Legion Go S Faces Off Against ROG Ally X as Ryzen Z2 Go Trails 10% Behind Ryzen Z1 Extreme

AMD’s recent unveiling of the Ryzen Z2 Go APU has stirred quite a bit of excitement and curiosity among gamers. Naturally, there’s been a keen interest in how it stacks up against the established Ryzen Z1 series. Our questions were recently answered thanks to Fps VN, which shared some intriguing FPS test results comparing Lenovo’s latest handheld, the Legion Go S, with Asus’s ROG Ally X, based on different power settings across three popular games.

The Lenovo Legion Go S is powered by the newly released Ryzen Z2 Go APU. This chip features half the cores of its predecessor, the Z1 Extreme, and relies on a Zen 3+ architecture rather than the newer Zen 4. Its base and boost clock speeds are slightly lower, too, capping at 3.0 GHz and 4.3 GHz, compared to the Z1’s 3.3 GHz and 5.1 GHz. Despite these seemingly modest specifications, Lenovo has opted for this chip in its latest gaming handheld, making it interesting to compare its performance to the more robust Z1 Extreme.

Before diving into the performance data, let’s briefly overview the specs of both devices. The Lenovo Legion Go S, which made its debut at CES 2025, is kitted out with a Ryzen Z2 Go processor, includes 16GB of LPDDR5X-6400 memory, a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and boasts an eight-inch, 120 Hz, 1920×1200 IPS display. In contrast, the Asus ROG Ally X, launched in mid-2024, houses a Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip, sports 24GB of LPDDR5 memory, packs a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and features a slightly smaller seven-inch, 120 Hz, 1920×1080 IPS screen.

In the performance showdown, the ROG Ally X consistently edged out the Legion Go S. This isn’t too surprising, considering the Z1 Extreme’s advantage with more cores, higher clock speeds, and enhanced features like double the L3 cache, paired with a more up-to-date 780M integrated GPU, surpassing the older 680M on the Z2 Go.

However, when it comes to tangible differences in gameplay, the ROG Ally X only delivered about 4 FPS more on average across the tested games than the Legion Go S. Benchmarks suggested the Z2 Go delivers roughly 10% less performance compared to the Z1 Extreme, a surprisingly close margin given the differences in their hardware specifications.

We anticipated a more significant performance gap, especially since the Ally X comes with 8GB more memory and a slightly lower-resolution display, which should theoretically require less processing power. Yet, it appears that both AMD and Lenovo have fine-tuned the Z2 Go impressively, optimizing it to maximize performance within the power-constrained, portable design of handheld consoles.

Price-wise, the two devices are similarly positioned, with the Asus ROG Ally X retailing for $799 and the Lenovo Legion Go slightly cheaper at $729. Although the ROG Ally X offers superior performance on paper, the Legion Go’s larger screen and competitive pricing may attract gamers who find the minimal FPS differences between these handhelds negligible in practical terms.