Asus ROG Ally

oweneades · 27 Jun 2023 at 13:34

I would guess the positioning of the card reader is not optimal given its right alongside one of the heatsink arrays and exhaust port.

I have noticed (and mentioned) before that they really could do with going more aggressive on the fan profiles, especially in turbo mode. Plugged in turbo spikes the temp to 95C (due to power also spiking) but the rans don't really ramp vs the power level. The manual profile I have set is far more aggressive than the "mobile" Turbo profile and still isn't any louder than a SD with a decent fan.

The Ally really could do with another USB-C and the SD card slot on the bottom.

sandys · 27 Jun 2023 at 18:11

95C is fine for these chips though isn't it much like Ryzen 7 on desktop designed for lifetime at 95C.

oweneades said:
The Ally really could do with another USB-C and the SD card slot on the bottom.

One of the reasons I went with the AOKZOE just more flexible but boy I wish it was as easy to change SSD as the Ally.

kakarott · 29 Jun 2023 at 18:18

May try this

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kakarott · 2 Jul 2023 at 10:35

2280 install

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Needles · 3 Jul 2023 at 10:27

kakarott said:
May try this

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I did this, worked well. Definitely lower temps.

kakarott said:
2280 install

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So the full NVME fits under the battery?

willhub · 3 Jul 2023 at 12:56

Really want one of these, currys has stock as well, just need to sell my laptop first

Ironically this seems more powerful than an i7 9750h and a 2070 max q whilst not sounds like a laptop

oweneades · 3 Jul 2023 at 13:23

willhub said:
Really want one of these, currys has stock as well, just need to sell my laptop first Ironically this seems more powerful than an i7 9750h and a 2070 max q whilst not sounds like a laptop

CPU wise it is more powerful (so if you wanted to use it as a desktop replacement you could), but GPU wise it isn't as strong.

The GPU portion of the Z1 extreme (or 7840U with the same RAM config) is generally a bit quicker than the mobile 1650. Jarod's tech has done a recent "look" using the 4090 XG Mobile but also includes the iGPU as well. In his tests it comes in ahead of a number of 1650 laptops (most notably the OG Flow X13).

kakarott · 3 Jul 2023 at 15:45

Needles said:
I did this, worked well. Definitely lower temps.

So the full NVME fits under the battery?

Did battery slightly improve?

Yea good few people have done it but involves cutting bit of plastic I believe.

kakarott · 3 Jul 2023 at 21:23

Rear printed buttons, looks good

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sandys · 4 Jul 2023 at 10:49

oweneades said:
CPU wise it is more powerful (so if you wanted to use it as a desktop replacement you could), but GPU wise it isn't as strong.

The GPU portion of the Z1 extreme (or 7840U with the same RAM config) is generally a bit quicker than the mobile 1650. Jarod's tech has done a recent "look" using the 4090 XG Mobile but also includes the iGPU as well. In his tests it comes in ahead of a number of 1650 laptops (most notably the OG Flow X13).

Yup the 2070 MaxQ is more than 2x the performance, so there are compromises going handheld, very good though, similar ball park to a 1650.

Just going on Timespy graphics score the 780M is ~3k similar to a 1650, a 2070Max Q is ~8k so far more grunt.

My daughter has replaced her desktop with the 'Zoe but she is coming from a last gen APU and this is a proper generational leap in comparison. CPU is strong but will rob the GPU of power, so I disable boosting for CPU on 7840 to allow more for iGPU

kakarott · 4 Jul 2023 at 12:35

New bios update available, apparently just fan curve changes.

oweneades · 4 Jul 2023 at 14:27

kakarott said:
New bios update available, apparently just fan curve changes.

Will give it a run out tonight. Looking on Reddit a few people are stating there are performance uplifts (CP2077 minor and High on Life - quite a jump) in additional to the other noted changes. Mainly an increase to the default fan curves which was generally needed - essentially what I was already running in a manual profile.

Been messing around with Generation Zero on my lunch breaks and it runs surprisingly well at 1080p Medium with DRS enabled in the game (doesn't have any form of FSR/XeSS). Pretty much a locked 60FPS with only minor dips.

Also fixed ~95% of the stuttering I was experiencing in Hogwarts. Didn't realise my initial update to 3.19 had reset my GPU VRAM from auto back to 4G. It is quite game dependent but Hogwarts seems to hate leaving it at 4G. Need to run MSI Afterburner to see what it is actually using (just realised I have it installed and didn't check....

).

willhub · 4 Jul 2023 at 14:30

sandys said:
Yup the 2070 MaxQ is more than 2x the performance, so there are compromises going handheld, very good though, similar ball park to a 1650.

Just going on Timespy graphics score the 780M is ~3k similar to a 1650, a 2070Max Q is ~8k so far more grunt.

My daughter has replaced her desktop with the 'Zoe but she is coming from a last gen APU and this is a proper generational leap in comparison. CPU is strong but will rob the GPU of power, so I disable boosting for CPU on 7840 to allow more for iGPU

My use case would be if I'm away from home I can play games at 720p medium graphics, at home stream the desktop via Moonlight so it's like a 4080/5800x3d in a handheld

oweneades · 4 Jul 2023 at 20:36

willhub said:
My use case would be if I'm away from home I can play games at 720p medium graphics, at home stream the desktop via Moonlight so it's like a 4080/5800x3d in a handheld

It can certainly do that although you should also consider the Steam Deck for your use case as well depending on the games you wish to play. Whilst the Ally is more powerful, and can run games the Deck can't, (mainly anything that requires anti cheat), the Deck has better battery life and/or efficiency depending on how you look at it.

Neither is a bad option for what you want, you just need to weigh up the pros and cons of both for you.

Finally got my Ally set up with the 3080M XG Mobile. Completely painless process with it auto installing everything required. The Nvidia driver is a few versions old but no obvious issues so far in the games I have quickly tried. In Hogwarts the CPU is happily holding 4.1Ghz (I am not sure if this is the average clock across cores or the maximum clock seen - just the read out via Armoury Crate overlay) whilst the 3080M is boosting to the mid 1700's. I will need to do some proper side by side comparisons against the Flow Z13 (i9 12900H with higher TDP) but so far it is a right little beast in this configuration.

Few Pics:

For context that is 3440x1440, All High with DLSS on Quality.

FloppyPoppy · 8 Jul 2023 at 17:06

oweneades said:
It can certainly do that although you should also consider the Steam Deck for your use case as well depending on the games you wish to play. Whilst the Ally is more powerful, and can run games the Deck can't, (mainly anything that requires anti cheat), the Deck has better battery life and/or efficiency depending on how you look at it.

Neither is a bad option for what you want, you just need to weigh up the pros and cons of both for you.

Finally got my Ally set up with the 3080M XG Mobile. Completely painless process with it auto installing everything required. The Nvidia driver is a few versions old but no obvious issues so far in the games I have quickly tried. In Hogwarts the CPU is happily holding 4.1Ghz (I am not sure if this is the average clock across cores or the maximum clock seen - just the read out via Armoury Crate overlay) whilst the 3080M is boosting to the mid 1700's. I will need to do some proper side by side comparisons against the Flow Z13 (i9 12900H with higher TDP) but so far it is a right little beast in this configuration.

Few Pics:

For context that is 3440x1440, All High with DLSS on Quality.

That is kind of awesome!

oweneades · 8 Jul 2023 at 20:55

Thanks

Ordered up a SN740 2TB SSD to go in my Ally. Got sooooo many games I want to mess around with and have almost ran out of room on the built in drive plus my 512GB SD Card.

Looks to be a relatively straight forward process with a guide directly on the Ally support pages.

willhub · 10 Jul 2023 at 09:46

Was just looking at the CPU performance in this, it's basically on par with a 5800x3d!?!?

oweneades · 10 Jul 2023 at 10:09

willhub said:
Was just looking at the CPU performance in this, it's basically on par with a 5800x3d!?!?

Quick and dirty CBR23 hits just over 14k which puts it slap bang in the middle of the 8 core 5000 series CPU's. This is about right considering the higher IPC but lower sustained clocks in the test. For context mine sustains 3.8Ghz throughout most of the test and beats my Legions 5800H by around 700 points despite that CPU boosting to 4.1Ghz sustained. It is also only slightly behind my desktop 7600 clocking at 5.15Ghz sustained albeit with two fewer cores.

Upgraded my Ally to the SN740 2TB yesterday evening. Everything went very smoothly beyond two specific points:

- When reassembling the Ally the rear buttons / paddles feel like they are not connected to anything. This was despite the full shell being all closed back up (no gaps). I took it back apart a couple of times to check I hadn't fouled any connectors but no they were just not working. Turns out that until you fully screw it back together they don't make contact with the underlying buttons on the MB. Panic over!!

- During the Cloud Recovery process I had to enter my Wifi password for a second time. This time however the keyboard refused to display and the shortcuts did not work. I managed to get a keyboard working via a USB-C dock, but if I did not have that I would have been completely stuck!

Once those were sorted, I was back in Windows and getting all my games and apps re-installed. I tried the cloud sync from the previous iteration of the Ally I had on my Microsoft account, but despite finding the apps tapping the little cloud / download button did nothing. Not a big problem just annoying.

Now I have 2TB to store everything and a further 512GB on the SD card.

One thing I will say is just how easy the Ally comes apart thanks to one of the screws being captive and pushing the two case sides apart.

willhub · 10 Jul 2023 at 10:39

Would a USB-C to USB adaptor work for a keyboard? Got a few of those with old samsung phones.

Also some reviews are pointing to a likelihood of having to return the unit due to trigger or thumbstick issues? Is there really issues or is it miss-use / are they easy to fix oneself?

oweneades · 10 Jul 2023 at 10:55

willhub said:
Would a USB-C to USB adaptor work for a keyboard? Got a few of those with old samsung phones.

Also some reviews are pointing to a likelihood of having to return the unit due to trigger or thumbstick issues? Is there really issues or is it miss-use / are they easy to fix oneself?

It should do although I don't have one to try myself (saying that I have a USB-C keyboard so just need to remember to bring home a cable to test it!).

Not noticed any issues on mine so can't comments on whether it is down to miss-use or something to look out for. From a quick open up of mine to change the SSD it looks very much like the Steam Deck in that everything is removable and can be replaced - assuming the parts are available.