At the PlayStation 5 technical presentation, we finally got a glimpse of what the long-awaited PS5 Pro will look like. And much like the PS4 Pro before it, this mid-generation console refresh looks set to take graphical fidelity to the next level. But how does it compare to its predecessors?
The PS5 launched in 2020 with a bespoke AMD Zen 2 processor and RDNA 2 GPU, both of which were very similar to the high-end PC specs of the time. A lot of time has passed since then, and while the PS5 Pro is still based on the same architectures, Sony has given the GPU some love and greatly increased the number of Compute Units (CUs) on offer, which will drastically improve gaming performance, especially at higher resolutions.
Sony hasn’t released exact specifications yet, but I did a little math on the napkin and have a pretty good idea of what the inside of the PS5 Pro will look like.
PS5 Pro vs PS5 – GPU
The PS5 Pro GPU is the star of the show. Right now, all signs point to it being based 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, equivalent to 2,304 streaming multiprocessors (SMs), putting it on par with a mid-range graphics card like the AMD Radeon RX 6700. For its time, it was an incredibly powerful graphics chip and could truly deliver next-gen 4K gameplay without relying on as much checkerboard upscaling as the PS4 Pro did before it.
However, time marches on inexorably and newer games require a bit more power, especially at 4K. That’s where the PS5 Pro comes in. This time around, Sony claims the PS5 Pro will have a GPU with 67 percent more compute units. A simple calculation gives a new number of compute units of 60, and since RDNA 2 CUs have 64 streaming multiprocessors, the new number rises to 3,840 SMs. That’s a huge increase in silicon. To put that in perspective, that puts it – on paper – on the same level as the AMD Radeon RX 6800, a GPU that actually enabled 4K gaming on PC.
But there’s more than just raw GPU silicon going into the PS5 Pro. According to a hands-on preview from CNET, Sony has included next-generation ray tracing hardware from AMD, hardware that Cerny said hasn’t been released in any of Team Red’s graphics cards. AMD has struggled to keep up with Nvidia in ray tracing performance, and this next-generation hardware could help the PS5 Pro keep up with the growing demands that more advanced ray tracing effects place on the hardware.
This is definitely not a generational leap in GPU performance—it’s using the same generation of hardware, after all. But the huge jump in silicon technology is appropriate for a mid-generation refresh, and should offer much better performance with these “fidelity modes” enabled.
PS5 Pro vs. PS5 – Storage and RAM
There’s no mention of the SSD in Mark Cerny’s presentation or on the PlayStation blog, so it’s safe to assume the PS5 Pro will come with the same high-end SSD that powered the PS5 in 2020. And while there are certainly faster drives available these days, a PCIe 5.0 SSD wouldn’t reduce load times enough to make a significant difference, especially given the high cost of those drives.
There are improvements in memory, however. The PS5 launched with 16GB of GDDR6 memory as the unified system RAM. The PS5 Pro has the same capacity, but the speeds are faster, likely due to a better memory interface on the new GPU. Sony claims the memory is about 28 percent faster, and my halfway reliable pencil calculation shows that this equates to about 560GB/s of memory bandwidth, up from 440GB/s on the old PS5.
Combined with the more powerful GPU, this should really help the PS5 Pro achieve the 45 percent performance boost that Cerny kept repeating throughout the 10-minute presentation. However, it would have been nice to see more memory in the PS5 Pro, especially given that so much emphasis is being placed on 4K gaming performance. After all, modern 4K graphics cards are launching with over 20GB of memory, and that’s RAM dedicated to the GPU alone.
PS5 Pro vs. PS5 – Upscaling
The PS5 came out when upscaling technology on PC was still in its infancy. Nvidia’s DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) had come out a few years earlier and still had some serious learning curves. A lot has changed since then. In recent years, AI-based upscaling has proven to be a winning technology for PC gaming, so it’s only natural that Sony would want in on the action. After all, most of the games Sony has brought to 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 checkerboard upscaling, introduced with the PS4 Pro. While not perfect, this upscaling method allows Sony to deliver highly detailed images at high resolution without sacrificing performance too much. The same philosophy applies to the PS5 Pro, but instead of using a souped-up filter to fill in missing pixels, it uses an AI algorithm that can more accurately calculate missing image information without a massive loss of fidelity.
However, because the PS5 is tied to AMD hardware, Sony had to develop a bespoke Neural Engine to power the new PSSR – or PlayStation Spacial Super Resolution. The technical presentation didn’t provide any real details on this Neural Engine, so I can’t make any statements about its raw performance.
We don’t know much about how PSSR will work yet, but I’m sure Sony will release more information about it over the coming months.
PS5 Pro vs PS5 – CPU
Mark Cerny hasn’t looked at the PS5 Pro’s CPU at all, so it’s safe to assume that won’t change. Not that the PS5’s CPU is bad. It’s still an 8-core Zen 2 processor, which is still more than sufficient for modern games.
At higher resolutions, which the PS5 Pro is clearly designed for, most of the work will depend on a powerful graphics processor rather than a CPU. The CPU only needs to coordinate things in the background and perform physics calculations, which it can already do extremely quickly.
What if the PS5 Pro was a gaming PC?
How big is the PS5 Pro upgrade really?
For playing graphically demanding games at high resolution, the PS5 Pro is a huge upgrade in terms of pure GPU power alone. This larger GPU is then paired with special hardware for ray tracing and upscaling to further improve performance at 4K. We don’t know much about these special parts yet, but it’s definitely more than the base PS5 can offer.
However, it’s important to remember that the new GPU is the equivalent of the AMD Radeon RX 6800, which you can currently find for around $350, and uses a CPU and GPU architecture that’s nearly five years old. The PS5 Pro uses this older hardware and still bumps the price up to $699, compared to the $499 the PS5 launched at four years ago.
I’m convinced the PS5 Pro will offer a more vibrant and detailed gaming experience than the base PS5, but it won’t be a generational upgrade. Just a refined version of what’s already out there.
Jackie Thomas is IGN’s hardware and buying guides editor and the queen of PC components. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
