ROG Ally X performance review: Better than the original in every way
The ROG Ally X is everything the original Ally should have been when it was launched last year. #asus #republicofgamers #rogallyx
The ROG Ally X is really what the original ROG Ally should have been and my experience with it has been mostly positive, with excellent quality-of-life upgrades such as having 24GB of DDR5 memory (games’ performance is better than on the vanilla Ally), up to 1TB of SSD plus an extra M.2 slot should you choose to upgrade and most importantly, an 80Wh battery that is twice as large as its predecessor so you can game twice as long now.
Other specs remain the same as the Ally, including using the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor and the 7-inch 1080p LCD screen.
The TL;DR version:
With all the great quality-of-life improvements over its predecessor, the ROG Ally X is now easily one of the best Windows gaming handheld you can get right now.
Note: The ROG Ally X is available now for S$1,199 at ASUS' e-store.
| ROG Ally | ROG Ally X | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | S$999 | S$1,199 |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor | AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor |
| Display | 7-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) 16:9 IPS-level touchscreen, 500nits, 100% of sRGB. 120Hz refresh rate, 7ms response time | 7-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) 16:9 IPS-level touchscreen, 500nits, 100% of sRGB. 120Hz refresh rate, 7ms response time |
| Memory | 16GB LPDDR5 on board | 24GB LPDDR5 on board |
| Storage | 512GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD | 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, one spare M.2 slot |
| I/O Ports |
|
|
| Network and Communication | Triple band Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) 2 x 2, Bluetooth 5.2 | Triple band Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) 2 x 2, Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Battery | 40WHrs | 80WHrs |
| Weight | 608g | 678g |
| Dimensions (W x D x H) | 28cm x 11.1cm x 2.12cm | 28cm x 11.1cm x 2.47cm |
On the inside there are more, albeit less obvious, improvements too. ASUS has tweaked the cooling system so that the processor can sustain higher clock speeds for longer. Even when it’s running at full power at 30W in Turbo mode, the Ally X is noticeably quieter than the original Ally.
ASUS has also addressed the issue of overheating SD card on the Ally, by repositioning the SD card reader on the Ally X so that there’s a larger gap between it and the nearby heatpipe. This should prevent the kind of thermal problems that Ally owners were facing. There’s also an additional USB-C port now, which replaces the proprietary ROG XG Mobile port. This supports Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery 3. It also means the ROG Ally X won’t work with the ROG external GPU but frankly, I don’t think many of us will miss this.
For the full rundown of the new features and improvements over the original ROG Ally handheld, you can read all about it in my ROG Ally X hands-on at Computex 2024. This article focuses on the performance of the ROG Ally X against its fellow gaming handhelds powered by the same Ryzen Z1 Extreme hardware.
The results are pretty positive for the ROG Ally X.
To be honest, I was not expecting the Ally X to be any faster than the vanilla Ally but as you can see from the benchmarks above, the evolved version is a little quicker – with a small caveat that this performance uplift only works for some games. You would also notice that running games in standard settings isn’t where the gains are seen but running them with FSR or XeSS upscaling where available and the Ally X suddenly gets a new lease of life. This is almost down to having double the memory count, but I suspect the better cooling system plays no small part too.
The battery life results are not surprising, with the ROG Ally X having literally double the battery capacity over the Ally. This came at a small cost though, with the Ally X weighing a wee bit more now at 678g (versus the Ally’s 608g) and sporting a bump in thickness at 2.47cm (versus the Ally’s 2.12cm), but these are not noticeable even after playing for a couple of hours. For comparison, the Legion Go's larger screen and detachable controllers make it much bulkier (4.1cm thick) and heftier (854g with the controllers). So the ROG Ally X is still quite portable in comparison.
Easily one of the best Windows gaming handheld now
With all the improvements made, the ROG Ally X now easily gives the Legion Go a run for its money as the best gaming handheld right now. I also like that it now sports a more ergonomic button layout, with the back buttons being made smaller, which should help reduce accidental presses during gameplay sessions. Additionally, the analog sticks and face buttons are now positioned at a more comfortable angle, making it easier and more comfortable for gamers to move their thumbs between them.
I wish ROG could have made more changes to the ROG Ally X, such as detachable controllers or a back stand, for example. Perhaps that would have been too radical and best left for a true Ally successor. The ROG Ally X also cost a couple of hundred dollars more than the Ally at S$1,199, but overall I think the increase is justifiable when all things considered – better hardware, usability, performance and battery life.
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