ASUS wants to take the gaming market by storm. The ROG Ally console, easily the most interesting gaming product announced this month, is now confirmed for worldwide release. The company further teases that the ROG Ally launch could happen sooner than everyone expects.

The Ally console is a handheld device with a 7-inch 1080p 120Hz screen that will run Windows games. It is considered an upcoming competitor to Steam Deck, equipped with AMD Zen2 and RDNA2 custom APU. The Ally is said to deliver twice the performance at the same power limit of 35W, and 50% better framerate in 15W mode, as stated by YouTuber Linus Sebastian, who is one of the first public demos of this console.

Still, the expectations must be put straight, explains YouTuber The Phawx, an expert in all things portable gaming. Given the upgrade to Zen4 and RDNA3 architectures, the performance will undoubtedly be better than Zen2 and Zen3 consoles. However, the variety of Windows titles, some of which are more CPU or GPU bound, will not always translate into the same framerate boost.

Naturally, the success of this launch will come down to price. The best and the latest example would be the $599 GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. On the one hand, it is a powerful desktop GPU with 12GB VRAM, but on the other hand, it struggles to convince gamers who were offered similar performance at nearly the same price for months prior.

That said, to succeed, ROG Ally also has to be priced right. As long as rumors are considered, the console should launch this quarter with a price tag around $650. However, ASUS is yet to confirm the full specs, release date and pricing.

Handheld Gaming Consoles
VideoCardz ASUS ROG Ally Steam Deck Nintendo Switch OLED
Picture
Architecture AMD Zen4 & RDNA3 AMD Zen2 & RDNA2 ARM Cortex
APU Custom Ryzen 7040U AMD Van Gogh NVIDIA Tegra X1
SoC CPU TBC 4C/8T @ 3.5 GHz 4x A57 + 4x A53
SoC GPU AMD RDNA3 AMD RDNA2 8 CUs @ 1.6 GHz NVIDIA Maxwell 256 CUDA
Memory TBC 16GB LPDDR5-5500 4GB LPDDR4-3200
Storage TBC 64GB eMMC (PCIe Gen2x1)
256GB/512GB NVMe (PCIe Gen3x4)		 64GB
Display 7″ 1920×1080 120Hz 7″ 1280×800 60Hz 7″ 1280×720 60 Hz OLED
Connectivity TBC Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5 WiFi 5,
Battery TBC 40 Whr 4310 mAh
Weight 608 g 669 g 420g
Dimensions 28.0 x 11.3 x 3.9 mm 29.8 x 11.7 x 4.9 cm 24.2 x 10.2 x 1.39 cm
OS Windows 11 Steam OS 3.0 (Arch)/Windows 11 Custom
Release Price TBC $399 (16G+64GB)
$529 (16G+256GB)
$649 (16G+512GB)		 $349
Release Date 2023 February 2022 October 2021