Asus has teased the launch of its Steam Deck rival, the ROG Ally. No official release date has been announced yet, but Asus said on Twitter that it "may launch sooner than expected." Along with this small ripple, rumors of a leak that may specify which GPU the custom SoC of this powerful little handheld gaming device will be built around are now spreading fast.

As we previously reported, the now fully-realized ROG Ally (open in new tab) appears to be a serious contender for the Steam Deck, and the rumor is that the processor is an AMD custom SoC made on TSMC's 4nm process node. This is according to a report by Dave2D (opens in new tab), who also speaks of a Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 GPU behind a 1080p screen.

Incidentally, Deck's Aerith APU is a 7nm semi-custom APU with Zen 2 and RDNA 2 hardware; to achieve 120Hz refresh rates on Ally's 7" panel would require some serious handheld power.

With VideoCards (opens in new tab) announcing leaked shipping inventory, it is likely that the ROG Ally will be powered by a semi-custom version of the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U APU with a Radeon 780M GPU. This is the same APU found in the GPD Win Max and AOKZEO A1 Pro, but likely slightly modified.

Importantly, the Radeon 780M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, which Asus has already confirmed as the OS of choice and should help improve the Windows gaming experience.

Asus has a history of putting low TDP Ryzen HS series processors in mobile machines, and the ROG Ally needs special treatment as a gaming handheld, so it will likely have improved TDP over standard processors. Otherwise, there is no information on the company's plans for custom SoCs.

The ROG Ally shipping manifest also clearly lists Asus model numbers RC71L and RC71X, which can be easily found on Asus' website and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) listings. These L and X codes suggest at least two possible Asus ROG Ally models, but it is unclear whether that means differences in storage, power, or just color.

Either way, Asus has us on edge with little notes like this one found on Twitter today. The tweet also includes a link to receive a notification (opens in new tab) when the ROG Ally release date is set.