So you’ve probably heard – as if it’s been easy to ignore – that the PlayStation 5 Pro is a thing. It costs $699.99 without a vertical stand or a disc drive, and people – excluding perhaps Microsoft – are rightfully annoyed. “What is the point of a mid-gen refresh when it’s too expensive?”, “Arrogant Sony is back”, “Maybe I will buy an Xbox Series X, but not really” – so on and so forth.
However, there’s plenty to discuss regarding the actual differences between the PS5 Pro and the base PS5, and we’re not talking about how it’s the same height or how the width is the same as the PS5 Slim.
The CPU
First off, the CPU. The PS5 rocks an AMD Ryzen Zen 2 with eight cores and 16 threads, clocked at 3.5 GHz. Sony hasn’t officially outlined the Pro’s CPU and specs, but CNET confirmed in its recent preview that it’s the same, corroborating a report from Insider-Gaming in March. The main difference is a reported “High CPU Frequency Mode”, increasing the clock speed from 3.5 GHz to 3.85 GHz for a 10 percent increase. It’s worth noting that since the CPU is receiving more power in this scenario, GPU performance allegedly undergoes a 1.5 percent downclocking, resulting in a one percent performance drop.
Regardless, you would think a higher CPU clock speed means better overall performance, right? The answer is: It depends on the game. Take FromSoftware’s Elden Ring, for example. The PS5 version suffers from some frame rate drops due to the sheer CPU dependence of the title, to the extent that the best way to get a consistent 60 FPS is to run the PS4 version on PS5 (and stomach the drop in fidelity). In this scenario, the PS5 Pro would provide a decent increase. How decent remains to be seen, but one has to wonder about future titles with extensive CPU operations and how they might fare on the console.
Case in point is Grand Theft Auto 6 and whether it will achieve 4K and 60 FPS, let alone offer a Performance Mode capable of the latter. Once again, it all boils down to the design. If its population density and variety, physics, and AI are vastly superior to Grand Theft Auto 5 (and it’s looking very likely), then the Pro’s CPU may not be that impactful. It’s hard to say at this point.
The GPU
The console’s other specs also play a part, though, and it’s here that some of the more significant improvements are visible. Sony touted the GPU as having 45 percent faster rendering and 67 percent more Compute Units, so going by the PS5’s number (36), the result should be 60 CU. In PC GPU terms, the PS5 would be equivalent to an AMD Radeon RX 6700, while the Pro is closer to a Radeon RX 6800. Though it features an AMD Radeon RDNA 2 chipset, Insider-Gaming reports that it offers 33.5 TFLOPS of performance. The most obvious benefit is having graphical modes with higher resolutions or more fidelity.
For example, CNET’s preview noted that Gran Turismo 7 offered 8K and 4K with improved ray tracing. How many people own an 8K TV is another matter entirely. However, some titles will also benefit from significant visual improvements. As lead architect Mark Cerny noted in the technical presentation, Horizon Forbidden West benefits from improved lighting and visual effects during gameplay and better hair and skin in cinematics.
Regarding the memory, it’s 28 percent compared to the PS5. Returning to Insider-Gaming’s report, the difference is a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s for the Pro over the PS5’s 448 GB/s. Though the most noteworthy benefit is faster loading times and the rendering of complex environments (as noted by Forbidden West receiving an overall boost in detail), it’s another boon for titles targeting 4K and higher resolutions.
The other benefit of the larger GPU and part of the PS5 Pro’s “Big Three” is the advanced ray tracing. It offers double and sometimes triple the cast speeds of the base PS5, along with “more dynamic reflection and refraction of light” with negligible impact on the performance, even at higher resolutions. Gran Turismo 7 shines again, offering real-time reflections between cars during gameplay while maintaining 60 FPS.
Hogwarts Legacy benefits from more realistic shadows, higher-quality reflections and more varied reflective surfaces. Cerny told CNET that the console uses AMD’s advanced ray tracing features that aren’t included in the manufacturer’s current GPUs, which makes the PS5 Pro more impressive in the short to medium term.
PSSR
Finally, there’s PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, an AI-driven upscaling technology for improving image quality. The result means more detail and sharper upscaled images, as seen with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. On PS5 Pro, distant details are clearer than in Performance RT mode on the base PS5. On the other end, players can maintain the texture quality and environmental details of Fidelity mode in The Last of Part 2 Remastered while still benefiting from the responsiveness of 60 FPS.
It should also reduce the artifacting seen in other upscaling methods while facilitating further graphical modes for developers patching their titles to support the console. Depending on how essential ray tracing is for you, PSSR will let you experience it at 60 FPS, though use cases vary based on the game, as usual.
SSD
As for the solid-state drive, it gets a pretty big boost with 2 TB of space. Some of that will be reserved, but it’s still an improvement over the base PS5 and its 825 GB SSD, of which only 667 GB is available (even if the read speed is still 5.5 GB/s, per CNET’s preview).
More space allows for installing more games, obviously, but it may also be an effort to mitigate the lack of a disc drive while encouraging digital ownership. Another potential benefit is more room for higher-resolution footage, so if you’ve been salivating at the thought of uploading 8K footage of Gran Turismo 7, this is good news. It also segues nicely into the Wi-Fi section.
Wi-Fi
Instead of the PS5’s Wi-Fi 6, the PS5 Pro sports Wi-Fi 7. On top of supporting 2.5, 5 and 6 Hz data bands, it also features 320 MHz bandwidth support, with a potential max speed of 46 GB/s. Downloads and streaming will thus be quicker, perhaps even benefitting those streaming titles from the cloud. This does depend on your internet plan, but it’s one of the more underrated future-facing features of the Pro.
Conclusion
Despite touting it as a means to bridge the gap between Fidelity and Performance modes, Sony is marketing the PS5 Pro as more of a premium option than a simple mid-gen refresh. There’s plenty of debate about its necessity, especially compared to the PS4 Pro, which offered a significant jump over the base PS4 (viewed as outdated from the get-go). Comparatively, there are still plenty of cross-gen titles instead of exclusives for the PS5, with few truly pushing the console’s limits.
Even with the PS4 Pro retailing for $399 – the same price as the base console when it launched – it would sell 14.5 million units in its lifetime, about 12 percent of total PS4 sales. Ampere Analysis research director Piers Harding-Rolls estimates a similar response for the PS5 Pro, with about 1.3 million PS5 Pro sales forecast for this year.
Sony’s external disc drive is currently eighth on Amazon US’s Best Sellers list while being sold out on Best Buy. Assuming that translates into enthusiasm for the console, perhaps there’s decent enough demand (or scalpers are having a field day). Once again, we won’t know until pre-orders for the console go live.
While it’s a better machine than the PS5, the PS5 Pro’s CPU enhancements are incremental at best. Time will tell how developers leverage the hardware for current titles. It’ll be even more interesting to see how future first-party games take advantage of the GPU and ray tracing. Nevertheless, the PS5 Pro is a far cry from a PS6-level jump in terms of technology, forget the pricing or the additional costs.
Share Your Thoughts Below (Always follow our comments policy!)