Asus ROG Xbox Ally vs Xbox Ally X: What’s the difference?

Microsoft and Asus just lifted the lid on their collaborative handheld efforts with two models – the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Asus ROG Xbox Ally X – but what’s the difference between the two?

To help you decide which one is best, we’ve taken the time to look through the spec sheets and information to work out what the key differences are between the two similarly-named devices and which is best.

Specs

Pricing and availability

Microsoft has announced that both of these consoles should be arriving in time for Holiday 2025, so they should be available to purchase by the time Christmas rolls around.

We aren’t sure on prices just yet as neither Microsoft, nor Asus, has disclosed it, but we can make a reasonably educated guess. The previous ROG Ally with the Ryzen Z1 chip launched at $599.99 in June 2023, while the ROG Ally X with the Z1 Extreme launched at $799.99 in July 2024.

Previous rumours have indicated that the standard Xbox Ally would clock in at between $499 and $599, which would make sense considering the pricing of key competition, such as both the Steam Deck OLED 512GB at $549 and the Nintendo Switch 2 at $449.99.

Given the more premium internals of the ROG Ally Xbox X, it would make sense for it to command a higher price, probably more towards the $750 and $900.

Microsoft says it will be sharing more details on the console’s pricing and pre-orders in the coming months.

The ROG Xbox Ally X comes in black

A simple difference between the two consoles is colour – the ROG Ally Xbox comes in white, while the beefier X model comes in black to help distinguish between them.

They also both have a slightly different design to the non-Xbox ROG Ally handheld, with more contoured grips that look similar to those on Microsoft’s first-party Xbox controllers. The analogue sticks are also hall-effect, as with the Xbox Wireless Controller, for more precise inputs.

The ROG Ally Xbox X also features Microsoft’s ‘impulse triggers’, which is the clever rumble felt in the triggers in first-party Xbox controllers in supported games.

The ROG Xbox Ally X has more powerful internals

The key difference here is internally, with the ROG Ally Xbox X having more powerful hardware inside against the ROG Ally Xbox X.

The ROG Ally Xbox X comes with AMD’s top Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chip, while the Ally Xbox has the Ryzen Z2 A chip.

The AI Z2 Extreme benefits from some of AMD’s latest processing architecture, with eight Zen 5 cores and 16 threads, along with 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores. By comparison, the Ryzen Z2 A chip has four Zen 2 cores and eight threads, along with eight RDNA 2 GPU cores.

Alongside this, the ROG Ally Xbox X has a higher quantity of faster RAM with 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM, against the ROG Xbox Ally’s 16GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM. The X version also has a 1TB SSD against the Xbox Ally’s 512GB one.

This all means that while both models have the same 7-inch Full HD 120Hz screen, they are targeting different resolutions. The ROG Ally Xbox X targets 900p to 1080p, while the ROG Ally Xbox is geared more towards 720p gaming.

Both of them run Windows 11 Home, although they come with a much more gaming-focused UI thanks to Microsoft’s Xbox full-screen UI that’s been designed specifically for handhelds with an increasingly streamlined approach.

It looks similar to SteamOS on Valve’s Steam Deck to take you straight into the action and your game library, while there is also support for Xbox Play Anywhere to unify your games across Xbox console, PCs and handheld so you can keep the same save going.

The battery capacity is also larger, with the ROG Ally Xbox X coming with an 80Wh cell against the Xbox Ally’s 60Wh, while both models come with a 65W charging dock.

The ROG Xbox Ally X has a more powerful USB-C port

The more powerful handheld also benefits from a more powerful set of inputs, coming with a USB4-capable Type-C port that supports DisplayPort 2.1, Power Delivery 3.0, and Thunderbolt 4 alongside a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports that support DisplayPort 2.1 and Power Delivery 3.0. It also has a UHS-II microSD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone combo jack.

By comparison, the ROG Xbox Ally has two of the USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports that support DisplayPort 2.1 and Power Delivery 3.0, as well as the UHS-II microSD reader and the 3.5mm combo audio jack.

Early Verdict

Both of these handhelds look like a step in the right direction for Xbox after years of anticipation that such a project would come to fruition. While the ROG Ally Xbox X may be the more expensive option of the two, it certainly looks like the most compelling with more up-to-date internals and a bigger battery, 

The standard ROG Xbox Ally seems like it could be good value too, but I hope Microsoft isn’t making the same mistake as they did with the Xbox Series S. That is, in offering a much inferior product for a much cheaper price against the competition, that might seem dead on arrival. The price tag Microsoft may be targeting amounts to stiff competition, so here’s hoping it works out.