The first part of the PlayStation 5 Pro embargo lifts today, meaning that we can show – on camera! – a console being taken out of its packaging! It’s a box that may prove similar to owners of the existing PlayStation 5, as it’s essentially packaged in the same way: an easily tearable outer layer gives way to a sturdier white cardboard box with a main compartment for the console itself and a secondary area for power cable, horizontal stand pieces, HDMI and USB-C to USB-C cables and a dual sense controller. So far, no surprises.
However, the console itself is rather nice. We can’t say that we’re fans of the original, hulking design of the launch PlayStation 5, but the revised Slim model has much reduced volume and a more svelte approach to the design – and so it is with the PlayStation 5 Pro, which is taller but still occupies a good deal less volume than the launch model.
Going into this experience, we were expecting a much larger, heavier piece of kit. Based on leaked specs, we were expecting a 6nm processor just like the Slim, scaled up for the extra hardware and requiring beefier cooling. The Pro is larger but not to the extent we thought it would be. The manual says it weighs 3.1kg, down from the launch Digital Edition’s 3.9kg. It’s only 500g heavier than a Slim. A teardown from an early release unit that appeared on YouTube over the weekend also hints at a smaller than expected processor.
Beyond that, the unboxing holds no surprises. The unit can stand vertically without Sony’s official stand, but there is the possibility of some decrease in thermal efficiency if you don’t use it. Sony also supplied us with the stand, and it’s astonishingly expensive for what it is – but I was also surprised to see that it comes with an add-on plate for support for launch model PS5s, which shipped with a stand to begin with.
Of course, there is no optical drive on the PlayStation 5 Pro, so in the video above, you’ll see us add on our store-bought peripherals to the new console. Taking off the side plates reveals that despite the Pro’s 2TB of internal storage, the NVMe bay is still there, and there’s also a new, user-accessible CMOS battery bay that allows you to easily replace the battery when it inevitably expires – a nice touch from Sony there.
It turns out that the manuals within the box do provide some interesting new info, however. The paperwork includes a ‘safety guide’ which is actually the main manual and it contains Sony’s official specifications for the PS5 Pro – information it has not released so far. It’s still somewhat lacking in detail compared to prior efforts, which have included elements like CPU and GPU clock speeds, for example, but it is still illuminating.
Three points stand out. Firstly, the power supply is rated for a maximum of 390W, up from the 340W of the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition (both OG and Slim) – so while that is not indicative of power consumption during play, it shows that the new console does require more juice.
But it’s the 16.7TF of GPU compute performance that is new information. Sony has not actually given any kind of TFLOPs number for the PlayStation 5 Pro, but prior leaks have suggested around 33.5TF – a somewhat exaggerated number that arrived with AMD RDNA 3 architecture with its dual issue FP32 functionality. Sony’s confirmation of 16.7TF suggests that the dual issue FP32 support is not in the PlayStation 5 Pro – not that this is too much of a big deal as it has very, very little impact on gaming performance.
Finally, the specifications confirm that the PS5 Pro has more memory than the base unit – an extra 2GB of DDR5. Leaks have previously suggested that the Pro has an extra 1.2GB of available RAM for game makers, so the likelihood is that system level memory requirements are shunted over to the new memory pool, leaving more of the faster memory for games to use.
So, we’ve taken the console out of the box and we are testing the unit as of this writing, but embargo restrictions mean we can’t really say anything more about the Pro’s performance – though of course, our prior coverage has revealed plenty of real-world testing on Pro supported software.
F1 24 was fascinating in showing that the Pro is capable of delivering some impressive additional ray tracing performance, while The Last of Us Part 2 is something of a showcase for the PSSR upscaling. Our Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart coverage stacked up PSSR against FSR 3.1 and DLSS and showed that it’s a powerful replacement for AMD’s standard upscaler and comparable at least to Nvidia’s finest.
Beyond that, we are aiming to deliver a more holistic review of the console in time for the next embargo – power consumption testing, PS5 game boost performance analysis, a look at the PlayStation 4 image enhancement feature and a collection of thoughts on actual PS5 Pro upgrades we’ve looked at so far. We also plan more intensive pieces on specific elements of the PS5 Pro package, along with standalone coverage of key games. Bearing in mind we’ve had less than a week of hands-on time, things are going to be tight but look out for our first major piece on the console in the run-up to the launch on November 7th.