If Nintendo was known for something and Valve followed the example, a good portable gaming device can have its niche and now, AMD wants to be the new leader as Nvidia’s Tegra hasn’t found a new champion besides the Nintendo Switch.

Asus had spoiled something with AMD that wasn’t announced yet with the proposed Asus ROG Ally which was NOT an April’s Fool Joke and was an official product.

But not only for Asus, but also for AMD as today, the chipmaker has confirmed that the Rzen behind the device is part of the Z1 family and with this the Z1 and Z1 Extreme.

Both processors are made with an manufacturing processor of 4nm each Z1 has their own spec and the base Z1 is slated to be ix CPU cores and 12 threads, four GPU cores, and 22MB of cache and meanwhile, the Z1 Extreme 4 CPU cores and 16 threads with 12 of its RDNA 3 graphics cores as well as 24MB of cache and promises up to a 8.6 teraflops of raw graphic performance.

Obviously, AMD is focusing on the Z1 Extreme as it claims that device opting for the processor can expect 720p with low settings like you might comfortably do on a seven-inch handheld and can have 60fps constantly with demanding games

I do wonder if “low” means “lowest” here — I would not want to run Tomb Raider on lowest because of muddy graphics, but that’s less of a problem with other games.

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As you can see in the last image, the Z1 base chip, practically can let you have some fun too but not as powerful as the Z1 Extreme so definitely, Z1 is for budget devices and the Z1 Extreme is for everything going after the Steam Deck.

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Asus ROG Ally expected to be the inaugural flagship

The benchmarkings that went along with the announcement was actually using a working prototype of the Asus ROG Ally, which Asus promises a complete and focused presentation of its handheld device by May 11th.

What Asus did say is that the device  is designed with a Turbo mode which makes the processors even doing better performance but of course, at the expense of the battery consumption that can reach up to 30 watts more than normal use.

For that, Asus immediately answered saying that the ROG Ally will have a 40 watt-hour battery, allowing Turbo Mode to be usable for at least 2 hours.

Expect more things to be revealed for the Asus ROG Ally in the official May event.