HotHardware’s Page 5 shows what the original ROG Ally’s Ryzen Z1 Extreme could do when given room to perform: strong results in demanding games and unusually capable CPU and integrated-graphics benchmarks for a 2023 handheld. The catch is that its 25W Turbo results were primarily gathered while plugged in. They show the Ally’s performance potential, not what to expect from a long battery-powered session.
The review, published June 14, 2023, tested the Z1 Extreme configuration. Its findings are useful as a historical snapshot, not as fresh 2026 measurements: firmware, drivers, Windows, and game patches have since changed. Read HotHardware’s Page 5.
What HotHardware’s Page 5 covers
This section brings together 25W Turbo-mode PC gaming, productivity tests, and system benchmarks. It follows the review’s discussion of the Ally’s design and power profiles, and precedes its coverage of battery life, acoustics, thermals, and verdict. For the broader review context, see HotHardware’s review index.
The unit was the original Ally with a Ryzen Z1 Extreme: an eight-core Zen 4 processor paired with RDNA 3 integrated graphics, 16GB of onboard LPDDR5 memory, a 7-inch 1920×1080 120Hz touchscreen, and a 40Wh battery. Those details matter: the Z1 Extreme is not interchangeable with the lower-tier Ryzen Z1 model, and the page’s results should not be assigned to every Ally configuration. ASUS lists the original models on its ROG Ally product page.
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- [Xbox experience brought to life by ROG] : The Xbox gaming legacy meets ROG's decades of premium hardware design in the ROG Xbox Ally. Boot straight into the Xbox experience just like a console.
- [Xbox Game Bar integration] : Launch Game Bar with a tap of the Xbox button or play your favorite titles natively from platforms like Xbox Game Pass, Steam, Epic Games, or Windows games on the go.
- [All your games, all your progress]: Powered by Windows 11, the ROG Xbox Ally gives you access to your full library of PC games from Xbox and other game stores. With Xbox Play Anywhere, you can pick up right where you left off on your PC or Xbox and jump back into the game anytime.
- [Never stop gaming]: Powered by ultra-efficient AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor, the ROG Xbox Ally offers console-caliber performance and can game for hours, even away from a wall outlet.
- [Game-ready storage and fast memory]: Store your full library and multitask seamlessly with 512GB SSD and 16GB of LPDDR5 6400MHz RAM. The ROG Xbox Ally makes playing any game in the palm of your hand possible.
Why 25W Turbo changes the picture
The review describes three principal power profiles: 9W Silent, 15W Performance, and 25W Turbo. Moving up from very low power materially improves the Z1 Extreme’s gaming performance. The trade-off is that the review’s 25W testing was primarily conducted with the system plugged in because running demanding games at that level on battery was considered unsatisfactory for endurance. The nominal profile is not a guarantee that power stays at exactly 25W: HotHardware observed higher draw during boost behavior and found demanding workloads could bring the system to its thermal limit. The review’s power-profile discussion provides more context.
That makes 25W most useful near an outlet or when a short, faster session matters more than battery life. For untethered play, 15W is a more practical starting point for many games; frame-rate caps, lower rendering resolution, and upscaling can further reduce the load. Results measured while plugged in should not be read as typical battery-powered performance.
What the games revealed
Cyberpunk 2077: upscaling is part of the plan
HotHardware treated Cyberpunk 2077 as an especially demanding GPU workload. In its 2023 test environment, path tracing crashed within seconds. The review suggested an old Radeon driver or insufficient system memory as possible causes but did not establish a definitive explanation. That is a result from a particular driver, game build, firmware, and memory configuration—not proof that path tracing fails on every Ally today.
For a more usable experience, the review recommended the Steam Deck graphics preset with FSR 2 set to Performance. In its tested configuration, frame rates in the mid-40s felt more comfortable than results in the low 30s. The practical lesson is that the Ally’s 1080p panel does not mean a demanding game should be rendered natively at 1080p with every feature enabled.
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The review judged Forspoken to be below the game’s minimum specifications for the Ally it tested. It launched at minimum settings, but image quality was poor, frame rates were in the low 20s, and stuttering made it an unsatisfying fit in that test state. HotHardware advised against treating the device as a suitable Forspoken machine under those conditions. Later game patches, graphics drivers, and settings can change performance, so this should be read as a June 2023 compatibility snapshot, not a current benchmark.
Rank #2
- [Xbox experience brought to life by ROG] : The Xbox gaming legacy meets ROG's decades of premium hardware design in the ROG Xbox Ally. Boot straight into the Xbox experience just like a console.
- [Xbox Game Bar integration] : Launch Game Bar with a tap of the Xbox button or play your favorite titles natively from platforms like Xbox Game Pass, Steam, Epic Games, or Windows games on the go.
- [All your games, all your progress]: Powered by Windows 11, the ROG Xbox Ally gives you access to your full library of PC games from Xbox and other game stores. With Xbox Play Anywhere, you can pick up right where you left off on your PC or Xbox and jump back into the game anytime.
- [Never stop gaming]: Powered by ultra-efficient AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor, the ROG Xbox Ally offers console-caliber performance and can game for hours, even away from a wall outlet.
- [Game-ready storage and fast memory]: Store your full library and multitask seamlessly with 1TB SSD and 16GB of LPDDR5 6400MHz RAM. The ROG Xbox Ally makes playing any game in the palm of your hand possible.
Hogwarts Legacy: a strong result with deliberate compromises
Hogwarts Legacy performed better than the review expected, but the result depended on tuning: HotHardware used 25W Turbo, FSR 2 in Quality mode, and the High preset while manually lowering texture quality to Medium. Leaving textures higher caused texture-loading failures in its test. This is a useful illustration of the shared-memory constraint in a handheld PC: a game can run well overall yet still need lower texture quality.
The review considered the game suitable for the Ally with those adjustments, especially when connected to an external display and used with a wireless controller. It is not evidence that the Ally delivers native 1080p High settings across demanding games.
Red Dead Redemption through PS3 emulation: a CPU-side limit
HotHardware tested the original Red Dead Redemption through PlayStation 3 emulation. Performance generally stayed in the high 20s, sometimes nearing 30 FPS and sometimes falling below. The review identified the limitation as primarily CPU-bound, so reducing resolution did not solve it. A strong integrated GPU cannot remove a bottleneck in the processor or emulator. This result applies to that game, emulator version, configuration, and 2023 test state; it should not be generalized to all PS3 emulation.
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Shadow of the Tomb Raider: choose the features that earn their cost
Shadow of the Tomb Raider scaled well across power and graphics settings. HotHardware found 15W playable and used 25W for higher settings. Its tested configuration used High settings with ray-traced shadows and substantial upscaling; XeSS helped clean up the image. Turning ray tracing off produced a smoother experience approaching 60 FPS in that setup. On a handheld display, disabling a costly feature can be a better trade than keeping ray tracing and accepting a lower frame rate or more aggressive upscaling.
What the system benchmarks say—and what they do not
These tests support the review’s view that the Z1 Extreme was a strong small-PC processor and integrated gaming platform in 2023. The charts compare the Ally with the systems HotHardware selected at that time; they are not a 2026 leaderboard or a prediction of performance in every workload.
Rank #3
- [Xbox experience brought to life by ROG] : The Xbox gaming legacy meets ROG's decades of premium hardware design in the ROG Xbox Ally. Boot straight into the Xbox experience just like a console.
- [Xbox Game Bar integration] : Launch Game Bar with a tap of the Xbox button or play your favorite titles natively from platforms like Xbox Game Pass, Steam, Epic Games, or Windows games on the go.
- [All your games, all your progress]: Powered by Windows 11, the ROG Xbox Ally gives you access to your full library of PC games from Xbox and other game stores. With Xbox Play Anywhere, you can pick up right where you left off on your PC or Xbox and jump back into the game anytime.
- [Never stop gaming]: Powered by ultra-efficient AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor, the ROG Xbox Ally offers console-caliber performance and can game for hours, even away from a wall outlet.
- [Game-ready storage and fast memory]: Store your full library and multitask seamlessly with 4TB SSD and 16GB of LPDDR5 6400MHz RAM. The ROG Xbox Ally makes playing any game in the palm of your hand possible.
| Test | What it measures | HotHardware’s takeaway |
|---|---|---|
| ATTO Disk Benchmark | SSD read/write behavior and IOPS across transfer sizes. | The Micron 2400 SSD was acceptable, but not especially impressive. Storage mattered because the system had limited internal expansion options and relied in part on microSD for additional capacity. |
| Speedometer 2.0 | Browser-based web-application responsiveness. | The Ally scored 323 in HotHardware’s test environment, a strong showing for a compact system attributed to the Z1 Extreme’s CPU performance. Browser version, operating-system updates, background tasks, and benchmark revision can affect comparisons. |
| Cinebench R23 | CPU rendering performance. | The Z1 Extreme performed exceptionally well in the review’s comparison set, with Zen 4 and strong single-threaded performance highlighted. This does not mean it outperforms every newer laptop or handheld. |
| Geekbench 5 | Single-core and multi-core workloads. | The Ally ranked strongly in the review’s charts, notable for a compact handheld. |
| PCMark 10 | General productivity tasks, including browsing, office work, and content creation. | The Ally was competitive in most categories; systems with discrete GPUs retained an advantage in digital-content-creation workloads. |
| 3DMark Night Raid | Graphics performance aimed at integrated graphics and lower-end systems. | The Ally placed near the top of HotHardware’s comparison group, demonstrating the strength of its RDNA 3 integrated graphics relative to older integrated solutions in that set. |
| Middle-earth: Shadow of War | A game benchmark used for comparison. | The Ally outperformed older thin-and-light systems in HotHardware’s 2023 comparison, reinforcing its integrated-graphics strength against those particular systems. |
What the results mean in everyday use
AAA gaming is possible, but often requires tuning
The Ally’s 1080p, 120Hz display is a flexible feature, not a promise that demanding modern games will run at native resolution and high settings. The review’s examples show the choices involved: use an upscaler, lower textures, turn off ray tracing, accept a lower resolution, or cap the frame rate. A stable, well-upscaled image can be a better handheld target than chasing native 1080p.
Battery-powered play is a different use case
The review reports battery gaming results ranging from about three hours in its best case to 49 minutes in its worst case, depending on workload. Those are results from HotHardware’s testing, not a universal runtime guarantee. The high-performance profile is particularly demanding, so buyers who want long sessions away from power should not base expectations on plugged-in 25W performance.
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It can work as a compact Windows PC—with accessories
PCMark 10 and browser testing support the idea that the Ally can handle general desktop tasks, but a handheld screen and controls are not a comfortable replacement for a desk setup. The original model also has a single USB-C connection shared with the XG Mobile interface; HotHardware cited USB 3.2 Gen 1, up to 5Gbps aggregate transfer. A dock or hub, external display, keyboard, mouse, and suitable USB-C power delivery make desktop use more practical, but the one-port design makes expansion less convenient. HotHardware used a UGREEN USB-C 7-in-1 adapter in its testing; that is not a current product recommendation.
How the original Ally fits ASUS’s 2026 lineup
As of the ASUS US listings reflected here, the 2023 Ryzen Z1 configuration was listed at $499.99. The price is a listing signal, not a guaranteed street price or indication of stock; confirm both the processor and current availability before buying. The Z1 Extreme configuration tested by HotHardware may have different availability and pricing. ASUS’s US product listing and ROG Ally series catalog show the current range.
| Model listed by ASUS | Relevant distinction | US price signal |
|---|---|---|
| ROG Ally (2023) | Z1 or Z1 Extreme configurations; confirm which processor is in the listing. | $499.99 for the listed Z1 configuration; price and availability can change. |
| ROG Ally X (2024) | Z1 Extreme, 24GB total LPDDR5 memory, larger battery, and more capable USB-C connectivity listed in its specifications. | $799.99 on ASUS’s US support/store page. |
| ROG Xbox Ally (2025) | Ryzen Z2 A platform and 16GB memory; a different platform, so the 2023 test results do not establish its performance. | $599.99 in ASUS’s US catalog. |
| ROG Xbox Ally X (2025) | Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme and 24GB LPDDR5X memory; a premium newer model, not tested in HotHardware’s 2023 review. | $999.99 in ASUS’s US catalog. |
These figures are ASUS US store or catalog signals, not guaranteed retail prices or stock status. See the ROG Ally X US page, its specifications, and ASUS’s series catalog for model details. ASUS’s catalog also lists a 2026 ROG Xbox Ally X20, but the Page 5 results provide no basis for judging its performance.
Who should consider the original ROG Ally?
- Consider it if it is meaningfully discounted, you confirm the processor configuration, you mainly play near power, and Windows storefront flexibility is important.
- Look at a newer model if battery capacity, memory, storage, or connectivity matter more than the lowest purchase price. Compare live listings rather than assuming the older unit is the better value.
- Skip it if you expect long untethered AAA sessions or a console-like, low-maintenance experience. Windows offers broad game-store flexibility but also brings desktop-style setup and interface friction on a controller-driven handheld.
For the original unit, also account for a 512GB SSD that can fill quickly with large games, microSD expansion that is convenient but not equivalent to a second internal SSD, and the cost or inconvenience of a dock for desktop-style connectivity. The review’s single-port arrangement makes those trade-offs particularly relevant.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
