There is is also a factor of the operating system. Basically in Linux vs windows scenario Linux always wins in terms of amount resources it needs to run in comparison to windows which also results in better power efficiency because the less resources you use the less power drawn will be. Valve is using SteamOS which current version is based on Arch linux while ROG Ally uses standard windows with all its bloat which will have also Asus bloat included. Not to mention windows and older game compatibility is meh at best and dont get me started on windows updates.
@@PlasmaSnake369 It is the whole Z1 Extreme is basically a marketing ploy to make potential customers thing that this is some kinda custom chip when in reality is standard production APU with changed volatges.
I dont think a SD 2.0 is on the way, as valve is trying to improve the compatibility of steam os for backcatalog of games... Mindlessly improving hardware before optimizing the software is the main problem of pc gaming. And i want to believe steam deck is an effort to show people you can use older hardware. Nintendo has a similar approach, they dont use super powerful hardware and do not do main hardware revisions to their consoles for almost a decade... Also using linux instead of windows is a statement in itself, "not using bloated software so you do not need high hardware". Anyway these are my two cents
@@Lestibournes yes, but the SoC the Switch uses, an Nvidia Tegra X1, came out in January 2015. So the internals were already quite outdated from day 1 of release, lol. I think they slightly erred with the memory however. Higher clocked memory gives a significant improvement on the Switch and they could’ve squeezed more out of the SoC if they had done that. Nintendo has always put more emphasis on the the games than on the hardware. That is the correct strategy, in my opinion.
DX9/10/11 is really not the problem. Proton's DXVK has done an amazing job to getting those titles working. Even reaching out to Devs for help with online play. SD2 is definitely coming, and Dev's should be convinced of it's usefulness.
Now it looks like the VR console will be next. It makes sense that Steam wouldn't want two new expensive hardware products out fighting each other for customers' gaming dollars at the same time.
The Steam Deck feels more and more like it was designed according to principle that was famously employed by Gunpei Yokoi at Nintendo: "Lateral thinking with withered technology" Course, using PCIe 3 vs 4 is less extreme then going for monochrome LCDs when color is already common place, but the basic philosophy is comparable.
@@Lestibournes it’s squeezing everything out of affordable (usually older) tech for your specific use case. Remove everything that is extraneous and nonessential to your purpose. For a battery powered gaming device you are trying to save every tiny bit of power possible while still providing a fun experience. While not a direct 1:1 comparison, since Valve basically modified cutting edge (for the time) technology during the Decks development, you can still see how they kept the design philosophy close to heart. I think this philosophy is particularly evident with the trackpads, the performance efficiency at lower TDP, and SteamOS itself. Still would’ve liked an OLED display tho.. 😅
Most reviews at the moment are “if you use double the power on a more powerful chip gives you more power than the steam deck” I’m glad you delved into the silicone level which demonstrates the care and attention that went into the valve chip 👍
The mockup does a great job conveying just how much die area the Steam Deck devotes to its GPU compared to the Ally. One device is min-maxed for the task of 'portable gaming machine', the other is just a (very good) laptop APU stuffed into a Switch/Steam Deck form factor. On the other hand, my Switch never actually leaves the house, and I'm sure many other people treat theirs similarly. So as you point out, a more power-hungry device still has its place. Excellent video --
Hugely informative video. Assuming you are correct this is a really excellent explanation of what I have been seeing other creators struggle to grapple with.
I think customizing is a super interesting and often overlooked aspect of hardware design. It's relatively "easy" to design a good all-around product that performs well within common TDP ranges. But as soon as you move towards the extreme, be it very high or ultra low power draw, specialized hardware truly shines. I hope the ROG Ally will improve its low TDP performance with further firmware and driver updates. But even if it would be able to catch up to the Steam Deck, a simple look at the hardware specs is all you need to realize the amazing work Valve has done with the Van Gogh APU.
wow this video really helped explain the biggest "shortcoming" (slower RAM) I thought the Deck had and now makes me appreciate those choices 👍 just wished Valve would have communicated it themselves as gamers always want the latest and greatest even though it might not be in their best interest 🤷♂
@@mutantmagnet Not to mention right now Valve wins either way, they want more handhelds out there right now they dont need to convince ppl the deck is better since its sold millions already, they just want more x86 handheld out there that can eventually run their Steam OS, the os is what they will try to convince ppl to get in a couple years away from windows.
When I get my ally I’m going to install a new OS or try to get rid of all the bloatware. I've heard it's confirmed that you can download the armory crate software afterwards so i'd probably be able to increase performance more than stock windows.
You shouldn't expect updates on the ally. After Asus sell their devices, they have no motivation to make updates. Steam want to make the Steamdeck better, because they wan't that people keep playing, so they can sell games on steam. Also Windows 11 on the ally limits the possibilities for upgrades. So better you buy whats you get with the ally and don't expect them to repair bugs.
Great video! I am all in on Steam Deck because I price made it easy to take the risk. With how amazing it has been I will not be replacing it until Valve makes something significantly more powerful (keeping those track pads of course)
It’s bad that this video made me want to get a steam deck now purely from the design considerations. Update: I bought a Steam Deck and it feels amazing and really well polished, Valve did an amazing job at designing and producing it.
Very insightful! I would not underestimate the software differences, though. Steam OS has a lot of tweaks even to the Linux kernel to optimize for gaming workloads. I think it’s unlikely Windows has undergone similar optimization for the Ally.
Yeah, I was thinking this too Steam Deck: Fully custom APU + Fully custom Linux OS Ally: Off the Shelf APU + Off the shelf Windows + software to slightly tweak power consumption
Windows has been getting destroyed by Mac for exactly this reason. The M1 Macbook Air easily has 3x or more the battery life of the next-longest-lasting 14inch laptop. It's ridiculous! I wish we had the Valve APU for Laptops. I'm desperate for a laptop that can run on 2-6W like an M1 can. It's not just "ARM vs x86", it's the wasted 3-4W that was mentioned in this video!
ASUS probably gave people early access so they can get early feedback. Valve did the same thing. The two companies will compete for our $, which is good for us.
The beautiful thing about the Valve using Linux for the SteamDeck is that they could optimize the drivers and kernel for their specific hardware and usecase. This flexibility doesn't exist on Windows.
The Steam Deck has Steam OS and has an optimisation advantage. Where as the Rog Ally has Windows which already has great compatibility. I feel like it would be more of a chore to use Windows on a handheld. I definitely prefer a console ui on handhelds.
The goal is long battery life for portability. They should be focusing more on that in future products. If it's just playing at home, gaming laptop exists.
There's a serious problem with the unit when it falls behind by 40% compared to 7840U at all power levels in most games. Even falls behind the 6840U at some power levels. 10W 5W are the biggest problems with the Ally and the Z1E.
Valve has proven, like with their games and recent HW (VR), the painstaking process of attention to detail and UX design. The Steam Deck I believe is the TRUE handheld device, where I believe Valve has taken notes from Nintendo with fully utilizing and compromise with HW. The idea of making use of HW while plugged in a handheld is odd to me, it's not a true handheld experience. As you said the Ally lacks to power itself at lower tdp lvls with its increased core count/CUs, and IO. I've watched the Phawx, and the 7840U and Z1 Extreme while the same, the 7840U handles voltages, freq differently while still within ~10W, the same as the Ally and performing better. Interesting watch, and maybe the Ally could be improved on. Thinking about it, I am curious how the regular Z1 will handle with fewer 2 cores to power and 4CUs that'll potentially be sufficiently powered at lower wattage. Although the $100 difference in MSRP between this and the extreme is weird. I think if it were priced at $550 it'll be more competitive compared to the deck with a 512GB nvme storage and the better screen.
@@BobDevV That's fair, I completely forgot the mediocrity that was the steam machines and its precursor with the dual trackpads and planted the seeds for proton. Also, holo iso is a great shout, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Yes I think the regular Z1 is probably destined for the scrap heap. Why launch an inferior powered version of your product a couple of months later when your line up is designed around the most powerful handheld.
@@hgh1727 True, and the MSRP $100 difference is like the 7900 XT vs XTX, it's a play to get you to go for the expensive option unless you don't live in the US
Any idea if half the cores on the Z1E were to be parked by software or from bios. would the saved amount of power be sent to GPU instead? wouldn't that (theoretically) make it behave closer to VG? I think 99% of Ally user will not use more than the extra 4 CPUs cores it has.
According to The Phawx's rigorous experimentation, they've come to the hilarious conclusion that disabling cores in the 6800U doesn't really save power to the GPU. In fact, it sometimes results in lower performance at the same TDPs. Now, while we haven't tested it on the 7840U, I'd bet my collection of vintage floppy disks that you'll likely witness a similar comedy of errors. So, my friend, it seems like disabling cores won't give you any superpowers, but hey, at least you'll have a good laugh and the same TDPs!
@@Ali-dp6xv this is true. I did an experiment with desktop Ryzen 1700x a few years back. I disabled 4 cores hoping I could overclock the remaining 4 cores to higher clock and lower temps. No clock improvements and no lower temperature 8 cores vs 4 cores
The mocked up die analysis explains a lot! I don't really see this kind of analysis much on other channels. You definitely deserve more subs! Come on algorithm....
Soooo heres my guess. Since the ally has more cores those cores need voltage to operate so at lower wattages power has to be distributed to those cores which may makes them less effective. The steamdeck has less cores soo there may be more voltage to those cores than whats being applied to the ally. I saw asus rog pulse pod cast and they mentioned making it possible to disable cores in the armory crate. If that happens then I guaranteed performance will increase
@@dennardanthony8582 Same! My steam deck has been sitting on a shelf in my closet for the last few months. The steam deck made me realize I want portable pc gaming. It also made me realize how much I took windows compatibility for granted lol.
I think Valve were genius in creating a true custom APU. I also love the analysis by the Phawx. A mother difference I have noted is the impact of using a quad channel memory setup on the Steam Deck and the GDP Win Max 2+ compared to the dual channel memory setup on the ROG Ally. I can't wait for the next Custom APU from Valve for Steam Deck 2. I think it will be 4C/T Zen 4 and 12CU RDNA3 Lpddr 5-6400 quad channel targeting 1080p 60fps with 30% better better life with the same battery capacity. I love how Valve is managing expectations and not over promising.
@@Futura2500 doesn't take away the genius. All those companies have a long history of making gaming Consoles yet none of them have a Handheld Console to rival the Steam Deck. Valve saw a potential market no one was tapping into. I admire Valve for their contribution to Gaming on Linux as well. Can you imagine moving forward if game developers include Linux as platform they are targeting for each game, the impact that would have. Even if they don't, what Valve have achieved with their Proton layer is short of witchcraft. I love their holistic approach with both active software and hardware development that truly gets what Handheld Gaming in this age is all about. When it comes to AAA gaming on Handhelds and on Linux nobody even comes close to Valve.
Valve already said that they aren't planning on changing the steam decks hardware for a long time. That's a smart move on their side, cause keeping hardware the same will allow for game developers to optimize for steam decks hardware
The Ally was misquoted as dual channel. It's quad channel just like the Deck, 800 MHz per chip versus the deck's 687.5. The Math: the deck's 5500MTS is 4 channel, 1375 MT/s per channel, which is 687.5 MHz for DDR [*Dual* Data Rate] Asus isn't running similar chips at 1600 MHz. The teardowns show 4 chips just like the deck and they would need to be doing 1600MHz [3200 MT/s] to be dual channel by the same math to hit 6400 MT/s.
I would choose the Ally as I need a windows pc for travel. Handheld gaming was the bonus and almost half the price of the laptop i was considering... Already have the Steam Deck.
I work from home now, I'm always by an outlet so it'll almost always be plugged in. Given that, what would be the better option so i could play and relax on the couch with my family while they watch tv?
so the APU from the deck use from 4W to 15W and the Rog from 9W to 30W... what about the rest of the devices? or that account for the other pieces as well?
In all honesty, for my use case, Valve knocked it out of the park. I love my Asus parts in my PC, but I haven't used it in a long time as the deck is just so fun. It is very interesting what they did to make it happen, custom chips seems to be the future, build for the use case not for general all purpose. I wish Asus well and hope its successful but I'll definitely be waiting on the deck 2. Touch pads... I need them, plain and simple, without them I will not consider buying.
Valve wins on both scenarios just because even if they buy the ROG Ally, a part of these mobile pc gamers will buy games from Steam. No matter how many competitors we all know that Valve somehow will benefit to it. Now Apple and their M silicons need to play catch up.
Nothing replaces a steam deck like nothing re🎉places a switch You can come close but it takes a lot of tinkering 😅 I have both and love them both but two separate systems You can make some handheld devices do all both but not very well something will suffer
Battery tech still long ways off, with out making it to heavy. I think chips that Aim to get as much battery life the better it is to make a lighter handheld that last longer is better in my book.
For me Ally is a winner, windows OS allows anything you can install on a normal PC to be installed, that includes pirated games for those unable to afford them. Steam deck is tied to your steam account so only purchased games or EMU games. No contest. Steam loose out on my cash due to unavailability, I have tried for 3 months to buy one and only option is the 512gb, I wanted the 64gb version which I planned on upgrading myself. Now the Rog Alley is out it's a no brainer, almost the same price as the current Steam Deck that is available but you a better screen, better CPU and install what you want and not tied to Steam OS and what games you have purchased there.
Yeah, I think most fanboys forget that there are other places to get games (whether that's another store front or pirating). You don't even want to know what a nightmare it was to try to play my own, older, games from discs on the steam deck. I used a program to convert them to isos which are perfectly playable on windows but not at all simple on the steamdeck!
This is an awesome video. While I suspected the difference was due to the steam deck having a more specialised chip, it was interesting to hear the intricacies and design decisions that likely went into the final build of the APU
I would like a better CPU for the next Steam Deck and a slightly better GPU, maybe being at least 25% faster at the same power. What I really would like is a Occulink 2 connector that I can hook it up to an eGPU for high end performance. That or Valve can release Steam OS for everyone to use, but the vendors can have a "extra software features" update button to add in support for things they might add in like eGPU support and whatever else they want to add.
It would help if we could disable some CPU cores i have option to undervolt (offset) and set memory speeds/timings. In theory that could be incorporated into Armoury Crate software without need to go into BIOS. That would close the gap between ROG Ally and SteamDeck
For me the software also makes the SteamDeck better, Windows can’t suspend games properly for instance, it drains the battery. That’s one reason Valve went with Linux, because they wanted to squeeze as much performance out as they could for as little power as possible.
My Steam Deck plays everything i would ever want to play on the road. AAA games over rated and indie is where its at. and if i want it still plays the bigs games after they optimize for PC anyway
they have both pros and cons! rog ally is power hungry that is why it needs more TDP to play smoothly while SteamDeck consume less battery as much as possible with the help of low TDPs...but in the end it both offers same common goals...play games on the go
And your point is? If you want to do AAA gaming, you have to go for >15W, at that point your spending less time PLAYING games without charging. Sure, everyone has differing preferences on how much they play at a time, or whether or not plugging in their handheld bothers them but I think your missing the point. And if your not playing AAA games, like playing older titles or emulating older HW, the Deck has an edge because it performs better at lower wattage. You're going to be forced to increase wattage with AAA games at a cost of power draw. And if you even want a playable experience you're going to be sacrificing a bit.
Deck 2 Custom APU: * Zen4c - style little cores laid out in a power optimised physical IP cell library. * Memory on-package using the lowest power HBM variant available at design finalisation time. * GPU: RDNA 3.5 (a tock design fixing whatever issues made RDNA 3 performance below expectations). Also, relevant system-wide feature to keep the GPU down-clocked and cool: * Display: 1920*1200 native, relying on OS support for upscaling from any framebuffer resolution, including dynamic resolution by forcing the application's window to resize to hit TDP and frame time targets in a fake fullscreen windowed mode.
I learnt today about using FSR on the Steam Deck, it allows for a lower resolution to be used, then lock frame rate at 40 and you can turn the graphics settings up for a game.
I almost always play on my steam deck when it is plugged into a charger or battery pack. I am switching to Asus so that I can actually play all of my games. SteamOS ain't cutting it for me.
There's a disgruntled pattern about Ally "Reviews" going on with these lower tier youtubers who obviously have not had a hands on with the ally itself. They all seem to be "guessing" how bad it is or will be etc etc...
Doesn't matter. I've had the steam deck for a year and rarely use it. Gaming 60 FPS max(most time 40 to 50) with no vrr just sucks. I would 1,000,000% be OK with higher power tdp limits to push more frames and less battery life than playing less than 60 with no vrr. 😂
8 cores at 1GHz should use less power than 4 cores at 2GHz. Is it possible to radically underclock abd undevolt the Ally and use this fact to get better performance per Watt from it tgan from the Deck, at least on multicore synthetic bencharks that scale well like CPU ray tracing?
Even though the rog ally is a more basic chip, it works for me. I'm on my tablet right now, connected to an external power brick. So, really, I'll get way more than enough battery life in my normal use case before sitting near a charger, or putting the external brick in a charger. If we got a new custom chip though..... Lawd.... Custom, 6 cores, 16-20 cus should be possible.
First off, very well done and insightful. Thank you sir. Secondly, Steam Deck. One of the prime check boxes to tick with any handheld is battery life. I want to like the ROG Ally more, but what's the point of having access to all that power if I have to be near a wall outlet to enjoy it? I might as well keep gaming on my rig. The Deck destroys all its competition at stupidly low watts, and is much better at letting you pick your battles with the battery. You can limit frames, fine tune TDP number by number, and keep everything on a memory profile per game. The Ally has three modes that jump from one TDP to another, which doesn't let you optimize things your own way, which likely means you'll overshoot battery consumption simply based on how limited the options are.
What's the point of having longer battery life on the deck when I can't play half my game library? At the end of the day, these devices are for playing games and if I can't play what I want there's zero reason to waste money on it. This is coming from someone who has owned the deck since Sept 2022 and has been disappointed that I have to wait for proton updates to play much of my steam library.
@@jollyrancherchick Well, that just depends on where you buy your games from. A great majority of people buy well over half their library just on Steam, so the value of the Steam Deck is prominent in this market. When a company has a lead as heavy as Valve's, they can undermine other PC platforms, and it really won't have a widespread impact. If you have a library that's sizable on other launchers, then obviously the Steam Deck isn't for you. And that really kinda sucks for people like you, because as of right now, there is no device that can translate what Valve did with their custom APU over to a windows machine. I'm kinda (kinda) in the same boat as you. I have over 200 games on GoG, but I own about double that amount on Steam. Not being able to play most of that GoG library is lame, but I'm gonna have a hell of a good time with the games that I own on Steam.
Steamdeck has over a year's worth of software and firmware updates. All the reviews and comparisons are against the pre-release marketing units of the Ally, so they are not representative of the actual market units. Asus has already said they've fixed a handful of the issues that have been brought to their attention during this marketing phase, and they've also said that more updates are coming via OTA changes. Yes, the Steamdeck is an awesome piece of hardware combined with SteamOS, but the Ally is going to disrupt the market that will only make it better for the consumers. It's an exciting time.
Your videos never cease to amaze me. I recognize your video is largely about power efficiency, but I was in discussion last month, why consoles are often better in actual gaming than pc with some of the latest games. I believe due to balance and efficiency from the game design stage to pc hardware it’s programmed for in comparison to newest consoles. “Purpose Built vs All Purpose”, it’s not just about brute power. Your talk of custom design, balance, i/o, memory processing and bandwidth is translatable to pc gaming ecosystem. Hardware manufacturers and game devs must establish balance. I believe pc gaming issues are largely due to data I/O and memory bandwidth at the software level. Devs can start by requiring SSD, (ideally NVME) and maybe VRAM rqmnt tiers such as 8Gb - 1080p, 10-16gb 1440p, 20gb+ for 4K. They should quickly adopt DirectX 12 Ultimate featureset, most importantly Direct Storage. GPU manf. should ensure the VRAM amnt\bandwidth is suitable and balanced with gpu processing power at targeted resolutions. Stop starving powerful gpus with low bandwidth VRAM. PC does so many things well, but it must find a way to address and minimize its weakest links. Rising tide lifts all boats. Stop trying to use brute force and excess in one area to offset design flaws or shortfalls in others. There’s art and elegance to balance and efficiency.
Why do people think that it is required for the Ally to beat the Steamdeck on every aspect? Those two can easily coexist and have their own identity and percs... Let's not forget that the Steamdeck at release was NOT what it is right now. It used to slow down upon opening the fast settings, did not have a profile for each game, no 40hz, no Cryobites tweaking, no homebrew plugins, no GE proton, etc. It's not crazy to think that seeing a big name pushing windows gaming on handheld will help create the same kind of movement the Deck benefited from. Even if it's not to the same extent Valve did because the Linux community is kinda boss! Let's wait and see what kind of magic the community and some optimized drivers/software can bring.
@@BobDevV I know that Proton existed before the Deck..I just said that the Proton community really helped when it comes to making the SteamDeck what it is today, wether it's the main Proton or GE,etc As for windows i never said nor implied that the Windows community could help the windows handlheld to the same extent that the linux community did with the deck. I just assumed that, at least, it can help polishing many things while AMD and Asus work on their Drivers and firmwares. Which could bring even better results than those that we already have. I had many GPD and one Aya Neo, i remember pretty well tweaking the bios, handling drivers and having few tools like tdp switchers, tools for overclocking and undervolting, etc. And obtaining a 15-30% performance gain overall...Everything came from the community and helped squeeze the power of those handheld. A big part of The Phawx's succes is actually related to his work on Windows handhelds...
@@BobDevV There is no need for that much work... The Ally already has it's own real percs(power, compatibility, screen)... Any plus is cherry on a pretty cool cake which can totally exist along the Deck. I have the Deck myself and i'm pretty sure the Ally won't make up for Steam Input, or the Deck's pricepoint. Still, i preorder the Ally because of what it can already do, and it's potential to do even better with existing solutions and probable new ones (+official drivers,etc).
I finally understand and u made it easy to know actually how different there devices are and what kinda wattage u want to use so now u know where there sweet spots are good video for sure !!
The 8 Zen4 cores is a bit overkill for a handheld. Yeah, it's a high performance laptop chip. There's rumors that the Van Gough chip was originally developed for Microsoft Surface but they ended up not using it.
Phawx also thoroughly tested the Z1 extreme in Ally against the 7840U inside a GPD Max. 7840U manages to handily outperform the Z1E at the same power levels and has a significant delta at lower wattages as well. It's all related to voltage regulation in the Ally. With proper tuning, it should be able to match the Deck at lower TDPs, outperforming might be a stretch for now.
Thanks for this. I had a feeling that the Ally wouldn't be a competitor to the Steam Deck, but I couldn't figure out why. The boost in power and tech was a red flag for me.
This was such a good video, the differences going on at a silicone level aside, windows will be a mega negative for a handheld with resources in the background too
you forgot to mention the trackpads as an advantage for the deck, they improve the experience in certain games not designed to be played with a controller. another thing to consider is game streaming, contrary to what the Rog Ally presentation said, cloud gaming DO WORK on linux, they implied you need windows for that wich isnt truth at all! in fact microsoft made some patches specifically targeting linux to improve the xcloud experience on it! if we take into account that cloud gaming wont use the internal hardware too much, steam deck should be better at this use case too, since it probably wont need more than 10 watts to receive/decode an video streaming, you probably can reduce the consumption to 4W and get at least 8 hours of gaming , contrary to the rog ally wich cant go bellow 9w, and may struggle to decode videos if you reduce the clock too much.
They are competitors, but they do not completely overlap in use cases and functionality. I have my steam deck, and have ordered an ally. The deck is great and far outperformed my initial expectations, and there are a lot of games where you can drop the TDP down to a measly 3 watts and play for extended timeframes. I’ve comfortably gotten enjoyable performance from newer games at only 10w as well, it’s just a great experience. But what makes the deck shine the meat for me, is the combination of SteamOS and the Built in Steam Controller 2.0. The track pads go a long way in expanding the kind of games you can play on deck. The Ally, I can only go on what I have seen, and what I have seen is mixed but positive. I think the biggest thing holding it back is windows overhead, and the early first generation state of the software/hardware combination. Given 6 months or so of it being released I think will go quite a ways to smoothing things out both driver wise and software integration, and possibly some windows handheld centric optimizations from Microsoft or the community at large, I think we can expect good things. Time will tell, either way, people looking to run these portably for extended play time, need to temper their expectations a bit, and stop comparing them to phones or the Nintendo switch. Buy a portable battery bank and enjoy extended play.
There is many things that are better then the ROG. For example I like the larger size of the deck, larger screen and better battery life , more buttons on the back, duel track pads ,and most importantly I love the OS on the deck with the plug in’s, the decks amazing 😃
@@garrusvakarian8709 not the case. the screen is bigger as it’s taller on the deck, and the battery of your ROG will die faster if you plan to use it with all that power with the 1080p 120 hz screen not plugged in.. also The steam deck runs way better at lower wattages,and so for me it’s a way better handheld unplugged on the go.
@@jollyrancherchick Both devices have a 7-inch IPS display, though the Steam Deck uses a 16:10 aspect ratio instead of the 16:9 format of the ROG Ally.. 😁
Inconclusive evidence for the most part. The phawxs tests have been confirmed to not quite match a standard 7840U (see Taki Udons latest video). Firmware update already added 12% more performance on the low end. We need more data- and the Ally needs more time to marinate. The Steam Deck had tons of problems months past it’s arrival on Feb 2022
The Ally should wipe the floor with the Steam Deck as it's hardware is 4-5x more powerful and produces with a 1.5x node advantage. Yet it doesn't. Even if it's low power performance increases, at below 10W it's still playing catch up.
@@HighYield which is why I call the evidence inconclusive- and why I say it needs more time to develop the software/firmware side. I think your video covers what we currently know well(although as with cutting edge tech in an un-finished release phase, is subject to change daily), but the fact is we haven’t even seen it’s final form(dbz pun intended). Technically at 15w tdp on the Ally as it stands right now we are seeing around 20-30% increase in performance- which 15w tdp is still within the Decks range. So it does beat the Steam Deck, just not at 10w at this time. The jury is still out.
I think the 8mb of Infinty Cache on the Steam Deck makes a big difference. Steam Deck has a fully featured RDNA2 GPU. Not even PS5 or Series X has any form of Infinity Cache. In fact, the Deck is the only RDNA2 based GPU (other than P.C GPU'S) to use Infinity Cache. The Phoenix chip doesn't use Infinity Cache and that's why it absolutely needs faster memory to compete. Infinity Cache is a brilliant way of reducing power consumption and bandwidth needs. No idea why no one uses it other than Valve.
These were my sentiments exactly, although to be fair around the release window of thebsteam deck, its battery life was worse than it is now. But after a year of updates, optimizations and quality of life improvements, its definitely in better shape! So heres to hoping that asus will continue updates and support on this front within its first year to improve performance and quality of life
Claiming that Valve "designed" Van Gogh with just a helping hand from AMD is so much of an hyperbole that it is flatly a misleading statement. Van Gogh was prepared by AMD. Not just when Valve asked for it, but literally years before Valve even started to get an idea of it. But faced with limited budget and limited opportunities, this AMD's APU remained in the design area, with no clear market base to address. This changed with the Valve's Steamdeck. Due to sheer coincidence, Van Gogh was actually the perfect APU for this device category. And Valve could provide the volume and the budget to make it happen. Now, I'm not saying that Valve didn't have any participation in the chip's design, but their share was limited to a selection into a rather short prepared menu. Nothing equivalent to a "chipset design" team. The most important impact of Valve is on the software side. And that's a hugely important one. Thanks to the customization possible with Linux, Valve's engineers have been able to make the most out of the power saving functionalities of Van Gogh. It would have been very difficult (actually impossible) to do the same on Windows, which is incidentally what ROG Ally carries, And that's indeed hugely important for such a market segment, where good performance at limited power (
The ally is having software / driver issues. At 15 watt the ally outperforms the steam deck. Steam deck is only good at low tdp. Plus the ally screen is vrr capable which is a game changer. Allows for a much smoother experience.
The ally power is getting taken by the cpu. Disable SMT and possibly 2-4 of the cores and lower the cpu clock a little. This will give more power to the starved GPU
Also the Steam Deck's RAM runs in Quad Channel configuration which also adds to the performance. Yeah that makes sense why the Steam Deck out performs the Ally at wattages below 15 watts is because the Deck is optimized to run and performed at those wattages unlike the Ally. The only thing that is custom about the chip of the Ally is in name only the rest of it there is nothing custom about the Ally's SOC.
I don't need a super powered modern handheld. I just need something that will play older windows games portable like Kotor, twisted metal, beast wars, and so on. Maybe emulation of Dreamcast & ps2 but since my 4 year old phone can do that idk
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There is is also a factor of the operating system. Basically in Linux vs windows scenario Linux always wins in terms of amount resources it needs to run in comparison to windows which also results in better power efficiency because the less resources you use the less power drawn will be. Valve is using SteamOS which current version is based on Arch linux while ROG Ally uses standard windows with all its bloat which will have also Asus bloat included. Not to mention windows and older game compatibility is meh at best and dont get me started on windows updates.
It seems like the Z1 extreme is just the 7840u laptop apu
@@PlasmaSnake369 It is the whole Z1 Extreme is basically a marketing ploy to make potential customers thing that this is some kinda custom chip when in reality is standard production APU with changed volatges.
I dont think a SD 2.0 is on the way, as valve is trying to improve the compatibility of steam os for backcatalog of games... Mindlessly improving hardware before optimizing the software is the main problem of pc gaming. And i want to believe steam deck is an effort to show people you can use older hardware. Nintendo has a similar approach, they dont use super powerful hardware and do not do main hardware revisions to their consoles for almost a decade... Also using linux instead of windows is a statement in itself, "not using bloated software so you do not need high hardware". Anyway these are my two cents
The Switch came out 6 years ago.
It's in development but it'll take time.
@@Lestibournes yes, but the SoC the Switch uses, an Nvidia Tegra X1, came out in January 2015. So the internals were already quite outdated from day 1 of release, lol. I think they slightly erred with the memory however. Higher clocked memory gives a significant improvement on the Switch and they could’ve squeezed more out of the SoC if they had done that.
Nintendo has always put more emphasis on the the games than on the hardware. That is the correct strategy, in my opinion.
DX9/10/11 is really not the problem. Proton's DXVK has done an amazing job to getting those titles working. Even reaching out to Devs for help with online play. SD2 is definitely coming, and Dev's should be convinced of it's usefulness.
Now it looks like the VR console will be next. It makes sense that Steam wouldn't want two new expensive hardware products out fighting each other for customers' gaming dollars at the same time.
The Steam Deck feels more and more like it was designed according to principle that was famously employed by Gunpei Yokoi at Nintendo: "Lateral thinking with withered technology"
Course, using PCIe 3 vs 4 is less extreme then going for monochrome LCDs when color is already common place, but the basic philosophy is comparable.
yeah the gameboy pretty much beted on longer battery duration.
Can you explain that principle to me?
@@Lestibournes it’s squeezing everything out of affordable (usually older) tech for your specific use case. Remove everything that is extraneous and nonessential to your purpose. For a battery powered gaming device you are trying to save every tiny bit of power possible while still providing a fun experience.
While not a direct 1:1 comparison, since Valve basically modified cutting edge (for the time) technology during the Decks development, you can still see how they kept the design philosophy close to heart. I think this philosophy is particularly evident with the trackpads, the performance efficiency at lower TDP, and SteamOS itself.
Still would’ve liked an OLED display tho.. 😅
@@WholeHolyHole thanks
Ive always thought this.
Most reviews at the moment are “if you use double the power on a more powerful chip gives you more power than the steam deck” I’m glad you delved into the silicone level which demonstrates the care and attention that went into the valve chip 👍
The mockup does a great job conveying just how much die area the Steam Deck devotes to its GPU compared to the Ally. One device is min-maxed for the task of 'portable gaming machine', the other is just a (very good) laptop APU stuffed into a Switch/Steam Deck form factor.
On the other hand, my Switch never actually leaves the house, and I'm sure many other people treat theirs similarly. So as you point out, a more power-hungry device still has its place.
Excellent video --
Hugely informative video. Assuming you are correct this is a really excellent explanation of what I have been seeing other creators struggle to grapple with.
I think customizing is a super interesting and often overlooked aspect of hardware design. It's relatively "easy" to design a good all-around product that performs well within common TDP ranges. But as soon as you move towards the extreme, be it very high or ultra low power draw, specialized hardware truly shines.
I hope the ROG Ally will improve its low TDP performance with further firmware and driver updates. But even if it would be able to catch up to the Steam Deck, a simple look at the hardware specs is all you need to realize the amazing work Valve has done with the Van Gogh APU.
wow this video really helped explain the biggest "shortcoming" (slower RAM) I thought the Deck had and now makes me appreciate those choices 👍 just wished Valve would have communicated it themselves as gamers always want the latest and greatest even though it might not be in their best interest 🤷♂
This really couldn't be communicated without a good comparison point.
@@mutantmagnet Not to mention right now Valve wins either way, they want more handhelds out there right now they dont need to convince ppl the deck is better since its sold millions already, they just want more x86 handheld out there that can eventually run their Steam OS, the os is what they will try to convince ppl to get in a couple years away from windows.
You explained it really well! Thank you. I hope ROG can improve its performance at 15W!
Karl!!!
Whoa! Karl Rock! didn't expect you to be here in ROG ally video!
ayeee yooo
Wow didn't expect karl to be in this video. When I saw this I was like what the heck😮!
Hey Karl, didn't expect to see you over here.
I preordered the ally. can't wait to play I'm sure they will update the software and firmware just like steam deck has done over the last year
Congrats! The Phawnx has done some testing, and he believes there's still more headroom for performance
Agree 🎉
When I get my ally I’m going to install a new OS or try to get rid of all the bloatware. I've heard it's confirmed that you can download the armory crate software afterwards so i'd probably be able to increase performance more than stock windows.
You shouldn't expect updates on the ally. After Asus sell their devices, they have no motivation to make updates. Steam want to make the Steamdeck better, because they wan't that people keep playing, so they can sell games on steam. Also Windows 11 on the ally limits the possibilities for upgrades. So better you buy whats you get with the ally and don't expect them to repair bugs.
@@alexh7513 Did you copy and paste this? Nothing original about this comment at all
Great video! I am all in on Steam Deck because I price made it easy to take the risk. With how amazing it has been I will not be replacing it until Valve makes something significantly more powerful (keeping those track pads of course)
So that's why Rog Ally struggled against Deck at lower power consumption. Great analysis.
It’s bad that this video made me want to get a steam deck now purely from the design considerations.
Update: I bought a Steam Deck and it feels amazing and really well polished, Valve did an amazing job at designing and producing it.
Very insightful! I would not underestimate the software differences, though. Steam OS has a lot of tweaks even to the Linux kernel to optimize for gaming workloads. I think it’s unlikely Windows has undergone similar optimization for the Ally.
Yeah, I was thinking this too
Steam Deck: Fully custom APU + Fully custom Linux OS
Ally: Off the Shelf APU + Off the shelf Windows + software to slightly tweak power consumption
Windows has been getting destroyed by Mac for exactly this reason. The M1 Macbook Air easily has 3x or more the battery life of the next-longest-lasting 14inch laptop. It's ridiculous! I wish we had the Valve APU for Laptops. I'm desperate for a laptop that can run on 2-6W like an M1 can. It's not just "ARM vs x86", it's the wasted 3-4W that was mentioned in this video!
ASUS probably gave people early access so they can get early feedback. Valve did the same thing. The two companies will compete for our $, which is good for us.
Watch ayeneo go.. ok, time to best this
The beautiful thing about the Valve using Linux for the SteamDeck is that they could optimize the drivers and kernel for their specific hardware and usecase. This flexibility doesn't exist on Windows.
You can also install Linux just like any PC idiot on the rog ally
The Steam Deck has Steam OS and has an optimisation advantage. Where as the Rog Ally has Windows which already has great compatibility. I feel like it would be more of a chore to use Windows on a handheld. I definitely prefer a console ui on handhelds.
Thanks for showing the performance difference between a custom gaming APU and a general APU.
The goal is long battery life for portability. They should be focusing more on that in future products. If it's just playing at home, gaming laptop exists.
But you can’t even buy a new laptop with a decent apu in it (6800u, 7940hs) for the price of a ally let alone one with a decent dgpu.
Can easily attach it to a power bank to get tons of life while using max power
I checked and in my region a Laptop with 3050(performs the same according to Techpowerup) and a 12500H(4P 8E) costs 100 bucks more.
Gaming on a laptop is horrible in my opinion, people buy these devices because they want a handheld.
YES! #MBison_meme
There's a serious problem with the unit when it falls behind by 40% compared to 7840U at all power levels in most games. Even falls behind the 6840U at some power levels. 10W 5W are the biggest problems with the Ally and the Z1E.
I have a Steam Deck already and it’s pretty great, waiting for Steam Deck 2 to upgrade 😂
Same oled steam
Valve has proven, like with their games and recent HW (VR), the painstaking process of attention to detail and UX design. The Steam Deck I believe is the TRUE handheld device, where I believe Valve has taken notes from Nintendo with fully utilizing and compromise with HW. The idea of making use of HW while plugged in a handheld is odd to me, it's not a true handheld experience. As you said the Ally lacks to power itself at lower tdp lvls with its increased core count/CUs, and IO.
I've watched the Phawx, and the 7840U and Z1 Extreme while the same, the 7840U handles voltages, freq differently while still within ~10W, the same as the Ally and performing better. Interesting watch, and maybe the Ally could be improved on.
Thinking about it, I am curious how the regular Z1 will handle with fewer 2 cores to power and 4CUs that'll potentially be sufficiently powered at lower wattage. Although the $100 difference in MSRP between this and the extreme is weird. I think if it were priced at $550 it'll be more competitive compared to the deck with a 512GB nvme storage and the better screen.
@@BobDevV That's fair, I completely forgot the mediocrity that was the steam machines and its precursor with the dual trackpads and planted the seeds for proton. Also, holo iso is a great shout, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Yes I think the regular Z1 is probably destined for the scrap heap. Why launch an inferior powered version of your product a couple of months later when your line up is designed around the most powerful handheld.
@@hgh1727 True, and the MSRP $100 difference is like the 7900 XT vs XTX, it's a play to get you to go for the expensive option unless you don't live in the US
I'll wait for steam deck 2. Thanks for the review.
You do realize you're looking at potentially waiting for close to at least another half a decade for Steam Deck 2, right?
Any idea if half the cores on the Z1E were to be parked by software or from bios. would the saved amount of power be sent to GPU instead? wouldn't that (theoretically) make it behave closer to VG? I think 99% of Ally user will not use more than the extra 4 CPUs cores it has.
According to The Phawx's rigorous experimentation, they've come to the hilarious conclusion that disabling cores in the 6800U doesn't really save power to the GPU. In fact, it sometimes results in lower performance at the same TDPs. Now, while we haven't tested it on the 7840U, I'd bet my collection of vintage floppy disks that you'll likely witness a similar comedy of errors. So, my friend, it seems like disabling cores won't give you any superpowers, but hey, at least you'll have a good laugh and the same TDPs!
@@Ali-dp6xv this is true. I did an experiment with desktop Ryzen 1700x a few years back. I disabled 4 cores hoping I could overclock the remaining 4 cores to higher clock and lower temps. No clock improvements and no lower temperature 8 cores vs 4 cores
Valve definitely killed it with Van Gogh. Excited to see what they cook up in their next chip. My personal use case does lean me towards the ally.
i will own both, i think the ally will be my number 1 device though
The mocked up die analysis explains a lot! I don't really see this kind of analysis much on other channels. You definitely deserve more subs! Come on algorithm....
Soooo heres my guess. Since the ally has more cores those cores need voltage to operate so at lower wattages power has to be distributed to those cores which may makes them less effective. The steamdeck has less cores soo there may be more voltage to those cores than whats being applied to the ally. I saw asus rog pulse pod cast and they mentioned making it possible to disable cores in the armory crate. If that happens then I guaranteed performance will increase
I invested heavily in ASUS and they have disappointed me. I will be buying the Steam Deck even though the Ally is better.
Till you get you hands on the deck I absolutely love mine 😎
Lol wanna buy mine? Cause i already ordered my Ally🤷♂️
@@dennardanthony8582 Same! My steam deck has been sitting on a shelf in my closet for the last few months. The steam deck made me realize I want portable pc gaming. It also made me realize how much I took windows compatibility for granted lol.
I’m happy with my Steam Deck. I’ll most likely get the steam deck 2 when that releases. Great review btw.
Does the Asus Rog Ally run in Mexico?
I think Valve were genius in creating a true custom APU. I also love the analysis by the Phawx. A mother difference I have noted is the impact of using a quad channel memory setup on the Steam Deck and the GDP Win Max 2+ compared to the dual channel memory setup on the ROG Ally.
I can't wait for the next Custom APU from Valve for Steam Deck 2. I think it will be 4C/T Zen 4 and 12CU RDNA3 Lpddr 5-6400 quad channel targeting 1080p 60fps with 30% better better life with the same battery capacity. I love how Valve is managing expectations and not over promising.
Microsoft and Sony have been doing for a long time and Nintendo with NVidia for that matter
@@Futura2500 doesn't take away the genius. All those companies have a long history of making gaming Consoles yet none of them have a Handheld Console to rival the Steam Deck. Valve saw a potential market no one was tapping into. I admire Valve for their contribution to Gaming on Linux as well. Can you imagine moving forward if game developers include Linux as platform they are targeting for each game, the impact that would have. Even if they don't, what Valve have achieved with their Proton layer is short of witchcraft. I love their holistic approach with both active software and hardware development that truly gets what Handheld Gaming in this age is all about. When it comes to AAA gaming on Handhelds and on Linux nobody even comes close to Valve.
Valve already said that they aren't planning on changing the steam decks hardware for a long time. That's a smart move on their side, cause keeping hardware the same will allow for game developers to optimize for steam decks hardware
The Ally was misquoted as dual channel. It's quad channel just like the Deck, 800 MHz per chip versus the deck's 687.5.
The Math: the deck's 5500MTS is 4 channel, 1375 MT/s per channel, which is 687.5 MHz for DDR [*Dual* Data Rate]
Asus isn't running similar chips at 1600 MHz. The teardowns show 4 chips just like the deck and they would need to be doing 1600MHz [3200 MT/s] to be dual channel by the same math to hit 6400 MT/s.
@@pondracek I'm pretty sure the ROG Ally is running a dual channel memory setup. Check your sources and your calculations again.
I would choose the Ally as I need a windows pc for travel. Handheld gaming was the bonus and almost half the price of the laptop i was considering... Already have the Steam Deck.
good choice.
I work from home now, I'm always by an outlet so it'll almost always be plugged in. Given that, what would be the better option so i could play and relax on the couch with my family while they watch tv?
so the APU from the deck use from 4W to 15W and the Rog from 9W to 30W...
what about the rest of the devices?
or that account for the other pieces as well?
In all honesty, for my use case, Valve knocked it out of the park. I love my Asus parts in my PC, but I haven't used it in a long time as the deck is just so fun. It is very interesting what they did to make it happen, custom chips seems to be the future, build for the use case not for general all purpose.
I wish Asus well and hope its successful but I'll definitely be waiting on the deck 2. Touch pads... I need them, plain and simple, without them I will not consider buying.
It most certainly can beat the Deck . Sold my Deck and picking up the Ally ...
I think this is one of my favorite videos you have made so far! Thanks for the insights!
How does everyone like the GPD Win 4?
Valve wins on both scenarios just because even if they buy the ROG Ally, a part of these mobile pc gamers will buy games from Steam.
No matter how many competitors we all know that Valve somehow will benefit to it. Now Apple and their M silicons need to play catch up.
I am looking forward to Steamdeck 2.
Nothing replaces a steam deck like nothing re🎉places a switch
You can come close but it takes a lot of tinkering 😅
I have both and love them both but two separate systems
You can make some handheld devices do all both but not very well something will suffer
Battery tech still long ways off, with out making it to heavy. I think chips that Aim to get as much battery life the better it is to make a lighter handheld that last longer is better in my book.
For me Ally is a winner, windows OS allows anything you can install on a normal PC to be installed, that includes pirated games for those unable to afford them. Steam deck is tied to your steam account so only purchased games or EMU games.
No contest.
Steam loose out on my cash due to unavailability, I have tried for 3 months to buy one and only option is the 512gb, I wanted the 64gb version which I planned on upgrading myself.
Now the Rog Alley is out it's a no brainer, almost the same price as the current Steam Deck that is available but you a better screen, better CPU and install what you want and not tied to Steam OS and what games you have purchased there.
Shoot,,thats make sense,,thanks for ur explanation,,my heart goes to ally
Yeah, I think most fanboys forget that there are other places to get games (whether that's another store front or pirating). You don't even want to know what a nightmare it was to try to play my own, older, games from discs on the steam deck. I used a program to convert them to isos which are perfectly playable on windows but not at all simple on the steamdeck!
AMD is working to fix the performance.
How do you know?
@Titaniumtown just trust me bro
The RoG thrashes the steam deck, the software was behind, but the new drivers gave it a serious boost over the steam deck.
This is an awesome video. While I suspected the difference was due to the steam deck having a more specialised chip, it was interesting to hear the intricacies and design decisions that likely went into the final build of the APU
I would like a better CPU for the next Steam Deck and a slightly better GPU, maybe being at least 25% faster at the same power.
What I really would like is a Occulink 2 connector that I can hook it up to an eGPU for high end performance.
That or Valve can release Steam OS for everyone to use, but the vendors can have a "extra software features" update button to add in support for things they might add in like eGPU support and whatever else they want to add.
Yeah ill just be waiting for the steam deck 2 tbh
It would help if we could disable some CPU cores i have option to undervolt (offset) and set memory speeds/timings. In theory that could be incorporated into Armoury Crate software without need to go into BIOS. That would close the gap between ROG Ally and SteamDeck
For me the software also makes the SteamDeck better, Windows can’t suspend games properly for instance, it drains the battery. That’s one reason Valve went with Linux, because they wanted to squeeze as much performance out as they could for as little power as possible.
It's been said million times: windows can suspend game, just turn off hibernate mode. Doing this has no effect on battery.
My Steam Deck plays everything i would ever want to play on the road. AAA games over rated and indie is where its at. and if i want it still plays the bigs games after they optimize for PC anyway
When it comes to community and company backing. No the ROG Ally can not compete. Bout it.
Which is HUGE.
they have both pros and cons! rog ally is power hungry that is why it needs more TDP to play smoothly while SteamDeck consume less battery as much as possible with the help of low TDPs...but in the end it both offers same common goals...play games on the go
when is the meteorlake video?
Next weekend. The thumbnail is already done :)
i.imgur.com/UTVgFOw.png
The screen is a big factor for a handheld. The Ally screen looks much nicer.
120Hz too
@@samserious1337 Try running AAA games in 120Hz and report back :)
I envy the color accuracy of the Ally though
its not better at all, 1080p 120hz is shit, maybe if they didn't go for big numbers to appeal to the pubg npc players we'd have 720p oled with vrr
if you like playing tethered to your charging cable. Heh! With such a small screen the pixel density of an 800p screen is more than enough.
@@alienflorina Adaptive Sync support!
No one is doing any AAA gaming at 10w. Reaching for the top shelf with this one boss .
And your point is? If you want to do AAA gaming, you have to go for >15W, at that point your spending less time PLAYING games without charging. Sure, everyone has differing preferences on how much they play at a time, or whether or not plugging in their handheld bothers them but I think your missing the point. And if your not playing AAA games, like playing older titles or emulating older HW, the Deck has an edge because it performs better at lower wattage.
You're going to be forced to increase wattage with AAA games at a cost of power draw. And if you even want a playable experience you're going to be sacrificing a bit.
AAA = Snooze fest
Deck 2 Custom APU:
* Zen4c - style little cores laid out in a power optimised physical IP cell library.
* Memory on-package using the lowest power HBM variant available at design finalisation time.
* GPU: RDNA 3.5 (a tock design fixing whatever issues made RDNA 3 performance below expectations).
Also, relevant system-wide feature to keep the GPU down-clocked and cool:
* Display: 1920*1200 native, relying on OS support for upscaling from any framebuffer resolution, including dynamic resolution by forcing the application's window to resize to hit TDP and frame time targets in a fake fullscreen windowed mode.
I learnt today about using FSR on the Steam Deck, it allows for a lower resolution to be used, then lock frame rate at 40 and you can turn the graphics settings up for a game.
I almost always play on my steam deck when it is plugged into a charger or battery pack. I am switching to Asus so that I can actually play all of my games. SteamOS ain't cutting it for me.
Same. Plus the ROG ally takes an hour to fully charge but my steam deck takes 2 and bit hours to fully charge
Yes,,same here,,steam for the one who can afford to pay and pay and pay and pay
But still, why didn't Valve use Zen4 instead of Zen2? It would give way more efficiency boost.
Using older technology is cheaper.
There's a disgruntled pattern about Ally "Reviews" going on with these lower tier youtubers who obviously have not had a hands on with the ally itself. They all seem to be "guessing" how bad it is or will be etc etc...
Doesn't matter. I've had the steam deck for a year and rarely use it. Gaming 60 FPS max(most time 40 to 50) with no vrr just sucks. I would 1,000,000% be OK with higher power tdp limits to push more frames and less battery life than playing less than 60 with no vrr. 😂
8 cores at 1GHz should use less power than 4 cores at 2GHz. Is it possible to radically underclock abd undevolt the Ally and use this fact to get better performance per Watt from it tgan from the Deck, at least on multicore synthetic bencharks that scale well like CPU ray tracing?
Even though the rog ally is a more basic chip, it works for me. I'm on my tablet right now, connected to an external power brick. So, really, I'll get way more than enough battery life in my normal use case before sitting near a charger, or putting the external brick in a charger. If we got a new custom chip though..... Lawd.... Custom, 6 cores, 16-20 cus should be possible.
Great video. Would love to see a video comparing laptop and desktop cpu architecture.
First off, very well done and insightful. Thank you sir.
Secondly, Steam Deck. One of the prime check boxes to tick with any handheld is battery life. I want to like the ROG Ally more, but what's the point of having access to all that power if I have to be near a wall outlet to enjoy it? I might as well keep gaming on my rig. The Deck destroys all its competition at stupidly low watts, and is much better at letting you pick your battles with the battery. You can limit frames, fine tune TDP number by number, and keep everything on a memory profile per game. The Ally has three modes that jump from one TDP to another, which doesn't let you optimize things your own way, which likely means you'll overshoot battery consumption simply based on how limited the options are.
What's the point of having longer battery life on the deck when I can't play half my game library? At the end of the day, these devices are for playing games and if I can't play what I want there's zero reason to waste money on it. This is coming from someone who has owned the deck since Sept 2022 and has been disappointed that I have to wait for proton updates to play much of my steam library.
@@jollyrancherchick Well, that just depends on where you buy your games from. A great majority of people buy well over half their library just on Steam, so the value of the Steam Deck is prominent in this market. When a company has a lead as heavy as Valve's, they can undermine other PC platforms, and it really won't have a widespread impact. If you have a library that's sizable on other launchers, then obviously the Steam Deck isn't for you. And that really kinda sucks for people like you, because as of right now, there is no device that can translate what Valve did with their custom APU over to a windows machine.
I'm kinda (kinda) in the same boat as you. I have over 200 games on GoG, but I own about double that amount on Steam. Not being able to play most of that GoG library is lame, but I'm gonna have a hell of a good time with the games that I own on Steam.
Steamdeck has over a year's worth of software and firmware updates. All the reviews and comparisons are against the pre-release marketing units of the Ally, so they are not representative of the actual market units. Asus has already said they've fixed a handful of the issues that have been brought to their attention during this marketing phase, and they've also said that more updates are coming via OTA changes. Yes, the Steamdeck is an awesome piece of hardware combined with SteamOS, but the Ally is going to disrupt the market that will only make it better for the consumers. It's an exciting time.
Your videos never cease to amaze me. I recognize your video is largely about power efficiency, but I was in discussion last month, why consoles are often better in actual gaming than pc with some of the latest games. I believe due to balance and efficiency from the game design stage to pc hardware it’s programmed for in comparison to newest consoles. “Purpose Built vs All Purpose”, it’s not just about brute power. Your talk of custom design, balance, i/o, memory processing and bandwidth is translatable to pc gaming ecosystem.
Hardware manufacturers and game devs must establish balance. I believe pc gaming issues are largely due to data I/O and memory bandwidth at the software level. Devs can start by requiring SSD, (ideally NVME) and maybe VRAM rqmnt tiers such as 8Gb - 1080p, 10-16gb 1440p, 20gb+ for 4K. They should quickly adopt DirectX 12 Ultimate featureset, most importantly Direct Storage.
GPU manf. should ensure the VRAM amnt\bandwidth is suitable and balanced with gpu processing power at targeted resolutions. Stop starving powerful gpus with low bandwidth VRAM. PC does so many things well, but it must find a way to address and minimize its weakest links. Rising tide lifts all boats. Stop trying to use brute force and excess in one area to offset design flaws or shortfalls in others. There’s art and elegance to balance and efficiency.
Why do people think that it is required for the Ally to beat the Steamdeck on every aspect? Those two can easily coexist and have their own identity and percs...
Let's not forget that the Steamdeck at release was NOT what it is right now. It used to slow down upon opening the fast settings, did not have a profile for each game, no 40hz, no Cryobites tweaking, no homebrew plugins, no GE proton, etc.
It's not crazy to think that seeing a big name pushing windows gaming on handheld will help create the same kind of movement the Deck benefited from. Even if it's not to the same extent Valve did because the Linux community is kinda boss!
Let's wait and see what kind of magic the community and some optimized drivers/software can bring.
Ofc they can coexist, that also my conclusion at the end of the video. In the end, although they look very similar, they are quiet different products.
@@BobDevV I know that Proton existed before the Deck..I just said that the Proton community really helped when it comes to making the SteamDeck what it is today, wether it's the main Proton or GE,etc
As for windows i never said nor implied that the Windows community could help the windows handlheld to the same extent that the linux community did with the deck. I just assumed that, at least, it can help polishing many things while AMD and Asus work on their Drivers and firmwares. Which could bring even better results than those that we already have.
I had many GPD and one Aya Neo, i remember pretty well tweaking the bios, handling drivers and having few tools like tdp switchers, tools for overclocking and undervolting, etc. And obtaining a 15-30% performance gain overall...Everything came from the community and helped squeeze the power of those handheld. A big part of The Phawx's succes is actually related to his work on Windows handhelds...
@@BobDevV There is no need for that much work...
The Ally already has it's own real percs(power, compatibility, screen)... Any plus is cherry on a pretty cool cake which can totally exist along the Deck.
I have the Deck myself and i'm pretty sure the Ally won't make up for Steam Input, or the Deck's pricepoint.
Still, i preorder the Ally because of what it can already do, and it's potential to do even better with existing solutions and probable new ones (+official drivers,etc).
Game developters are currently specificly optimizing games for the deck. Until then ally had the same treatment, it wont be as good
I finally understand and u made it easy to know actually how different there devices are and what kinda wattage u want to use so now u know where there sweet spots are good video for sure !!
The 8 Zen4 cores is a bit overkill for a handheld. Yeah, it's a high performance laptop chip. There's rumors that the Van Gough chip was originally developed for Microsoft Surface but they ended up not using it.
Phawx also thoroughly tested the Z1 extreme in Ally against the 7840U inside a GPD Max.
7840U manages to handily outperform the Z1E at the same power levels and has a significant delta at lower wattages as well.
It's all related to voltage regulation in the Ally. With proper tuning, it should be able to match the Deck at lower TDPs, outperforming might be a stretch for now.
They need to enable the AI core in the Z1E Chip in the ROG ally
I’d also imagine it’s the regulators, since that seems like something asus is having trouble with atm
Great video. I'm already hyped for next steam deck release with new custom chip.
Where have u been all these years! I’ve always wanted a one u in my life to answer so many of my instinctive questions bothering me all the time.
🙏✌️🖖
Thanks for this.
I had a feeling that the Ally wouldn't be a competitor to the Steam Deck, but I couldn't figure out why.
The boost in power and tech was a red flag for me.
Easy to compare a device with pre launch software. To one that’s been out for over a year. The SD had multiple issues when it first released
@@RichieLanderos Asus doesn't support much their products, tho, Armoury Crate has never worked well on my laptop
Very interesting! Didn't know Valve had done so much of the work on their chip
If Valve is doing something, they are doing it right. I feel like you can see that philosophy in all of their products.
This was such a good video, the differences going on at a silicone level aside, windows will be a mega negative for a handheld with resources in the background too
Thank you for shedding light on the mystery. I'll hold out for the next Steam Deck. Cheers!
you forgot to mention the trackpads as an advantage for the deck, they improve the experience in certain games not designed to be played with a controller.
another thing to consider is game streaming, contrary to what the Rog Ally presentation said, cloud gaming DO WORK on linux, they implied you need windows for that wich isnt truth at all! in fact microsoft made some patches specifically targeting linux to improve the xcloud experience on it!
if we take into account that cloud gaming wont use the internal hardware too much, steam deck should be better at this use case too, since it probably wont need more than 10 watts to receive/decode an video streaming, you probably can reduce the consumption to 4W and get at least 8 hours of gaming , contrary to the rog ally wich cant go bellow 9w, and may struggle to decode videos if you reduce the clock too much.
trackpads ++
screen aspect ration ----
Never use track-pads or back buttons
They are competitors, but they do not completely overlap in use cases and functionality. I have my steam deck, and have ordered an ally. The deck is great and far outperformed my initial expectations, and there are a lot of games where you can drop the TDP down to a measly 3 watts and play for extended timeframes. I’ve comfortably gotten enjoyable performance from newer games at only 10w as well, it’s just a great experience. But what makes the deck shine the meat for me, is the combination of SteamOS and the Built in Steam Controller 2.0. The track pads go a long way in expanding the kind of games you can play on deck.
The Ally, I can only go on what I have seen, and what I have seen is mixed but positive. I think the biggest thing holding it back is windows overhead, and the early first generation state of the software/hardware combination. Given 6 months or so of it being released I think will go quite a ways to smoothing things out both driver wise and software integration, and possibly some windows handheld centric optimizations from Microsoft or the community at large, I think we can expect good things.
Time will tell, either way, people looking to run these portably for extended play time, need to temper their expectations a bit, and stop comparing them to phones or the Nintendo switch. Buy a portable battery bank and enjoy extended play.
For fair benchmark they need to delete shader chace folder and not connected to internet so both dont have any shader cache
You can basically state Valve asked AMD custom design a “mobile” SoC for steam deck
There is many things that are better then the ROG. For example I like the larger size of the deck, larger screen and better battery life , more buttons on the back, duel track pads ,and most importantly I love the OS on the deck with the plug in’s, the decks amazing 😃
@@garrusvakarian8709 not the case. the screen is bigger as it’s taller on the deck, and the battery of your ROG will die faster if you plan to use it with all that power with the 1080p 120 hz screen not plugged in.. also The steam deck runs way better at lower wattages,and so for me it’s a way better handheld unplugged on the go.
@@Ghost88o9 That's not how screen sizes work lol. The aspect ratio may be different but they're literally the same size.
@@jollyrancherchick Both devices have a 7-inch IPS display, though the Steam Deck uses a 16:10 aspect ratio instead of the 16:9 format of the ROG Ally.. 😁
Inconclusive evidence for the most part. The phawxs tests have been confirmed to not quite match a standard 7840U (see Taki Udons latest video). Firmware update already added 12% more performance on the low end. We need more data- and the Ally needs more time to marinate. The Steam Deck had tons of problems months past it’s arrival on Feb 2022
The Ally should wipe the floor with the Steam Deck as it's hardware is 4-5x more powerful and produces with a 1.5x node advantage. Yet it doesn't. Even if it's low power performance increases, at below 10W it's still playing catch up.
@@HighYield which is why I call the evidence inconclusive- and why I say it needs more time to develop the software/firmware side. I think your video covers what we currently know well(although as with cutting edge tech in an un-finished release phase, is subject to change daily), but the fact is we haven’t even seen it’s final form(dbz pun intended). Technically at 15w tdp on the Ally as it stands right now we are seeing around 20-30% increase in performance- which 15w tdp is still within the Decks range. So it does beat the Steam Deck, just not at 10w at this time. The jury is still out.
@@baldsealion 15 watts is still too much for a handheld
Great original analysis!/ There have been countless comparisons between both of these but you somehow bring something fresh and original!
I think the 8mb of Infinty Cache on the Steam Deck makes a big difference. Steam Deck has a fully featured RDNA2 GPU. Not even PS5 or Series X has any form of Infinity Cache. In fact, the Deck is the only RDNA2 based GPU (other than P.C GPU'S) to use Infinity Cache. The Phoenix chip doesn't use Infinity Cache and that's why it absolutely needs faster memory to compete. Infinity Cache is a brilliant way of reducing power consumption and bandwidth needs. No idea why no one uses it other than Valve.
It is as if Steam Deck is an actual console while ROG Ally is a low end gaming computer disguised as a console. Good to see competition though.
You nailed it, and in an extremely detailed fashion!
You have answered many questions. Thank you. I think this shows that no firmware/software update will fix the lower TDP performance on the ROG Ally.
Does the Asus ROG Ally run Windows or Linux? ? ? There's definitely something to be said about the OS overhead using Windows.
These were my sentiments exactly, although to be fair around the release window of thebsteam deck, its battery life was worse than it is now. But after a year of updates, optimizations and quality of life improvements, its definitely in better shape! So heres to hoping that asus will continue updates and support on this front within its first year to improve performance and quality of life
Claiming that Valve "designed" Van Gogh with just a helping hand from AMD is so much of an hyperbole that it is flatly a misleading statement.
Van Gogh was prepared by AMD. Not just when Valve asked for it, but literally years before Valve even started to get an idea of it. But faced with limited budget and limited opportunities, this AMD's APU remained in the design area, with no clear market base to address.
This changed with the Valve's Steamdeck. Due to sheer coincidence, Van Gogh was actually the perfect APU for this device category. And Valve could provide the volume and the budget to make it happen.
Now, I'm not saying that Valve didn't have any participation in the chip's design, but their share was limited to a selection into a rather short prepared menu. Nothing equivalent to a "chipset design" team.
The most important impact of Valve is on the software side. And that's a hugely important one. Thanks to the customization possible with Linux, Valve's engineers have been able to make the most out of the power saving functionalities of Van Gogh. It would have been very difficult (actually impossible) to do the same on Windows, which is incidentally what ROG Ally carries, And that's indeed hugely important for such a market segment, where good performance at limited power (
So basically the steam deck has better battery life but the ally is way better at everything else? Ill buy me an ally.
The ally is having software / driver issues. At 15 watt the ally outperforms the steam deck. Steam deck is only good at low tdp. Plus the ally screen is vrr capable which is a game changer. Allows for a much smoother experience.
The ally power is getting taken by the cpu. Disable SMT and possibly 2-4 of the cores and lower the cpu clock a little. This will give more power to the starved GPU
Maybe the cheaper Ally with the normal Z1 chip will perform better than expected.
Also the Steam Deck's RAM runs in Quad Channel configuration which also adds to the performance. Yeah that makes sense why the Steam Deck out performs the Ally at wattages below 15 watts is because the Deck is optimized to run and performed at those wattages unlike the Ally. The only thing that is custom about the chip of the Ally is in name only the rest of it there is nothing custom about the Ally's SOC.
I don't need a super powered modern handheld. I just need something that will play older windows games portable like Kotor, twisted metal, beast wars, and so on.
Maybe emulation of Dreamcast & ps2 but since my 4 year old phone can do that idk
Its their first try for a Custom APU is quite Impressive
You Video is truly Impressive how you Explain the APU