Asus ROG Ally price just leaked — the Steam Deck is in deep trouble

Asus ROG Ally plugged in on a table sitting on its stand
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

We love the Asus ROG Ally, but one burning question can make or break its success: how much will it cost? Well, thanks to a recent leak, we have an answer to that question that is sure to put the Steam Deck in deep peril.

In the Ally announcement, the word on price was a guarantee it would be “less than $1,000,” which had us managing expectations at up to $900. So imagine our shock to see that the higher end model with AMD Z1 Extreme chip will cost just $699!

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Steam Deck vs Asus ROG Ally: Price and specs
SpecValve Steam DeckAsus ROG Ally
Price$649$699 (leaked)
CPUCustom AMD APU up to 3.5GHz"AMD Z1 Extreme up to 5GHz
GraphicsRDNA 2 (1.6 Teraflops)Radeon Navi3 Graphics (8.6 Teraflops)
RAM16GB LPDDR516GB LPDDR5
Storage512GB PCIe Gen 3512GB SSD
Display7-inch 1280 x 800-pixel (60Hz)7-inch 1920 x 1080-pixel (120Hz)
OSSteamOS (Linux)Windows 11

The Steam Deck killer

Let’s just take a second to compare that price to Valve’s current pricing — I say “current” because if this is true, I’m confident this will force the company’s hand to reduce that retail price to compete.

For $649, you can pick up a 512GB Steam Deck. Of course, you get the faster M.2 SSD storage, anti-glare etched glass, a free carrying case, and some Steam profile goodies for that additional cost.

Meanwhile, for $50 more, you can snag the ROG Ally that also comes with 512GB of storage, and a whole lot more horsepower under the hood. Let’s draw up a table to show you what you get for that additional money.

I don’t know about you, but that looks like the best fifty extra bucks you could spend when it comes to a portable gaming machine. 

Outlook

Asus ROG Ally GIF

(Image credit: Future/Kimberly Gedeon)

Uh oh. Asus came to play, and the Steam Deck has some serious competition. Not only in terms of superior hardware specs, but a mightily enticing price that would make this an insanely easy decision to make.

In the ROG Ally, you’re getting a system that is up to twice as powerful as the Steam Deck, with a display that is 2x smoother, and thanks to Windows 11, you’re not just limited to playing your Steam library.

And you get all of that at just $50 more… Yea, Valve needs to work hard on bringing the Steam Deck 2 to market sooner rather than later.

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Jason England
Content Editor

Jason brought a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a writer at Laptop Mag, and he is now the Managing Editor of Computing at Tom's Guide. He takes a particular interest in writing articles and creating videos about laptops, headphones and games. He has previously written for Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you'll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn't already.