TECH NEWS – With Asus’ handheld PC now capable of up to 20% better performance, it’s safe to say that sufficiently powerful hardware needs well-optimized software!

Dave2D’s video has pointed out that Asus has released a new system software update for its Steam Deck rival handheld, the ROG Ally, and it addresses performance issues at lower power (TDP) levels so that we can report up to 20% improvement. So far, it hasn’t been able to compete with the Steam Deck at lower power levels. Still, the Asus ROG Ally has an AMD Ryzen Z1 APU, which is much more powerful than the AMD Van Gogh APU in Valve’s device (which has a quad-core Zen 2 architecture with half the CPU cores and four GPU clusters).

Such was the impact of the new firmware on the Asus device that the handheld PC can now compete with the Ayaneo 2S, which currently has a high-end AMD APU (Ryzen 7 7840U). But with a power consumption of 3W, the Steam Deck still leads the way, although the APU in it was designed to run at low voltage, so you can use it for more extended periods without charging if you don’t need a lot of power. For better performance, we should look towards Asus’ product.

Before updating the firmware, in tests on 15W, Steam Deck showed better frame rates in two out of five games (Red Dead Redemption 2, 720p, lowest graphics settings: 45 FPS, the Asus ROG Ally managed 41; Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, 720p, high graphics settings: 33 vs. 32 FPS, not a big difference). After the update, it outperformed the Steam Deck in all games. It even managed the same frame rate (63 FPS) as the Ayaneo 2S (Horizon Zero Dawn, 720p, performance settings) and only 2 FPS behind (Forza Horizon 5, 720p, high graphics settings: 59-61). On 25W, the Ayaneo 2S has outperformed the Asus ROG Ally in all five tested games… by 1-2 FPS.

So Asus is not idle, and that’s good to see.

Source: WCCFTech