in the near future.
Would be interesting to see 1% low data, since while the steam deck usually has lower fps compared to some competition their 1% lows are usually much better/more consistent
15W is a great level, I also use 17W as it gives a little bit more performance. My personal watt settings are 12W (for battery), 17W (for most use cases) and 25W (for performance).
2 years of owning my original 64 gig SD and it is still going, not one sungle issue in all thst time, 9 months of having 2 Rogs were both would overheat and destroyed two 256 gig SD cards and one just outright stopped booting........as you can imagine the Rog is gone, SD all the way from here on in, oh and my 64 gig SD uses a 14in portable oled monitor these days, pure bliss.
Thanks again for your work. Thing is the Deck sees virtually no gain after 12w. Even at 10w to 15 the gain usually isnt huge. So for the deck you essentially can run games at 10w that the ally runs at 15w at the same or near same fps giving a huge battery advantage. While i am done with the Candy bar style handhelds, if i did buy another one it would be the oled deck simply because of battery and steam OS. If you play plugged in all the time, then the Ally should be the winner for you.
@@BuDDaHStefaN There arent a lot of options just the gpd win mini and the upcoming aya flip. I have the mini coming in. Its still a 7" screen but the size of a xbox controller while folded. Just more narrow. The phawx has a few videos on it. I loved my deck and really liked the ally, but portability just was bad with both of them. Was annoying to carry them in their cases every day. I hope nintendo's next system is a clam shell and that will change the entire industry as they all copy what nintendo does.
@@creaturecore13 My only problem with those clamshells is ergonomics are terrible on them. I'm spoiled by the Steam Deck, Nintendo has never cared much about ergonomics and I have adult sized hands.
@@Invid72they are the size of an xbox controller, so if your hands cant fit on an xbox controller i don't know what to tell you, but fairly certain your hands aren't as big as you think they are. That said i would never recommend a Chinese handheld to anyone that doesn't know what they are doing with these devices. So if you arent versed in fixing windows issues stick to the deck.
@@creaturecore13 There's more to ergonomics than size. If you like clam shells feel free to like them. I think they have serious balance issues but you don't have to. Fixing Windows issues isn't difficult, I just don't want to when there are better alternatives that have controller-first UIs. I wish the Chinese mfgs would put more effort into their software: You can change settings, launch and kill apps, change windows and never take your hands off the controller with the Deck. That's what I mean by controller first. That will probably need Microsoft to make it happen though.
When playing a CPU intense game and limiting watts it can become CPU bound. Which is why you'll see the usage drop. You get a lot more per watt when the game isn't taxing the CPU much and instead loads the GPU up.
Can you add Arkham Knight to testing? You need to play with settings but, you can find optimized ones. I am going to look for them, if you notice this comment.
The performance on my LCD SD is just fine for my needs however the cooler temps of the OLED model are appealing. I feel like I’m cooking my SD sometimes and I kinda wish I could get the same performance but with cooler temps
Actually oled performance is not different than lcd the 6nm not happening on snapdragon same as AMD but they said it's for downloading system not gpu turbo
Considering where the ally started this is pretty impressive. Games that leverage the extra cores of the ally are probably why the performance varies. Steam deck is a great device but i really wanted to buy one in person so i went with the ally
i went with the Ally over the decks recently and i regret nothing. I got it open box at best buy and since it was one of the early models (z1 extreme, tho) it had the SD card issue so i sent it back for free repairs. That being said, it ran both regular games and emudeck emulations like a dream til then and it seems to be getting a lot of support from Asus with loads of updates since launch and recently they talked about adding AMD's FMF tech in a near-future update which would actually completely knock it out of the park for this things pricepoint. Can't wait to get mine back and continue adding loads of emulators on it, especially once i get that new 2tb sd card.
Can you do the test plugged in (for oled and Z1 extreem) to see whats best case scenario. This will show what you get when docked. The 15w and 30w comparisonnis welcome. Imo just missing the docked performance comparison.
The prices for a LCD steam deck and a Rog Ally are pretty much same where i live What should I go for if i want to play a couple of AAA games for an hour or two with decent fps ?
Great video, basically 12w Steam Deck does better, 15w-30w the Ally does better, was expected to be honest, love my Ally, asus really paying attention to the costumers and giving us all the updates, heavier games we can really appreciate the extra performance, no complaints at all, the performance just got better with all the latest bios and updates, Last of Us Part 1, Resident Evil 4, Village, Halo Infinite, Crysis Remastered Trilogy, Doom Eternal, etc everything runs fast and smooth well above 60fps mostly on the heavier titles, wouldn't mind having a deck to try it though, not hate at all, but performance i prefer the Ally, pretty used to windows and everything else
The Ally is superb for more PC like performance. I like the OLED a lot too as it gets really good battery and is much more console like. But it's also limited in some ways. And like you said Asus has really improved and refined the Ally. The only thing I'd like to see now is a TDP slider that uses the quieter fan curves. So we can quickly adjust the TDP from command center to any level we like (like what's on the Legion Go). Thanks for swinging by and glad you enjoyed the video :)
@@filt3rless well since the updates I've been messing around with the 15w performance instead of the 25w turbo and I'm quite surprised, I don't know what asus is doing but it's working, on some games I get double the battery life and not much loss in fps, about 15-20fps less, sometimes smaller gap and great battery life, keeping the same preset for me 900p is the sweetspot, runs and looks great in every game, mostly mid-high settings, great video and comparison, a glad to see someone giving some love to the Ally some of the deck community have some real " hate " for the Ally 😅 I don't get it, it's a great product, wasn't perfect at launch, but right now ? Nearly perfect, just runs better, smoother, at a higher resolution and refresh that's just facts some people can't accept it, that doom 2016 caught me off guard, the gains with the extra performance in some games are crazy
@@RubenNeves22 Awesome, 15W is great now. It used to not be that great, but at 900p it works really well. I've even found some games run at 12w pretty good. In one of my tests the Ally actually got the same battery life as the Steam Deck LCD model. Which is pretty impressive. And the Ally IMO is still one of the best windows handheld. You get VRR, unbelievable sound, controls feel great, it's still portable (not too big), useful software, it's very easy to take apart and replace modular parts, etc. I feel like Asus focused on actually playing games more than any other windows handheld. They give you the core things that matter most for a "handheld".
@filt3rless that's true, the fact that is smaller and lighter does make a huge difference, the Deck, Legion etc side by side are alot bigger, some of them I even consider that defeat the purpose of being an actual hand-held, I think even in 2024 the Ally is a good contender and buy, beats most of the competition
I did notice one thing. During one of your games you had such a good FPS on both steam decks but lower ok the ally. Looked closer and you were at about a 6GB v ram vs right below 4Gb vram on the ally. This may have been the difference. I don't know If steamdeck makes it valuable based on need or based on game settings.
OpenGL renderer in Doom is notoriously inconsistent and can yield inconsistent results depending on a lot of factors. I reckon that with Vulkan you'll see different numbers on both. Already downloading the game on my LCD Deck (while eagerly waiting OLED to finally arrive) to compare it myself 🙃
Just tested it on my LCDeck and yes, OpenGL is a stuttery mess with all kinds of framerate issues, while Vulkan runs at perfect 60FPS even with Ultra graphics preset
The Ally has a lot more CPU power, and some more GPU power, when power constrained the CPU takes a lot of juice from the GPU and the FPS suffer, on games that rely a lot more in CPU the Ally gets more FPS than the Deck
100%. I usually use 17W at 900p and 5GB of VRAM and it's an amazing experience. I can't decide which one I want to use primarily 🤣. If the Ally had the battery life from the OLED it'd be the easiest choice ever as that's the main thing that bugs me with the Ally.
Hey, yeah the 3080 is a BEAST! I can't believe how small it is, it's definitely "mobile" as it's as thin as the Ally. The only thing I don't like is the fan is pretty loud in Turbo. It's awesome that it scales with the power settings. I've been using G-Helper and running Balanced / 17W. So it gives the CPU 17W, the temps are great and the 3080 stays relatively quiet. Another thing I've been doing is putting the system in Hibernate mode instead of shutting down. For some reason every time I restart or shut down the device, it duplicates the displays. Hibernate saves the settings of only displaying to the external monitor.
@@filt3rless ah, I’ve noticed that dupe window quirk too! I thought it was just me. To me, the XG Mobile experience really transforms the Ally quite a bit, and it gives it a huge boost in terms of usefulness over the Deck and others. I’d love to see some useful content around it, if you ever decide to do more with it. I don’t see much content in the XG Mobile with the Ally outside of some comparisons and performance benchmarks. But having some deep dives, tips/tricks, etc…that could be really useful (and unique) content. Keep up the good work dude.
@@cloudcultdev Thanks man :) Very few devices make me feel that "wow" factor and the XG is one of them. I was just realizing it's more portable than just the power brick I have to carry around for my gaming laptop... Amazing. I'll probably make a video on it. One thing that is an issue is plugging in a fast SSD to the USB ports. The connection speeds seem to drop to 0 frequently making it where loading steam games off an external SSD is a poor experience. Also one last tip that you probably already did, but you'll want to use "Auto" for VRAM so you get access to the 16GB's of system memory. With the Ally set to 5GB, it'll still have all that ram dedicated to the iGPU (which isn't in use). And Auto works pretty well now for handheld play when you're not docked to the XG.
@@filt3rless yeah that’s a really good tip. I had to look back at my Ally; I still had to hard set to 5G. So glad you said something. I think a video about the XG Mobile with the Ally specifically would be really useful (but realistically there’s probably not a lot of us out here, honestly). I’d be curious how it doesn’t you post it up. I’m pretty happy seeing your channel grow…been here since pretty much the beginning.
@@cloudcultdev Thanks, I'll probably do a video on it even though like you said it's a very small amount of users. But it'll still help everyone who has one out. I found I prefer G-Helper as well for connecting/disconnecting as it's more seamless and gives you more control over the GPU.
I'd get the Steam Deck LCD for much lower price, if the higher refresh rate really matters all that much you can just build a PC for the same money that will beat all the 3 consoles, but if you want a handheld that's just pick up and play the base LCD cheaper Steam Deck is the best option, the 90Hz screen is not much use when the APU is still the same instead of a more powerful one
The ally has gotten way better at 25 watts it absolutely smokes the steam deck double the performance in most games I try for 10 watts more draw so worth it makes an unplayable games at 25 fps on the deck go to 50 or 60 on the ally people saying the performance isn’t that much better are insane it’s huge I have both and the ally is way more powerful even at 15 watts in cpu heavy games it smokes the deck
Is it me or this test shows the steam deck is very capable and efficient at the same time? I've gone for the steam deck oled at launched and I've been impressed so far. I like my nintendo switch oled but the deck is like switch oled in steroids.
Yes, it's like the Nintendo switch but I can play almost any game. It's surprisingly good. I feel like Valve basically perfectly mixed power/battery. I cap everything to 45FPS (sometimes 60 in FPS games) and I get great battery life, it's almost silent, and still very playable. One other thing the steam deck does surprisingly well, is automatically reduce usage based on just an FPS cap. So there is no need to use a TDP cap. Instead, just set the FPS and it'll automatically bring the power usage down to give you great battery life. This is something no windows handheld (or laptop) is able to do properly. Even Auto TDP on windows isn't as good as what the steam deck does by default.
Honestly, I think ASUS should take the "Z1 Mediocre", OC the crap out of it, sell it with no battery, and a super high performance cooling system in it's place. This would make it a handheld monster, at a price point that competes with the Steam Deck, and most Ally owners would love it, since everyone I talk to that owns one, plays plugged in all the time anyways. It would also be much lighter, making it much more comfortable to hold for long periods. They could take it even further, and sell it with no screen, and cut a deal with Xreal, to sell it with a pair of their AR Smartglasses, at a discount. This would reduce their product cost even further, making it that much more competitive with the Steam Deck, and would capture a part of the market that Valve likely won't address.
Does turning off turbo boost help in some of these games that don't need so much CPU horse power? I wonder if that's a factor as it should allow the GPU to boost up higher
From my testing having CPU boost off can help with stability. And it allows for the device to use less power/heat when capping FPS. There is much more of a bonus having it off than having it on in my opinion. Even when I emulate BOTW I prefer to leave it off and have slightly lower fps but better temps.
I had sd lcd is there a setting to made the cooling system better 😎 I really don't trust ally and lenovo go after thrie android phones don't give me any new software's just two unlike Samsung updates fir 7y they said steam deck is Samsung style I had lcd vr and I don't like to lose money for oled or other wired company without software ironic the different between ally and ally x is less than year same when one x player they made 4 systems in one year and other 4 after one year, everyone hate talking bad about steam lcd but in fact the sd led was stronger than oled & the ally after dropp teast and screen takes hot air
And better software and upgrade not making a new mode in less than one year this a pc not android phone soon you will had ally x after two day's you will see Ally Z
