Steam Deck vs. ASUS ROG Ally Arch Linux Gaming Performance

With the ASUS ROG Ally gaming handheld that began shipping last month I've so far looked at the Linux support for this device as well as looking at the Windows 11 vs. Linux gaming performance as well as the Ryzen Z1 Extreme CPU performance. What many Phoronix readers have been most interested in seeing though are the side-by-side benchmarks for Valve's Steam Deck up against the ASUS ROG Ally. Today's benchmarks provide just that comparison plus some CPU benchmarks too.

The Steam Deck as a reminder has the 64GB eMMC base model at $399, the 256GB NVMe SSD model at $529, and the flagship Steam Deck models with 512GB of NVMe SSD storage is at $649. All versions are powered by the same AMD custom "Van Gogh" APU with four Zen 2 cores (8 threads) and integrated RDNA3 graphics with 8 CUs. The Steam Deck has 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and a 1280 x 800 7-inch 400 nits 60Hz display.

The ASUS ROG Ally meanwhile ships with AMD's brand new Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC that offers 8 Zen 4 cores (15 threads) and complete with RDNA3 graphics with 12 CUs. The SoC is a big upgrade while the ROG Ally also has 512GB of NVMe storage and 16GB of LPDDR5 memory. The display with the ASUS ROG Ally is also a big upgrade with a 1080p 7-inch display with 500 nits brightness and a 120Hz display complete with FreeSync. The ROG Ally is slightly more expensive than the flagship Steam Deck model at $699 USD.

For this Steam Deck vs. ROG Ally benchmarking, the Steam Deck was tested out-of-the-box with its latest SteamOS build while the ASUS ROG Ally saw a clean install of Arch Linux and all of its latest packages for which SteamOS is based on. From there a variety of different gaming benchmarks were carried out -- both native and Steam Play -- for looking at the Steam Deck vs. ROG Ally performance. The CPU SoC power consumption was also monitored during the testing process.

Along with those results are also some complementary results for those curious about the 1080p performance with the Steam Deck rather than the 1280 x 800 focus due to the Steam Deck resolution. While gaming is the main focus, this article also has some CPU benchmarks too for showing the difference of the Steam Deck APU with its Zen 2 cores compared to the ROG Ally with Zen 4.

The ASUS ROG Ally was tested twice: out-of-the-box with its balanced ACPI platform profile and then again when setting the "performance" ACPI Platform Profile. As shown in my prior ROG Ally articles, adjusting the ACPI Platform Profile can make a big difference to the overall performance.