Phoronix recently conducted a comparison between the Valve Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally, testing their gaming performance on Linux. Swapping the operating system from Windows 11 to Arch Linux on the ROG Ally didn’t significantly change the performance margin between the two handheld consoles, but it did highlight some interesting discrepancies.
We’ve looked at the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally before, and we’ve seen that hardware differences largely dictate their gaming performance. However, we’ve also discovered that installing Linux on the ROG Ally should theoretically improve both its performance and battery life thanks to less bloatware and different AMD-based drivers.
Phoronix’s results align with previous reviews, showing that the Steam Deck excelled in battery life and power efficiency compared to the ROG Ally. However, the difference in efficiency between the two consoles is most likely due to hardware differences and can’t be improved by changing the operating system.
Steam Deck vs ROG Ally gaming performance
In Cyberpunk 2077, the ROG Ally ran at an average of 61 FPS with the performance profile but dropped to 45 FPS in the standard power profile. The Steam Deck almost matched the ROG Ally’s performance in its non-performance power setting, averaging 44.66 FPS.
The Steam Deck consumed significantly less power, with an average of 10.76 watts compared to the ROG Ally’s 30W in the performance preset. Even the ROG Ally’s more power-efficient profile consumed more power than the Steam Deck, averaging 14.77 watts.
Here are the full Steam Deck vs ROG Ally CPU tests:
As expected, the ROG Ally performed substantially better than the Steam Deck in these tests, thanks to its newer Zen 4 architecture and additional CPU cores.
Phoronix’s testing also highlighted the difference in power efficiency between the two handheld consoles, with the Steam Deck proving to be much more power-efficient than the ROG Ally. We’ve already highlighted the hardware differences that may be behind this discrepancy, but it’s also worth mentioning that the difference shouldn’t be present on the ROG Ally after installing Arch Linux.
In any case, the results align with previous tests, showing that the Steam Deck excels in battery life and power efficiency compared to the ROG Ally.
The article concludes by stating that “staying informed about the latest developments in the tech world is always important,” given that the hardware in the Steam Deck and ROG Ally is always changing.
