Amazon France appears to have jumped the gun, shipping a ROG Xbox Ally X to a buyer in Belgium nearly three weeks before launch. While resellers are already listing the new handheld for eye-watering prices up to $2,500, at least one lucky Redditor is already playing on theirs and sharing early impressions.
According to the owner, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme inside the ROG Xbox Ally X delivers a modest but noticeable uplift over the Ryzen Z1 Extreme—roughly a 5 to 10 FPS advantage on average. In the Unreal Engine 5 title Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the handheld reportedly manages around 47 FPS at 1080p on High settings with XeSS enabled. Dropping the resolution to 900p bumps performance to about 56 FPS, and enabling Lossless Scaling Frame Generation can push that up to roughly 86 FPS.
For a demanding UE5 game, those numbers are impressive for a handheld gaming PC. The user also notes a power draw sweet spot between 17 and 25 watts, which seems to balance performance with battery life. One quirk: the Xbox-style full-screen interface felt “really disturbing at first,” but became more comfortable over time.
It’s worth stressing that this unit is likely running pre-release software, so final performance and features could differ at launch. Even so, the early takeaway is clear: maintaining a locked 60 FPS at 1080p with High settings will be tough in many modern titles. Expect upscaling tools like XeSS and frame generation to play a key role in getting smooth gameplay without sacrificing too much image quality.
Pre-orders for both the ROG Xbox Ally X and the standard ROG Xbox Ally are live, which has already triggered rampant price gouging on resale sites. If you’ve secured a pre-order, these early impressions suggest you can look forward to measurable gains from the Z2 Extreme and better performance headroom in new releases—especially if you’re willing to tweak settings, target 900p, and lean on AI upscalers. If you’re still on the fence, waiting for full launch reviews and finalized software is the safest move before paying inflated prices.
