The DEFINITIVE Review - Asus ROG ALLY X

[@TechDweeb]

Nobody does an in-depth review like The Phawx. Your brain is an asset to the community!

[@ThePhawx]

[@FanTheDeck]

The time has come! I've been excited for your deep dive. There a ton of little things to discuss with the X and I knew you'd do them justice.

[@ThePhawx]

[@VaultF]

... And so have you

[@FanTheDeck]

@@VaultF Much appreciated man! 🤜

[@X862go]

Kinda crazy that they redesigned the whole system in a year. I mean, this isn't a 60 usd ambernic device 🤷 . 800 usd handheld is kinda of a big risk. Hopefully, strix point pricing will drop in the next year.

[@NootNoot.]

Identifying the power profile quirks is really informative, and something to be weary of when watching other ppls reviews not taking notice. Great work as always Oh and always love the fps v TDP graphs!!

[@ThePhawx]

Thank you!

[@liviup6660]

Phawx I apreciate your time doing all the hard work for us. You are 1st KZbinr to get a special thx from me!👌👊

[@ThePhawx]

:D thank you so much! I really do appreciate that!

[@visionary4787]

I swearTHE PHAWX is like no one else on KZbin. No one on here even comes close to him. I just want to give the man props. But yeah the ally was my first handheld before the win 4, its like my first love ❤️ i really want an ally X ugh

[@acarajeh]

I appreciate your scientific approach to benchmarking in such detail. Keep up the great work. You definitely need to find a way through the algorithm to increase your subs. You should have a mega channel, you deserve it.

[@ThePhawx]

Thank you, I really do appreciate that!

[@KarlRock]

Epic review bro. Thanks for going so in-depth!

[@daniyalaamir1779]

Hi karl how are you I am from Pakistan,I also have an ally big fan

[@KarlRock]

@@daniyalaamir1779 Thanks Bro. I've got a ton of Pakistan videos coming soon!

[@RandySloan]

No, no sir. I will not let you get away with such a clean intro transition. Don't ever set a bar that high again😏

[@ThePhawx]

:D Thanks so much

[@callumjones5451]

YES! I was thinking hold on a minute.. Where is The Phawx video on this and here we are about half hour later 🤣

[@vncube1]

Hey Phawx really love your videos! A suggestion for your upcoming Strix Point videos if you have time: please graph and plot performance vs. memory clock alongside TDP for GPU bound applications/games. It would be fun to extrapolate and optimise performance/battery life along multiple curves. Such a study could also help users catch out when exactly the CPU for hogging too much power at low TDPs.

[@Amaneas]

Best in depth review out there! Love how you do this! Thx a lot.

[@MrCoffee0996]

I wish you are more famous! I've always liked the way you present your data. This video definitely get me thinking if I should trade my Deck OLED to Ally X, now that the battery is much better 😂

[@camehill4399]

Waiting for mine to be shipped. Cmon best buy lets go

[@tomlee45]

This is a fantastic review and I really enjoy the TDP breakdown. I am Ally OG owner and the two biggest faults for me has been one 1 usb and battery life. Since I play higher demanding 17W+ games, battery anxiety has been a real thing. I keep checking every 10 minutes to see my percentage when gaming - nobody should ever go through that. The other is USB ports. I like using my handhelds with a portable screen like the NREAL VR. The 2nd USB port can allow me charge the device. Overall, I ended up purchasing one today as a best buy one time for 140 bucks off so this was a no brainer. Now i have to sell my ally OG. Ally X has checked alot of boxes that I want in a portable. Only thing I wish is that the screen covered end to end. (no bezels)

[@reginaldhansbrough8726]

I swear I haven't seen your videos on release day in my feed in months. Wanted to drop a comment and a like, love your stuff.

[@JamieR]

Incredible breakdown. Thank you for all the hard work you put into this ❤️

[@imsimplybetterk]

Very nice of you to think of those who are waiting! I was looking for someone to talk about the next gen CPUs but it seems like probably around next summer or fall we will see gen 2 devices. Guess ill fold and get an ALLY X! Your review was stellar!

[@Tkcrypto1]

The extra Ram and battery is what made me get this over the steam deck. These numbers don't show that the higher ram helps stop stuttering that you could get before

[@JinsTechh]

Same I chose this over the oled steam deck. It's newer more up to date, better battery, and can play Aaa games better than the steam

[@CyberJuanito]

The transition from the thumbnail to the start of the video was so smooth lol good job

[@marcinabonski292]

As always a great review. Thank you for going into detail and measuring the performance in the way other outlets don't. One thing that would be great to see would be a dedicated frametime section like gamers nexus has. Horrible frametimes in simple games like horizon chase were part of the reason i returned my original ally. Stutter gets me out of the experience.

[@BacklogDrifter]

Got an open box one at Best Buy for $677 already. Love the huge battery!

[@crestofhonor2349]

The battery life increase is why I'm upgrading

[@THS85]

A Powerbank costs 20$.

[@crestofhonor2349]

@@THS85 I have a power bank. Not the biggest fan of having something hanging off the device or always staying plugged in

[@justhomas83]

Ram as well as normal nvme slot and better cooling fans. I'm getting my Ally X in two weeks. I'll just give my friend the Ally as a gift 🎁

[@thevalleyard3942]

Same

[@gzlander2948]

​@@justhomas83 Lucky friend indeed.

[@killercrocgeorge]

This isn’t just a deep dive this is a Master class and I love it.

[@PirateOneShot]

Dude it was great meeting you at the Philly too much games convention at the bathroom line lmao. I was so excited for this video!!

[@hazzehummuz6688]

Ducking genious, love it! Earned a sub!

[@porcupinetree3033]

As an italian I have to say...this is the way a review for these kind of devices should be done Glad I know english I jave just watched a review (which was not a review) of an italian youtuber and it was totally nonsense 25 minutes of video he spent 15 talking about the steam deck oled 😂 Long live the phawx ❤

[@edoardoremondini7729]

Morethantech?

[@edoardoremondini7729]

Morethantech?

[@porcupinetree3033]

@@edoardoremondini7729 first video I watched from the guy and last one Absolutely worst review ever

[@pkilljoy5797]

looks great, if i didnt already have a win mini 2024 i would consider it. Im just ready for the next wave of handhelds that have more power. Hopefully they dont go backwards with the battery

[@jpquinn4550]

Let’s hope that they sort out the Turbo Mode issue you mentioned And the other bits you mentioned

[@austintse5719]

I wasn't expecting any major performance increase but there is some on the 1% lows so that's a bonus. I'm only upgrading because of the significant battery life increase.

[@Terreos]

The egpu issue with the amd gpu's is a real let down. Also kind of a deal breaker. Those little egpu enclosures from GPD and Onexplayer are small enough to take with you. But I guess with new APU's coming that it might not matter before too long. Thanks for the great review and not hiding any details from us. Much appreciated.

[@DarrenPC]

Love what you do here, but the fact that not only are the graphs not colored to represent each device and tdp slice, but the fact that they also move around in position on every slide is maddening and is the reason why I cant finish this video

[@oo--7714]

Asus engineers are extremely good considering they made the ally x more efficent sespite no newer chipset.

[@marcinlegacy9660]

Amazing job Man!!! Salute to Your effort... Damn!

[@yingbxua6240]

Thank you for one the most in depth reviews out there. Pls can you also add RAM & GPU VRAM usage to the system monitor and show usage graphs compared between tow devices ? I really would like to see if extra RAM/VRAM does actually plays any role in the 0.1% & 1% increase for Ally X. Certainly for RAM heavy & unoptimized games like Hogwarts legacy this will be the case - but I can also Suspect ASUS has tuned down BIOS better for Ally X to sell it at more expensive price than original ROG Ally......

[@TatsuyaWow]

if it was not on window i cant imagine how much battery performance we would get great review

[@GAz0Line]

as usual best of the best thanks and iam keeping my ally and gonna wait for the 8850u

[@GilbertoPaulo1970]

I like your videos because they are extensive, but so technical that I can't keep up...😂

[@SOPHISTICATED_VIBES]

Good review, thank you for the effort !

[@abhmin123]

Excellent review. Very thorough. Thank you

[@mk-wz2sh]

2-5W difference at such low power CPUs makes a huge difference; It's great that you compared the same wattage! With Ryzen Controller or Universal x86 Tuning Utility you can increase the power limits on the regular Ally and have almost same performance of the Ally X

[@DoubleDragon5180]

*EDIT: Looks like the Steam Deck community has a new meta: I’ve been noticing some comments about The Phawx being a shill because he’s praising the ALLY X instead of not being a pioneer of the Asus hate mob. The Asus issue is ONLY in the US and no where else. There are other users outside of the US are able to RMA their devices without trouble from Asus. Plus the people who designed the X is not the same as the QA team. The Phawx is giving praised to the designers of Asus and that’s definitely not shilling. That’s giving credit where credit is due.

[@jjatiga]

Great video! One of my biggest complaints with the original ally was the stick tension. I was happy to hear that they tightened them up for the X. Do the new sticks on the X look compatible with the original ally? I'm hoping to be able to buy the new sticks from asus and drop them into my ally!

[@JavierSegura]

I was like, who is this dude to call his review "definitive", but then I watched the whole thing and yep... it can't get better than this. Definitely definitive.

[@julianf40ify]

Would love to see a rog ally x optimization video

[@BigMoods]

Been waiting for this phawk god 😮

[@TheDarKris]

Ally X my actually be a good candidate for that whole 80% battery saver thing they keep trying to run. Still gonna go full 100%

[@AnimeFan-dl4qd]

26:00 Review of D-Pad 31:15 Only battery is the selling point

[@youraveragedillon5958]

Can you do an updated video on the original gpd windows machine. That's when I first found your channel

[@ThePhawx]

I do have this brewing in the background :D

[@CelsoJuniorGamer]

We have a small detail that has gone unnoticed from what I've noticed. It seems that the Ally X's AC isn't pulling the overall consumption of everything, just the APU, and when I say everything I mean everything, SSD, screen, speakers and fans. Whereas on the standard Ally, it pulls everything, which is why consumption is “higher”. In the test at 25W, it's noticeable that the standard Ally lasted 1:20 hours while the X lasted approximately 2:40 hours, so if you put it down to a pencil, the double battery life of the Standard can be very well appreciated by the X. In other words, if it only consumed 25W, it would have lasted longer, the math doesn't add up.

[@X862go]

The only review 🎉

[@donniedarko4497]

Ready to nerd out y'all 🍿😎

[@Hodori-mf3ct]

Hi Phawx!

[@alphadookie5968]

Hey Phawx! Im new to your channel. Thank you for the great information. What videos or websites can you recommend to adjust epp to 100 like you suggested?

[@lilrockstar77]

I never see anyone show the bandwidth issues with thunderbolt eGPUs. There are popular games that run terrible with eGPUs. I have not see a video on this yet

[@xX_gela_Xx]

que juegos?

[@Oakich]

Russ from RGC

[@lilrockstar77]

@@Oakich thanks! Going to watch now

[@lilrockstar77]

@@Oakich ok so I just watched his eGPU coverage. He does not mention the issue I’m talking about. Just to give more context. An example of what I’m talking about would be Red Dead 2. When attaching an eGPU and playing that it’s stuck at a weird frame rate and has bad frame time. In fact I would say it runs better on the device alone than it does with an eGPU attached. Some games have a hard time dealing with the bandwidth issue thus making the experience worse than on device. I believe this happens a lot.

[@willee5348]

22:39 Please try using Radeon chill to control framerate and see if this helps

[@wyvern681]

Nice detail thanks 🙏👍

[@Kingvoakahustla]

Asus really has great engineer and RD. Many issues were not even their issue and they helped Intel and AMD to fix it and make it the best of the best. Great job Asus.

[@kayser91]

This is an insane work you have done, and finally someone who have taken the time to understand how comparing the 2 devices is not just puting the same power profile that so many other youtuber do. Thank you i can seriouslyy see that you have made much more on your review than on any of the 20 others i have seen today :p

[@fixxxerkid]

I was really waiting for THIS type of review Phawx. Of course Best Buy doesn’t have any in stock at the store :/

[@jonnyecho1948]

It’s not just Best Buy. Amazon and Microcenter preorders and stock have been delayed

[@luegi25]

Asus haters & SD lovers 🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫 The Phawx just gave his seal of approval

[@DoubleDragon5180]

EXACTLY LMAO!! SD owners DON’T like that. They shut up or go to the extremes when other handhelds are doing absolutely good and when a hint of bad news show up about other handhelds, they are front and center and won’t shut up

[@Muhluri]

Did anyone mention steam deck? Seems odd to bring it up. (I own an Ally)

[@sasdasu00dfsdfardo]

can't wait to see in a month or two about a major hardware flaw like we did last time :D

[@GrimLocke161]

I'm still not convinced that I should spend an extra $150-$250 on the Ally X over getting an OLED Deck, with my main sticking points being that Windows is still gunna get in the way of play, and I just don't trust Asus to provide good customer service, and not to cook more MicroSD cards and slots. The Damage is Done.

[@sebbbi2]

Strix without 4x big Zen5 cores would be a great chip. Just 8x efficient Zen5c cores and 16 CU RDNA3.5. RDNA3.5 is significantly more energy efficient than RDNA3. Zen5c is more than fast enough to run all games at 60Hz and it would do this at more efficient lower clock rate. And you don’t need more than 8x CPU cores for gaming. If Steam Deck 2 has another custom SoC it could be like this. That would be 2x CPU + 2x GPU increase. Both efficiency optimized brand new parts (7nm -> 4nm). And 16MB shared cache for Zen5c CPU cores to save bandwidth (no big cores, so they could definitely afford it).

[@Johnlmooring]

I was thinking about getting the X but I have the z1 extreme Ally. I think I’ll hold off for the Ally 2. I’m not a hard core gamer. I really only play NBA 2K, stream my Xbox series X, and a few point and click computer games. Nothing super demanding.

[@mza2001]

That is more than fair, it’s one hell of a handhold

[@johnsmith2956]

The X is looking nice, but i'd rather wait until next gen AMD/Intel handheld chipsets, which shouldn't be too far out

[@alexhaddock4554]

Yeah, its a really nice option but having the OG ally and an XG dock then only want to upgrade when there is a bigger portable performance boost. Then my current Ally+XG will be used mainly as my "pro" console on the living room TV exclusively so it will live on!

[@nikolaikai940]

I'm only using my Ally at home, 99% plugged in, so I'm just looking for more raw power without caring for battery. But more than doubling the battery life is a huge revision, hats off to Asus for that even if it isn't for me.

[@Muhluri]

​@@nikolaikai940there's not much to celebrate. Asus intentionally gave Ally 1 a small battery in order to make the device light

[@tomaspavka2014]

Strix halo LP : 8 core or 6 core Cpu 20CU gpu. Summer 2025

[@LeoLiburon]

It's a cool rendition to keep the hype up and the name out in the open. This is going to make me look at asus in the future as this tips my opinion in asus favor this time. The new handheld is low on my to get lost atm, though, so either way so likely my next will be 1 or 2 gens in the future.

[@federicocatelli8785]

I'd love to see a couple benchmarks at 1080p

[@jorge69696]

Sneaky asus using more power for 3mins to boost benchmarks lol.

[@DoubleDragon5180]

They can afford it with double the battery life lol unlike the Steam Deck

[@Deeptesh97]

That's how boost works on most mobile systems.

[@flywheelshyster]

Ftd fta (fan the deck sent me for the algorithm)

[@XXIVCONCEPT]

Excellent video.

[@paulwhittaker5494]

The benefit of having more Ram on these Windows handhelds would be outside of gaming... ~ ( For music production or light video editing etc... ) This is apparently where the Legion Go excels due to screen size, but suffers due to only 16gb of Ram... ~ The Rog Ally X still appeals to me, though would have preferred them to include even more Ram with the option of a 500gb SSD... ( As most people will be apparently be upgrading it anyway & its easier to do that than DIY the Ram... )

[@HP4L16]

Was CPU Boost enabled in the performance comparison to the original Ally? If yes it would be nice to know how well it does with it off. Also the faster ram should make much more difference at 1080p, at 720p it just doesn't do anything.

[@Salmaninay]

Yeahhhh baby grabbing my popcorn

[@GameTechTalk]

When watching a "The Phawx" video, there is a certain level of pride that comes from being able to fully grasp the numbers and data provided to properly address performance and expectations. Your content is second to none for anyone that can assimilate the knowledge that you so graciously provide Phawx. Thank you for being on this platform and for doing the monumental work that you do. It's that much more special when understanding all the work that goes into pulling out this much data. (Hint: IT'S A LOT) You're the GOAT.

[@xgeko2]

MY GOD THAT BATTERY

[@runi69140]

I wait u so much !!!

[@takashy87]

I had the SD card reader malfunction / die on me twice on my regular Ally after roughly 3 months of use (each time). So I'd guess that we won't really know if they managed to fix the SD card issue until a few months from now when we know for sure if people are having the same / similar issues again or not

[@Slider93]

Amd had a 16 CU prototypes way back, 3 years ago. I was so freaking angry when they didn't make a 780m into a 16CU part. And then..another year nothing happened. Ugh.

[@chrisboucher2813]

I wish there was some pre-built egpu with Nvidia graphics cards other than the XG Mobile. Devices like the GPD G1 and OneXgpu are good for the 7840u and 8840u drivers but do not play nice with the Z1 extreme drivers

[@raf1046]

Got my Ally X yesterday. The right trigger did not work. Returned.

[@DieHardEddieEdwards]

Are you dropping “Hello everyone, my name’s The Phawx”?

[@derosam69]

Phawx what laptop is best for gaming/normal use?

[@double0cinco795]

I'm not sure the power differences in the different profiles are that relevant. At the end of the day, what's relevant is performance, heat and acoustics comfortability, and battery life.

[@annonymeight6278]

Eyy man, thanks for the video, just cuious, cant the Ally X battery fit in the Ally with a modified back cover 🤔🤔

[@mar2ck_]

4:40 What program are you using to measure memory bandwidth? Vkpeak?

[@bboyprolific617]

This is the only reviewer I was waiting for. Good work as always .

[@gargola7795]

I was hoping for a mod to put ally x battery on the og, when the replacement parts are accesible

[@whitefata104]

Gonna wait strix point. To expensive for ally to justify performance upgrade

[@anro_gaming]

i'm gonna wait until every common folks get their hands on this device and see if there's any problems that might comes out with ally x

[@a.10243]

how's the sleep & hibernate?

[@Narshtashkia]

Playing a rally game with the OG Ally analogue sticks was impossible for me.

[@E_Sunbro]

Too bad Best Buy dropped the ball. No idea when mine is supposed to show up.

[@gleb.khmyznikov]

4Gig VRAM is too small. Can you retest with 5-6?

[@demi123lind]

Good video

[@TrueThanny]

ASUS using a modified driver without differentiating it to the point that it can be installed alongside the general AMD drivers is definitely an ASUS problem, not an AMD problem.

[@thwangc]

Hey Phawx, could you do a vid on comparing 12 threads/6 core vs 16 threads/8 core, when you disable 4 threads from msconfig? In the boot menu -> advanced, I've changed the number of processors from 16 to 12, this freed some power from the CPU side to allocate more to GPU and the memory controller. From the few benchmarks done on the OG Ally I have, I've gotten a few FPS higher on just about every game that's not CPU bound. Wondering how much that'd help on the X with the more power hungry memory controller. Thanks!

[@m4dp4ck3t]

This is a good idea. I'm hoping the SD2 only uses 6 cores / 12 threads and puts the rest of the power to the GPU.

[@swenic]

Any comments on Asus support? Should be mentioned in a definitive review considering they intended to screw their handheld costumers.

[@fresco_dinero5155]

Ur overreacting. Also ur just repeating what u hear people online say

[@DoubleDragon5180]

Here’s the issues with that. Asus is international and the consumer issue is ONLY in US. Outside of that, they have been on point. So stop parroting.

[@swenic]

Not screwing ALL costumers does not justify screwing some of them.. It seems you're the one parroting.

[@DoubleDragon5180]

@@swenic No what I’m saying is that it’s a US issue and not really ASUS(for the most part). The complaints about Asus are most from the US and that’s because the US laws allowed them to behave like that towards customers. Outside of the US, where protection laws are much stronger, that kind of behavior would not be tolerated.

[@swenic]

@@DoubleDragon5180 I am not saying there isn't a significant potential for improvement within the legal system, or its application, of any country, and the Us is absolutely not an exception. I think the RMA scams also affected Canadian end users (?) but the regionality is beyond my point, and to be fair, a lot of content consumers of this channel reside in the Us so it is definitively within reason to highlight costumer support in this region. I do agree that a flawed legal system will lead to (worse) exploits beyond the letter and spirit of the law, and while it is a very worthwhile consideration I do not feel it is a relevant argument against my point - Asus are accountable for their actions, blaming the law, or god, or something other than the actions made by Asus is wrong. I do not feel it right to justify the deeds of, in this case Asus, by pointing to the legal system in which they operate. It would be like saying it is ok to stone people to death in certain places because that is the reigning cultural and or legal environment.

[@ThePgR777]

Battery life is good with 10w tdp, but you cant run anything a bit demanding at 10w tdp, and costing 900€ in Europe, what a bargain

[@federicocatelli8785]

A Steam deck for indie(and less demanding stuff) is half the price

[@ThePgR777]

@@federicocatelli8785 I'm waiting for a Steam Deck 2, even If I have to wait 2 years

[@xgeko2]

have you by chance tried tweaking the memory timings yet? I am really curious if there is anything to gain there on the allyx

[@Qrinity]

Price is too much for me to justify ally X especially in a crowded handheld market

[@Yuu-oc7ye]

How's the wifi connection? I'm a bit skeptical with mediatek, especially since the wifi chip is soldered.