ASUS ROG Ally 2 Leak Confirms AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme and 64 GB Memory

[AleksandarK]

ASUS has unwillingly revealed its upcoming ROG Ally 2 handheld through FCC filings and certification images, offering an early glimpse at two distinct models. According to Indonesian certification entries and a linked US FCC listing, the Ally 2 will launch in both black and white finishes. The black version includes a dedicated Xbox button, suggesting tighter integration with Microsoft's gaming services, while the white model adheres to the traditional ROG control scheme. This latest reveal follows ASUS's April 1st teaser of "Project Kennan," which showed an animated fusion of an ROG Ally and an Xbox controller, hinting at a formal collaboration between the two companies. Under the hood, the black edition of the Ally 2 represents ASUS's most ambitious handheld to date. It employs AMD's Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor, an eight‑core chip rated at 36 W, paired with 64 GB of LPDDR5X‑8533 memory. In contrast, the white model will feature AMD's Aeirth Plus APU with four cores operating at 20 W. These hardware choices position the black version as a high‑performance Xbox-linked system, while the white version aims to balance power efficiency and sustained battery life.

Both variants are confirmed to sport a 7‑inch display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. Notably, the screen bezels appear unchanged from the original Ally and the higher‑end Ally X. The new design instead focuses on ergonomics, with larger rear grips that resemble those of a traditional controller. The top-mounted I/O includes a pair of USB Type‑C ports, and side‑view images suggest a somewhat bulkier profile. However, the final weight and comfort will depend on ASUS's manufacturing refinements. No powered‑on images have emerged, so details about display quality or software remain unverified. We assume it could support the standard Windows 11 OS, with SteamOS being an option since we reported multiple software patches for ASUS ROG Ally on SteamOS. With multiple certifications now completed in Indonesia, the United States, and Korea, ASUS seems poised to announce the ROG Ally 2 at Computex 2025. Enthusiasts are now left to await official specifications, pricing, and availability when ASUS takes the stage next month.



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[Ninehell]

I might consider if it has good enough review.

 

[Quicks]

Why would it need so much ram? Do the VRAM and system ram use the same resources.

 

[Kwadratowicz]

Why would it need so much ram? Do the VRAM and system ram use the same resources.

Yes, integrated graphics uses system ram as vram.

 

[Quicks]

Yes, integrated graphics uses system ram as vram.

Thought so, too lazy to go check if it was a integrated GPU if sorts. Makes sense now still a lot of ram for such a small device. 32 or even 48 would have been enough.

 

[Rightness_1]

Odd, as they are two completely different platforms. This is not just a colour choice, but a choice for two completely different models. The black one sounds interesting though.

But I don't understand why AMD does not include the RAM on the die, at least the VRAM portion of it, instead of slow external RAM at this point.

 

[tvshacker]

Now that the Nintendo Switch 2 made the leap to SD Express, I hope other handheld manufacturers to follow. With increased adoption (and production) prices should decrease.

 

[GenericUsername2001]

Odd, as they are two completely different platforms. This is not just a colour choice, but a choice for two completely different models. The black one sounds interesting though.

But I don't understand why AMD does not include the RAM on the die, at least the VRAM portion of it, instead of slow external RAM at this point.

That would probably require changes to the memory controller & a whole new chip; these handhelds are using binned laptop chips. (The Z2 Extreme is a cut down Strix Point chip, the Aerith+ I believe is a cut down Kracken Point). The market for handhelds generally isn't large enough for its own chips yet (aside from the odd case of chip in the Steam Deck, which has a weird development history). Also on-package memory is rather pricey; there is a reason Intel's Lunar Lake (which uses on package RAM) is a one & done product line for Intel, despite being actually pretty good.

 

[evernessince]

Odd, as they are two completely different platforms. This is not just a colour choice, but a choice for two completely different models. The black one sounds interesting though.

But I don't understand why AMD does not include the RAM on the die, at least the VRAM portion of it, instead of slow external RAM at this point.

The first ROG ally has DDR5 6400 soldered to the board and this one will likely had DDR5 8000. Not sure I'd call that slow.

Adding RAM directly to the die costs extra money and isn't going to have a huge benefit over cheaper options. Maybe for a premium version it makes sense but otherwise optimizing for price isn't a bad strategy.

 

[Octavean]

I kind of think it loos ugly as sin,......

I prefer the old design esthetics

 

[yfn_ratchet]

What a wallet-burner. The Ally X was already somewhat prohibitively expensive the first time around (albeit for good reason), but this is just repeating the mistake AYANEO and ONEXPLAYER and similar players in the x86 handheld space have been making.

I'm not in the market for a halo-tier product, and especially not at halo-tier pricing, and this is what the ROG Ally X is becoming. It sucks down inane amounts of power for a handheld, and mind you the 36W number comes off of the APU only; board power is another tier of insanity given the speed and volume of memory here. It's the gaudy gaming laptop of handhelds.

The Steam Deck now occupies the space the Valve Index does, but in terms of handhelds. It's outdated, somewhat harshly priced by today's standards (depending on acquisition), and fails to deliver on any sort of 'wow' factor... but there's no one else that delivers on the control scheme, the software support, the audio, the actual day-to-day use of the device, at the price it asks for.

I bought an Index in '22 because nothing else did what the Index did, and I would be damned if I spent any significant sum towards Zuckerberg's maligned ecosystem. That was after three years of the Index being on the market, and being superseded in every individual factor... but not being bested in enough of them at once to make a difference. After three years of the Steam Deck being on the market, I still want a Steam Deck, and that's because you can get it at a reasonable price and it's still perfectly capable of playing the games that you'd want to play on a handheld in the first place. The fact that any other major player has yet to capitalize on the market that Valve has, despite the Deck's monumental success (enough to lasso in major tech companies, no less) is astonishing.

 

[Rightness_1]

The first ROG ally has DDR5 6400 soldered to the board and this one will likely had DDR5 8000. Not sure I'd call that slow.

Adding RAM directly to the die costs extra money and isn't going to have a huge benefit over cheaper options. Maybe for a premium version it makes sense but otherwise optimizing for price isn't a bad strategy.

Shared high latency, and highly contended DDR8000 is as slow as molasses for a GPU. But something like what Apple does would perhaps be prohibitively expensive for a company like AMD, even though Apple put these (more complex than these AMD chips) into cheap iPads...

 

[evernessince]

Shared high latency, and highly contended DDR8000 is as slow as molasses for a GPU. But something like what Apple does would perhaps be prohibitively expensive for a company like AMD, even though Apple put these (more complex than these AMD chips) into cheap iPads...

Couple of things:

1) DDR5 8400 has a bandwidth of 67 GB/s per module, equaling 134 GB/s of bandwidth. Given that the rumored spec is 8533 almost certainly in a dual channel config, that would place it significantly above the M4 in terms of bandwidth (which tops out at 120 GB/s, you have to spend significantly more on the pro and ultra models if you want more). That's before you consider that AMD's equivalent mobile parts in this price segment have double the cache size of Intel's M4. Overall the memory subsystem of AMD products in the same price class certainly appears superior by available data or even by your own metric.

2) Apple doesn't have on die DRAM under $600: https://www.apple.com/ipad/ So yeah, you've done a good job of illustrating my point that it's costly. Plus in the case of Apple that came with it's own set of trade-offs. For example, you get 1 RAM capacity option with the iPad air. Having to put the RAM on the die severely limits flexibility. Fine for some devices but not for others. In the case of Apple is just means you have to spend a boatload of money if you want more than a mere 8GB of RAM. For a gaming system where economics matter a lot, it 100% makes more sense to use off-die memory due to the cost of an interposer and on die ram. A good middle-ground might having a larger L3 / L4 cache that's slower but higher in capacity. You only need a large enough cache to store crucial game engine data. Textures don't mind being offloaded to cheaper main system memory, game engines are pretty good at streaming those assets in over time.

3) Apple's memory is shared across the entire CPU so whatever nonsense you are on about "shared high latency", which isn't true, would also apply to Apple's chips as well. Integrating the memory into die doesn't change whether it's unified or not, unified memory is common for mobile parts.