The launch of Asus Rog Ally created a buzz in the gaming handheld market. With a highly potent SoC and great hardware, the gaming handheld from Asus has become a major threat to Steam Deck and other competitors.
However, the Asus Rog Ally did not quite perform as expected at launch. Dave2D was the first one to identify this issue. In his detailed review, Dave2D pointed out that the gaming handheld from Asus could not compete with the Steam Deck at lower TDPs. However, the latest firmware update turned things around significantly.
Latest Firmware Update Makes Asus Rog Ally a Clear Winner Against Steam Deck
Before getting into the details, you need to note that Steam Deck comes with AMD Van Gogh APU. It features four cores and runs on the Zen2 architecture. In comparison, the Asus Rog Ally sports a Ryzen Z1 APU. It has double the CPU cores and more GPU power. So, technically speaking, Steam Deck is leagues behind.
However, as we have found in the review of Dave2D, the Steam Deck was on par with the Asus Rog Ally in some of the instances. Sometimes, the Steam Deck even performed better than the handheld Asus. Considering the fact that Ally has more horsepower, it was surprising to see such performance numbers.
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But Asus was quick enough to address the issue. It has released a brand new firmware update for the Rog Ally handheld. This firmware is compatible with the most recent GPU drivers and swiftly takes care of the lower TDP performance. To be exact, the firmware update boosts the performance by up to 20% in some cases.
According to Dave2D, with the latest firmware update, the Asus Rog Ally can now easily compete with the AYANEO 2S. That comes with a Ryzen 7 7849U Phoenix APU, which is pretty equivalent to the chipset of the Ally. In fact, the Ally is better than the AYANEO 2S in some gaming titles now.
