ASUS ROG Ally Deep-Dive Review: Thermals, Gaming, Power, SD Card, & More vs. Steam Deck

Our review of the ASUS ROG Ally (with Z1 Extreme) handheld gaming PC tests it primarily against the Steam Deck, including gaming performance, frametimes, thermals, acoustics, battery life and charging, noise samples, and impressions of hardware and software. This is a showcase review for us -- it's detailed, but a fun excuse for our team to throw everything at a device for an in-depth review that teaches us (and hopefully the audience) about some of the testing processes at the same time. We also tried to look at the MicroSD card 'melting' issues with the ROG Ally, only to find that our MicroSD card reader on our Ally was dead within 2 hours of gaming and prior to ever being used for a card.



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TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - ASUS ROG Ally vs. Steam Deck
02:26 - ASUS ROG Ally Specs & Differences
03:26 - Hardware & Layout Impressions
06:29 - Automatic BIOS Updates, Software Hotfixes
09:47 - Acoustics & Test Chamber
11:07 - Noise Samples
12:37 - Frequency Analysis: ASUS Ally vs. Nintendo Switch & Steam Deck
17:11 - Noise Levels (Steam Deck, Switch, ASUS Ally)
18:23 - Tear-Down & Disassembly is Excellent
20:36 - GAMING Benchmarks & Methodology
22:43 - Misleading TDP Numbers Shouldn’t Be Relied On
24:17 - Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks (ROG Ally vs. Steam Deck, Aya Neo)
25:19 - Bad Ally Cyberpunk Frametimes
26:18 - Dying Light 2 Stay Human Benchmarks
27:19 - Dying Light 2 Frametimes
28:02 - Resident Evil 4 (2023) & Frametimes
29:07 - Red Dead Redemption 2 Handheld Gaming Benchmarks
29:42 - Battery Life Benchmarks (ASUS ROG Ally vs. Steam Deck, Aya Neo)
32:58 - Charging Time & Misconceptions of Chargers
33:54 - ASUS ROG Ally Thermals & Fan Behavior
36:24 - Fan Ramp Needs a Rework
37:16 - Broken MicroSD Card Reader
40:57 - Closing Thoughts

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Host, Writing, Test Lead: Steve Burke
Testing, Writing, Tear-Down: Patrick Lathan
Camera, Video Editing: Vitalii Makhnovets
Video Editing: Mike Gaglione
Video Editing: Tim Phetdara

[GamersNexus]

Which handheld do you want to see reviewed next? We're doing more of them. This is a MASSIVE review, but it was a super fun showcase of technology and testing. We're using all of this groundwork to learn how to develop long-term methodological approaches to handheld devices, and next on our list is likely the GPD Win4! What should come after that?
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[HiQualityHO]

This man is going to make companies actually have to make quality products. I love it.

[richard-davies]

For Valves first attempt at a hand held they pretty much nailed it, some great software optimisation as well.

[Voyajer.]

Those steamdeck frametimes are impressive, and then you realize none of those games are native Linux so they're being translated and still manage to be so consistent.

[Kripzanxx]

Big Thanks for Always delivering high quality reviews!

[hydroponicgard]

I'm a big nerd on audio n such jazz (audiophoolery if you will), and I genuinely appreciate the frequency graphs of the handhelds, I do hope you, and your team continues implementing these statistics for future. It means a lot, and also feeds my "utter need for squigly lines" as someone has told me once. Thanks again, Steve n GN team! <3

[tllinux]

16:55 You can tame the chaos by displaying the data with a smoothing filter. 1/3 octave is common, 1/12 or 1/24 octave might be better for keeping the annoying peaks visible.

[mahog_]

For illustrating the effect of change in fan speed on the noise levels it may be useful to use a spectrogram to show loudness over time in specific instances. Additionally, a Fourier transform of the frequency spectrum plot can help point out specific problem frequencies if they are present.

[rometherevenant]

Man I love this channel. The amount of work you guys do to make viewers aware of the negatives and postives for products is amazing.

[polishguy]

ROG Ally being easier to take apart than graphics cards is a joke reality plays on us for no reason whatsoever.

[seanms]

Audio engineer here. Very happy to see updates to the new charts. Thank you for using some of the notes from the Terra build.

I’m really looking forward to the Dan case!

[J.Wick.]

Steam Deck is just damn hard to beat when everything is considered. I am looking forward to the upcoming Lenovo Legion Go...That thing looks SOLID. Wow lol, after reading some of these replies.. Competition is a good thing, this segment is just getting going really. Can't wait to see what it's like in 3-4yrs. For now atleast, it's SD for me!

[cppctek]

Epic deep dive!❤ so I’ve done extensive modding on my ally and I’ve got a few fixes that have saved my sd reader from failing. The culprit that mostly kill’s them is the temps from the power delivery area being next to the chip but on the other side of the board combined with the cherry on top being that heat pipe over the reader. The power delivery area has very poorly sized thermal pads and doesn’t extract enough heat off the power delivery and the fans at lower Rpm’s allow the trapped heat to also soak back into the board. Even at lower tdp and even if the user has lower than 95c app temps it happens. The fix isn’t a one size fits all solution but there’s a few things I’ve done to mitigate the issue and so far it has a high success rate based on numerous other people in my community who’ve also followed along. Another thing I see is the ssd you will see significant higher nvme temps when downloading games and esp if you upgrade the drive it can and will thermally throttle a little bit and as you said it was ok but that’s not great. I’ve also created a mod to drop the nvme temps by as much as 25c and it’s very easy to do. That will prolong the life of the drive when comparing to without it at these temps. I’ve reached out to many drive manufacturers and even have data they sent me I compiled in a video if you’d like to see more 2230 data you wont see any where else.
Lastly the ally doesn’t have enough ram for some games and you will hit the page file and have worse 1% lows esp without tuning. If you Debloat windows and tune it you can really improve the 1% lows esp on modern warfare. I’ve been able to turn this thing into a best of a device. I’ve got several modding videos coming where I’ll be discussing more detail on my long term analysis of the heat and what I’ve done to improve it. I also have some thermocouples as well I’ve put over said power delivery and I indeed did see some pretty spicy temps at times prior to it and likely well over 70 directly on the reader chip itself. Apu temps I’ve also got down in the 70s with the current mods and I’ve tested several diff thermal compounds and solutions.

Thanks Stev and team for finally getting this out. I hope you guys do a hardware failure analysis and re visit this again. I really think it’s worth it. ❤

[flux_]

I appreciate you all taking the time to review handhelds now. The market for them is beyond saturated now, and a lot of reviewers seem to just praise how great each one is without any kind of critical look. Actual in depth reviews are needed.

[sloanphone]

I really appreciate how much this channel respects the viewers time, this format of review works great.

[drewmendoza]

Despite the issues this generation has, I'm glad more of these are being released now. I don't play AAA games and mostly play pixel art, Visual Novel or games similar to Persona and earlier Final Fantasy games which doesn't require a lot of power and usually feels better being played while on the couch or bed.

[PaulieK]

I have a desktop with a RTX 3080 and I use my Ally more. It's far from perfect but I haven't had any major issues. Awesome breakdown. Handheld gaming PCs in a few years will be amazing.

[KillahMate]

9:27 huh - I'd argue that the out of the box experience is significantly more _beginner_ friendly on the Deck actually. The Ally is simply more friendly to people accustomed to Windows.

[jonathan.sullivan]

Love seeing reviews on handhelds like this, keep'em coming. It's a good change of pace from another GPU/CPU review. Thank you Tech Jesus and staff.

[FanOfKOTOKO]

I bought the Ally at launch and I'm having a blast with it playing through a lot of my backlog. The device seems to struggle more on current gen games but all the older stuff on my backlog is running great on the 780M and combined with FreeSync it's been a great way to chew through all the games I've bought over the years that I told myself I'd play when I got them and never did. I'm sure the Steam Deck would've been the same for cheaper but being able to run these older games pinned to 60 or all the way to 120fps has been great. I'm basically never not near one for super long so battery life was never a big issue since I just charge it when I need to.