Ever since Asus announced its ROG Ally, there’s been a frenzy of comparisons with the Steam Deck and other portable devices. But one area where ROG Ally is very unique is that you can go beyond the hardware inside the device. The Asus XG Mobile promises more power over a single chunky cable and can transform the ROG Ally from a handheld into a full-fledged desktop. In theory, at least.
Works; take XG Mobile, connect ROG Ally and you have access to desktop levels of performance from a small handheld. There’s a lot more to this setup than just performance, and the more I used ROG Ally with XG Mobile, the clearer it became.
A software failure
Asus is trying to achieve the impossible with the XG Mobile, and it shows. If you’re unfamiliar, XG Mobile is an external graphics card that offers devices like the ROG Ally more power (and more ports) on a single connector. It also keeps the ROG Ally charged while plugged in, functioning as a supercharged laptop dock. I tested the RTX 3080 model, but the new RTX 4090 model has the same problem: mix and match AMD and Nvidia drivers on the same system, which leads to a lot of weirdness.
Let me dispel some misconceptions first. The XG Mobile is Nota Nintendo Switch dock. Asus bills this as a single connector; just plug it in to access more power instantly. It just doesn’t happen instantly. You have to block the big connector and ask the device to switch to the external GPU. This should happen automatically, with a prompt asking if you want to activate XG Mobile, but it doesn’t happen automatically. Sometimes the prompt appears, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes you need to activate XG Mobile three or four times for it to join.
This also works in the opposite direction. You have to deactivate XG Mobile to disconnect it, and again, you should be able to do this by clicking an icon in the Armory Crate utility. Um, except it doesn’t work. The button does nothing. Instead, you have to look for an application called GPU Switch inside your Armory Crate installation and run it manually, and even when you do, it fails or won’t stick, just like when you connect the device.
I only discovered this app via a forum post after digging for a few hours. For the record, you need to read a buried forum post to use your $1,000+ external dock with your $700 PDA is not a good thing.
And the problems don’t end there. Failure to follow the GPU swap procedure can result in a blue screen. I’ve actually encountered a few while still following the procedure. A couple of times, Armory Crate would inform me that it was safe to log off when it really wasn’t. And other times, ROG Ally would assure me that the X Mobile was connected without showing anything on my external display.
Power aside, I wanted to leave the ROG Ally connected when it was connected and wanted to leave it disconnected when it wasn’t. I felt like I was rolling the dice every time I plugged in the XG Mobile. The ROG Ally could replace your desktop (I’ll see why later), but constantly logging in and out of XG Mobile is more of a hassle than its value.
A closer look at XG Mobile
Once XG Mobile is connected, ROG Ally is great. It’s just a Windows PC, and it feels no different than plugging an HDMI cable into your laptop. The XG Mobile also comes with a few extra goodies. The 2021 model I tested, equipped with an RTX 3080 mobile GPU, features Gigabit Ethernet, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, an SD card reader, and four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports.
The 2023 model comes with an RTX 4090, along with some big upgrades to the ports. One of the USB-A ports is replaced with USB-C, all are upgraded to USB 3.2 Gen 2, and the HDMI port supports the full 2.1 specification. The Ethernet port is even better, offering up to 2.5 Gigabits of speed. All of this is fed onto a chunky proprietary connector that locks into the device when you plug it in.
The great thing about XG Mobile is that you can leave everything connected. It comes with a built-in kickstand, so it sits off your desk and you can leave your keyboard, mouse, and any external storage you’ve got plugged in and ready to go. You can even connect two monitors. If it weren’t for the atrocious software, this would be a true one-cable solution.
Noise isn’t bad either. While I haven’t tested the RTX 4090 model, I’m guessing it’s not much worse than the RTX 3080 model. These are laptop GPUs and have more room in the XG Mobile than something like the Asus ROG Zepyrus M16.
The ROG Ally’s noise is a different beast. It’s true that you’re tapping the XG Mobile for external power, but the Z1 Extreme processor in the ROG Ally still runs hot and the fans ramp up, even to run a quaint game like Dave the Diverat a higher resolution. This could be a problem, especially now that Asus has confirmed ROG Ally has thermal issues with its micro SD card slot.
Granted, with XG Mobile, you can connect an external hard drive instead. And you’re getting a huge performance boost. When compared to the same Medium-ish settings at 1080p, the RTX 3080 XG Mobile offers a huge (unsurprisingly) boost over the ROG Ally. You’d probably be better off pushing 1440p, and if you go with the RTX 4090 XG Mobile, you could easily push 4K (read our MSI GT77 Titan review to see just how crazy that GPU is).
At Ultra settings, the RTX 3080 XG Mobile still delivers around 90 frames per second (fps) in most 1080p games. It even has enough grunt to pull in ray tracing Cyberpunk 2077,with Nvidias Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) pushing the game above 60fps. This outclasses the level of performance you see even in a massive desktop replacement like the Alienware x17 R2, proving that the XG Mobile and ROG Ally combination is a powerful option.
And the price?
No matter how you slice it, a desktop is cheaper than any similarly powered portable solution. For the ROG Ally and XG Mobile combo, you’re looking at $700 for the Ally and $1,100 for XG Mobile. For performance, which I’ve roughly rated around an RTX 3060 Ti desktop, you can build a similar desktop for around $1,000 (and that’s with double the storage).
I think that’s the biggest problem with ROG Ally replacing your desktop. It’s not that the combination is more expensive; is that you can build an equally powerful desktopANDbuy a ROG Ally for the same price. Sure, you have to install your games twice and transfer files, but with how prevalent cloud saves are these days, that’s not too big a hindrance.
The only way XG Mobile makes sense is if you want to spend the same amount of money, but have more problems. There could be an argument whether it was cheaper, could save you money, or offer more power, but none of it is true.
There’s something very intriguing about plugging a cable into the ROG Ally and watching the screen light up. And, if Asus had a better way to connect and disconnect the XG Mobile, that novelty alone might make this setup worth choosing over a desktop. For my use, I’m happy to sit at a desk when I want to game on a desktop and fire up the ROG Ally when I’m on the go, and XG Mobile doesn’t change that.
Editor’s Recommendations
#replaced #ROG #Ally #Heres #surprised #Digital #Trends
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