At the PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation, we finally got a look at what the much-awaited PS5 Pro is going to look like. And much like the PS4 Pro before it, this mid-generation console refresh looks like it will push graphics fidelity to the next level. But how exactly does it compare to what came before?
The PS5 launched back in 2020 with a custom AMD Zen 2 processor and RDNA 2 GPU, both of which were extremely similar to high-end PC specs of the day. A lot of time has passed, and while the PS5 Pro is still built on the same architectures, Sony has shown the GPU some love, greatly improving the amount of Compute Units (CUs) on offer, which will dramatically improve gaming performance, especially at higher resolutions.
Sony hasn’t exactly released detailed specs, but I’ve done some napkin math and have a pretty good idea of what the PS5 Pro’s innards will look like.
PS5 Pro vs PS5 – GPU
The PS5 Pro GPU is the star of the show. Right now, all signs are pointing to it being built on the same AMD RDNA 2 architecture as the original PS5, just with, well, more of it.
When the PS5 came out in 2020, it had an RDNA 2 GPU with 36 compute units, making for 2,304 streaming multiprocessors (SMs). This put it on the level of a mid-range graphics card like the AMD Radeon RX 6700. It was an incredibly powerful graphics chip for its time, and was able to truly provide next-generation 4K gameplay without relying on as much checkerboard upscaling as the PS4 Pro before it.
However, time continues its inevitible march forward, and newer games need a bit more horsepower, especially at 4K. Enter the PS5 Pro. This time around, Sony claims the PS5 Pro will have a GPU with 67 percent more compute units. Some light pocket math puts the new number of compute units at 60, and because RDNA 2 CUs feature 64 streaming multiprocessors, the new number is up at 3,840 SMs. That’s a massive increase in silicon. To put that in perspective, that puts it – on paper – at the same level as the AMD Radeon RX 6800, a GPU that was actually capable of 4K gaming on PC.
But it’s more than just raw GPU silicon that was thrown into the PS5 Pro. According to a hands-on preview from CNET, Sony included next-generation ray tracing hardware from AMD, hardware that Cerny claims hasn’t been released in one of Team Red’s graphics cards. AMD has had problems keeping up with Nvidia in ray tracing performance, and this next generation hardware might help the PS5 Pro keep up with the growing demands that more advanced ray tracing effects have on hardware.
This is definitely not a generational leap in GPU performance by any means – it’s using the same generation of hardware after all. But the huge leap in silicon is appropriate for a mid-generation refresh and should provide much better performance when those ‘fidelity modes’ are enabled.
PS5 Pro vs PS5 – Storage and Memory
Both Mark Cerny’s presentation and the PlayStation Blog neglect to mention the SSD, so it’s safe to assume that the PS5 Pro will sport the same high-end SSD that powered the PS5 back in 2020. And while there certainly are faster drives these days, a PCIe 5.0 SSD wouldn’t provide enough of a boost in loading times to make a significant difference, especially with how expensive those drives are.
However, memory does see an uplift. The PS5 launched with 16GB of GDDR6 memory as unified system RAM. The PS5 Pro has the same capacity, but the speeds are increased, likely due to a better memory interface on the new GPU. Sony claims that the memory is about 28 percent faster, and my semi-reliable pencil math shows that will equal about 560GB/s of memory bandwidth, up from 440GB/s on the old PS5.
Combined with the beefier GPU, this should really help the PS5 Pro hit the 45 percent performance increase Cerny kept repeating throughout the 10-minute presentation. It would have been nice to see more memory in the PS5 Pro, though, especially with how much focus is being paid to 4K gaming performance. After all, modern 4K graphics cards are launching with upwards of 20GB of memory, and that’s RAM that’s dedicated to the GPU alone.
PS5 Pro vs PS5 – Upscaling
The PS5 came out when upscaling tech on PC was in its infancy. Nvidia’s DLSS, or Deep Learning Super Sampling, had come out a couple years before and was still going through some serious learning pains. A lot has changed since then. Over the last couple of years, AI-based upscaling has proven to be a winning technology for PC games, so it’s only natural that Sony would want in on that action. After all, most of the games Sony has shipped on PC have implemented DLSS or FSR (Fidelity Super Resolution, AMD’s answer to DLSS) in one way or another.
The original PS5, on the other hand, used the checkerboard-style upscaling pioneered with the PS4 Pro. This upscaling method is imperfect, but it allows Sony to push high-detail images at a high resolution without taking too much of a hit to performance. The same philosophy applies to the PS5 Pro, but instead of using a glorified filter to fill in missing pixels, it uses an AI algorithm that can more accurately calculate missing image information, without a massive loss in fidelity.
However, with the PS5 being locked to AMD hardware, Sony had to come up with a bespoke neural engine in order to power the new PSSR – or PlayStation Spacial Super Resolution. The technical presentation didn’t really offer any details on this neural engine, so I can’t make any claims to its raw power.
We don’t know much about how PSSR will work quite yet, but I’m sure Sony will release more information on it over the coming months.
PS5 Pro vs PS5 – CPU
Mark Cerny spent absolutely no time talking about the CPU in the PS5 Pro, so it’s pretty safe to assume it’s not changing. Not that the PS5 CPU is bad. It’s still an 8-core Zen 2 processor, which is still more than enough for modern games.
At higher resolutions, like what the PS5 Pro is clearly designed for, most of the work is going to rely on a strong graphics processor, rather than a CPU. The CPU just needs to coordinate things in the background and run physics calculations, which it can already do extremely quickly.
What if the PS5 Pro Was A Gaming PC?
How Much of an Upgrade Is the PS5 Pro, Really?
For the purpose of playing graphically demanding games at a high resolution, the PS5 Pro is a huge upgrade, just in terms of raw GPU performance. That bigger GPU is then paired with specialized hardware for ray tracing and upscaling to further improve performance at 4K. We don’t know much about these specialized parts yet, but it’s definitely more than the base PS5 can offer.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that the new GPU is the equivalent of the AMD Radeon RX 6800, which you can find for about $350 right now, and is using a CPU and GPU architecture that’s nearly five years old. The PS5 Pro is using this older hardware while still raising the price to $699, compared to the $499 that the PS5 launched at four years ago.
I have no doubt in my mind that the PS5 Pro will deliver a more vivid and detailed gaming experience than the base PS5, but it won’t be a generational uplift. Just a refined version of what already exists.
Jackie Thomas is IGN’s Hardware and Buying Guides Editor and PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra