As VideoCardz spotted, two flagship AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme PC gaming handhelds, the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go, are at their lowest price points. Considering both handhelds are still listed at MSRPs of $649 and $679, respectively (and started at $699), the new record prices of $499 for the ROG Ally Z1 Extreme and $544 for the Legion Go are pretty remarkable. While the $544 number for Legion Go looks a little shakier at the time of writing, the $499 Best Buy pricing promotion for ROG Ally will be held until tomorrow.
So, why are these handhelds getting such drastic discounts? A few different events are shaking up the market. For a long while, handhelds using the Ryzen Z1 Extreme's Radeon 780M iGPU, including high-end Ryzen 7000 and 8000 series CPUs, simply outclassed all other integrated graphics options—but with the caveat of requiring plugged-in operation for maximum power draw and performance.
While significantly stronger handhelds have yet to be released, Intel is beginning to compete in integrated graphics performance, and AMD's own next-gen Ryzen AI 300 Series APUs (for example) are already showing off better iGPU performance than Radeon 780M. If you don't mind an unusual form factor, the GPD Pocket 4 already exhibits a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with a Radeon 890M iGPU (using 16 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units versus 780M's 12), meaning faster handhelds already exist.
Most pressingly to these devices is explicitly likely the release of the new "true" high-end handheld, the Asus ROG Ally X — at $799, the Ally X isn't cheap but makes a meaningful boost to system RAM and several build/comfort adjustments to make other Z1 Extreme handhelds look like the compromise. If these deals are a sign of market conditions, even market leader Valve could see a pricing threat to competing handhelds— particularly with its Steam Deck OLED model, which loses some performance compared to (plugged-in) Z1 Extreme-class handhelds.
Of course, it's reasonable to expect more Radeon 890M-packing handhelds to start popping up on the market, making even the ROG Ally X look like a questionable investment. However, the time it'll take before those handhelds will be in anyone's hands is still up in the air (most expect by the end of the year, though supplies are limited), and Z1 Extreme handhelds still have a good value proposition today, particularly at $499.
