The Rog Ally: A Review of a Budget-Friendly Gaming PC

As I sat down to test the Rog Ally, I was excited to see how this budget-friendly gaming PC would perform. With a price tag that's significantly lower than its counterpart, the Z1 Extreme, I wasn't expecting much in terms of raw power. However, as I began to run some tests and play some games, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw.

One of the first things I noticed was that the Rog Ally was capable of running games at high frame rates and resolutions. In fact, I was able to run a game like Gran Turismo 4 at 1080p with a steady 60 FPS using the PCSX2 emulator. This was impressive, especially considering the game's requirements are typically higher than what you'd see in most modern games. I also ran some tests with other emulators and games, including PS3 and Switch titles, and was pleased to see that the Rog Ally could handle them all at high performance levels.

In terms of cooling, the Rog Ally seems to be doing a great job of keeping things under control. With the screen brightness set to 100%, I was able to run games and emulators without overheating or experiencing any kind of thermal throttling. This is especially important when running demanding titles or at high resolutions, where heat can become an issue.

One area where the Rog Ally falls short is in its GPU power. While it's capable of handling some pretty demanding titles, it simply doesn't have the raw power to handle AAA games at high resolutions and frame rates. However, for indie games and more casual titles, this shouldn't be a problem. I also wanted to take a look at battery life with this new unit, and I was pleased to see that even running resource-intensive games like Indie titles, the Rog Ally was still able to provide several hours of run time.

Taking it up into turbo mode does not significantly impact the overall performance. In fact, taking it up to turbo mode brings us an average of around 73 FPS in Gran Turismo 4. I actually didn't think we'd be able to run this game over 60 and you know locking it down right now at 60 FPS will bring that wattage down a bit in turbo mode but I have to say this again you know running this at 15 watts still feels absolutely amazing because we've got that freesync display you don't have to worry about screen tearing and it's kind of a variable refresh rate so it does keep it nice and steady. With the less expensive version of the Rog Ally we can definitely play a lot of PC games but I think where this thing is going to shine is emulation.

I will have a full emulation video coming up remember these that you're about to see are just out of the box settings I didn't do any kind of tweaking or tuning with this APU PS2 using PCSX2. Gran Turismo 4 1080p 15 watts really steady 60fps and when it comes to these newer apus setting a static GPU clock with emulation is definitely the way to go so in my next video I'll show you how to do that and we'll definitely see better Performance Plus with a lot of these emulators we'll be able to take the wattage down to get better battery life here's some PS3 using rpcs3 720p. I had to take this up to 18 Watts without that static GPU clock and I think we could run this at about 15 watts with a static clock on that GPU but with it set up like this right now it's actually performing quite well and the final one for this video is some switch emulation using Yuzu doc mode so it is running at 1080p we're at 15 watts and if you take a look at afterburner we don't quite have to pull 15 watts for this game here this is going to do great for switch emulation and in my next full emulation video I'll show you exactly what this non-xtreme Z1 can do.

I also wanted to take a look at battery life with this new unit and remember we've got a 40 watt hour battery with all of my testing. I had the screen brightness at 100 and basically what you do here is you find out exactly how much it's drawn at a certain wattage and then it's a simple calculation against that 40 watt hour battery so at a 10 watt TDP while playing a lot of Indie Games I was pulling a total of around 12 Watts from the battery that's going to net us around 190 minutes of run time at a 15 watt TDP we're drawing a total of 24 Watts from the battery so it looks like we can get around 100 minutes at 15 watts and at a 20 watt TDP 31 Watts so around 76 minutes now when it comes to real world battery life it's probably going to be less than what we're seeing here but this is just kind of knowledge that we have and we can use to make more informed decisions.

In conclusion, the Rog Ally is a great option for those looking for a budget-friendly gaming PC. While it doesn't have the raw power of its counterpart, it's capable of handling many games and emulators at high performance levels. Additionally, its battery life and cooling capabilities make it a great choice for those who want to play on the go or stay up late into the night without worrying about overheating.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign hey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at the all-new Asus Rog Ally and you might be saying to yourself the Allies been on the market for a little while and that's definitely true for the Z1 extreme version in this video we're taking a look at the ryzen Z1 version so this is the cheaper model coming in at 5.99 as opposed to 6.99 we've got six cores and 12 threads instead of eight chords and 16 threads so we've also got a lower end rdna3 igpu but this actually might be a great choice for people out there who want to save a little bit of money now the overall design here hasn't strayed at all from the Z1 extreme version we've still got the same form factor it's coming in at the same weight 608 grams same battery size and the same beautiful seven inch 120 hertz IPS display basically the only thing that's changed here is that Apu and yeah by the way you can actually add one of their XG egpus to this if you'd like to we've got a micro s SD card slot up top 3.5 millimeter audio jack volume rocker and our power button slash fingerprint reader so inside of the Box along with the Z1 version of the Rog Ally we're gonna get a 65 watt charger and our user manual that's about it only other things included with the unit and when it comes to the specs of this new model like I mentioned we've got that AMD ryzen Z1 the non-xtreme version so we get six cores 12 threads it's still based on Zen 4 and it's offering some really good CPU performance single core and multi base clock 3.2 gigahertz and a boost up to 4.9 and when it comes to the igpu this is based on our dna3 but we only have four CEUs remember the extreme version has 12 cus and over on their website they state that this has a maximum clock up to 2500 megahertz but through my testing this will actually go up to 2800 megahertz and I'm not sure if this is going to change in the future or not but right now it does boost a little higher than advertised we're still getting 16 gigabytes of LP ddr5 Ram running at 6 400 Mega transfers per second a 512 gigabyte pcie 4.0 nvme m.2 SSD in that 2230 form factor 7 inch 120 hertz 1080p IPS display one of my favorites on the market right now for these handhelds because it does support freesync premium it's a 100 srgb and it'll do up to 500 nits of brightness we also get Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth 5.2 a 40 watt hour battery with 65 watt fast charging capabilities and this is running Windows 11 Straight Out of the Box again form factor hasn't changed at all with this version and I've always thought that the Ally was a very comfortable handheld to hang on to for long periods of time I can reach all of the buttons no problem at all even when it comes to these shoulder buttons and triggers and by the way these are linear triggers so we've got full control really great for racing games basically if you were to pick one of these up you wouldn't know the difference until you went into the task manager and saw that this is the Z1 version with only six cores and 12 threads we've still got Armory cray asean this has actually come a long way since the initial launch of the original Rog Ally our game launcher it'll automatically scan our default directory so we can set up different controller profiles and performance profiles per game uh from here we can mess around with the RGB built in we've also got the update Center directly from within SE here so we can update directly from that app but you know when it comes to this handheld in general one of our main sections is going to be the operating mode and this is going to allow us to adjust the TDP of the Adu now we've got the same exact settings that we do with the Z1 extreme here we've got the windows profile and this is going to rely on how we have it set up with Windows through its performance profile we've got silent which is going to be our 10 watt TDP we also get a little bit of a boost for a certain duration of time next we've got turbo which is going to be our 25 watt mode and we've got manual and with this we can go all the way up to 30 Watts on battery with a boost up to 35 but when plugged into power we can go up to 35 Watts as our base TDP and a boost up to around 52 Watts for a certain duration of time from here we can also adjust our fan curve remember we've got dual fans built into this unit here and now with the latest versions of Armory crate SC we can actually change our vram directly from here you used to have to go into the BIOS to do it power management with the Z1 non-xtreme is actually really good you can expect to get better battery life out of this but how does performance really compare at different wattages that's one thing that I want to take a look at so I run some benchmarks on the Z1 extreme version and the new Z1 version and the results here are actually pretty interesting so over on the left hand side we've got the Z1 non-x3 stream 15 watt TDP single core 2185 multi 7974 on the right hand side we've got the Z1 extreme and as you can see it actually came behind in single and multi-core at 15 watts and this was not a fluke I actually ran this five different times just to make sure it came in with a lower score each time I just think at 15 watts we can't power up all those cores and get those higher clocks there so I took it up to 25 watts and again I ran this four different times on the Z1 non-xtreme version 2230 on single multi 8170 over on the Z1 extreme it came behind in single and multi again even at 25 watts and I want to mention that I actually have two Z1 extreme Rog allies at the house I've got mine and my wife's I ran this on both of them just to see what was going on and each time that Z1 extreme came in with a lower score with geekbench 6. personally I think what's going on here is the Z1 non-xtreme has two less cores so we can actually get those at higher clocks at that same wattage that way we can come out with a higher score at the end but when moving over to some GPU benchmarks it's a totally different story because uh with that Z1 extreme we've got 12 cus and as you can see with this 15 watt time spy score at the top we've got the Z1 non-xtreme our overall score 1471 graphic score 1311 and on the Z1 extreme at the same wattage total score 2535 and in terms of just the graphic score 22.92 so obviously those 12 cus are definitely beating out these four cus we have here with the non-xtreme version I also wanted to test this at a 25 watt TDP on the Z1 non-xtreme 1759 the Z1 extreme 3017. so basically with the Z1 extremes 12cu igpu we're looking at around a 54 increase in GPU performance at least when it comes to the synthetic benchmarks which is definitely a lot because we're already working with integrated Graphics so we need as much as we can get but that doesn't mean that the non-z1 version can't game so let's go ahead and test some stuff out now it's time to check out some real world gaming on this device and over here in the left hand corner we've got afterburner running the last column there is actually total power draw and that's everything included the RGB screen brightness by the way we are at 100 and I've got the TDP set at 15 watts performance mode and our boost is already over you can see that our CPU package power is right there at 15 watts 720p medium settings with no resolution scale so we don't have FSR on and we're not using Fidelity Cass here we can get over 60 FPS on average but we do get a few dips under now remember we can always take this down to low settings or enable a little bit of FSR but uh right now our total battery draw 24 Watts which is a bit under what the steam deck does normally 25 26 there on the steam deck at 15 watts with this game and we're seeing some decent performance here now my favorite thing about this handheld is that freesync display that way if we dip under that 60 FPS mark it still feels really really smooth even playing this game at 40 feels great on this display because we've got that variable refresh rate with freesync premium but we can get a lot more out of this by upping the TDP taking it up to 25 watts still at 720p medium settings we can now get an average of 78 FPS and like I mentioned over on the Asus website it stated that this igpu will do a maximum clock of 2500 megahertz but you can see this going up to 2 800 megahertz now we don't have as many cus here as the extreme does but it's still trucking right along it's actually doing much better than I thought it would next on the list we've got GTA 5 1080p normal settings 15 watts I had a good feeling that this was going to work out really well it's a very CPU intensive game and uh with the Z1 even though we've got six cores and 12 threads we're working with Zen 4 cores and they do offer some amazing performance checking out something a bit easier to run we've got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's revenge we're at a 10 watt TDP and you can see that it doesn't quite need 10 watts to run this game at 60fps but remember we've got a 120 hertz display so let's go ahead and take it up to 120 hertz and even now it's only pulling around two more watts to go up 60 more FPS in a future video that will be coming up really soon I'm going to test a bunch of indie games and see how low we can take the TDP here on the Z1 I believe we can definitely get much better battery life out of the Z1 versus the Z1 extreme when it comes to these easier to run games of course we had to test out cyberpunk 2077 we're at 720p low settings 15 watts and unfortunately on the non-xtreme version of the Z1 we just can't run this at a constant 60 15 watts remember on the Z1 extreme at 15 watts with these same exact settings we can actually average around 74 FPS and when I say low I mean I go into the settings and turn everything to low this is not the low preset because with that we still have some settings at medium but we've got a bit more that we can throw at this taking it up into turbo mode does Net us an average of around 73 FPS going into this I actually didn't think we'd be able to run this game over 60 and you know locking it down right now at 60 FPS will bring that wattage down a bit in turbo mode but I have to say this again you know running this at 15 watts still feels absolutely amazing because we've got that freesync display you don't have to worry about screen tearing and it's kind of a variable refresh rate so it does keep it nice and steady so with the less expensive version of the Rog Ally we can definitely play a lot of PC games but I think where this thing is going to shine is emulation and I will have a full emulation video coming up remember these that you're about to see are just out of the box settings I didn't do any kind of tweaking or tuning with this APU PS2 using pcsx2 Gran Turismo 4 1080p 15 watts really steady 60fps and when it comes to these newer apus setting a static GPU clock with emulation is definitely the way to go so in my next video I'll show you how to do that and we'll definitely see better Performance Plus with a lot of these emulators we'll be able to take the wattage down to get better battery life here's some PS3 using rpcs3 720p I had to take this up to 18 Watts without that static GPU clock and I think we could run this at about 15 watts with a static clock on that GPU but with it set up like this right now it's actually performing quite well and the final one for this video is some switch emulation using Yuzu doc mode so it is running at 1080p we're at 15 watts and if you take a look at afterburner we don't quite have to pull 15 watts for this game here this is going to do great for switch emulation and in my next full emulation video I'll show you exactly what this non-xtreme Z1 can do I also wanted to take a look at battery life with this new unit and remember we've got a 40 watt hour battery with all of my testing I had the screen brightness at 100 and basically what you do here is you find out exactly how much it's drawn at a certain wattage and then it's a simple calculation against that 40 watt hour battery so at a 10 watt TDP while playing a lot of Indie Games I was pulling a total of around 12 Watts from the battery that's going to net us around 190 minutes of run time at a 15 watt TDP we're drawing a total of 24 Watts from the battery so it looks like we can get around 100 minutes at 15 watts and at a 20 watt TDP 31 Watts so around 76 minutes now when it comes to real world battery life it's probably going to be less than what we're seeing here but this is just kind of knowledge that we have and we can do calculations to get a rough estimate of what kind of battery life we'll see out of this unit is it worth saving that hundred dollars and buying this over the Z1 extreme model personally I don't think it is I would definitely go with that Z1 extreme from there we can do a lot of tweaking and tuning we can actually disable cores over there if we want to with third-party applications get the same kind of battery life that we're seeing here but if that extra 100 for the Z1 extreme model is a bit hard to come up with then this is a great second choice now I would definitely pick the extreme over this and if this was a bit cheaper you know coming in let's say a hundred and eighty dollars less than the Z1 then I could definitely recommend this over end but unfortunately this is lacking a lot of the GPU power that that Z1 Extreme has which does come in really handy for AAA games I will have some more videos coming up with the Z1 Edition here I've got some Doc mode testing plan I want to test some higher tdps and especially emulation that'll be the next one I'll have a full emulation video coming up I think we can get some really great performance out of this machine but if there's anything else you want to see running on this just let me know in the comments below and if you're interested interested in seeing more videos like this it'd be really cool if you could hit that like button and think about subscribing so you know when I post the next one but that's it for this one like always thanks for watching\n"