An interestingly timed update to the Asus ROG Ally with the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU has just been released. That in itself wouldn't necessarily be big news, but it follows recent reporting that suggested that AMD was deprecating the Z1 Extreme chip, leaving handhelds like the ROG Ally without further GPU updates as a result.
There hasn't been a lot of clear confirmation, from either AMD or manufacturers like Asus, about the status of the Z1 Extreme. What we do know, however, is that it had been several months since the ROG Ally received a major SoC update. With reports that other Z1 Extreme handhelds like the Lenovo Legion Go and Go S were also lacking new updates, and seemingly a confirmation from Lenovo's Korean branch that product updates were stopping for those handhelds, consumers with Z1 Extreme-powered handhelds have been left with uncertainty over recent days.
The update (h/t Videocardz) brings the latest available GPU driver for the Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme to version 32.0.22029.13001 and is available for download from the Asus website. With no release notes, it's difficult to determine the changes between this driver and the last, but the driver branch number (22029) matches the last minor driver release (32.0.22029.1019), which added support for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 back in November 2025. The last major release noted on the Asus website prior to that was back in August 2025 with driver 32.0.21013.11001.
The same batch number might suggest that this isn't a huge change, either, especially with no release notes, and also given that the main Radeon GPU driver branch has moved to 23xxx, but that isn't confirmed by Asus or AMD here.
Reddit discussion over the news does suggest a level of relief among Asus ROG Ally owners for a new update, but it doesn't necessarily confirm AMD's plans for this chip, or Asus' for the handheld. AMD has itself, so far, made no comment about its plans for the Z1 Extreme, and hasn't replied to a request for comment so far. Asus, too, hasn't made any public comments about the lifespan of the Asus ROG Ally or ROG Ally X with the Z1 Extreme APU, but a driver update would suggest it hasn't completely abandoned one of its major handhelds just yet.
One way or another, these handheld gaming PCs will continue to work, even without updates, although they will lack the optimizations for new game releases that new GPU drivers provide. A good alternative continues to be a switch to a Linux-based OS like Valve's SteamOS or Bazzite. These use their own open-source drivers, which don't rely on AMD and could be a lifeline as older handhelds become deprecated, as long as you're comfortable ditching Windows, even if like-for-like performance isn't something that can be guaranteed.
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