Spec Analysis: PlayStation 5 Pro - The most powerful console yet

Digital Foundry : Tech specs for PlayStation 5 Pro have leaked - Digital Foundry verifies them and delivers analysis and further information.

[darthv72]

Love me some new hardware. This, the switch 2, and the rumored new xbox project are my kinda thing.

[Cacabunga]

I want also the games that take full advantage of it..

[GamerRN]

Are you guys not surprised by them being underwhelmed?

I was gonna be a day one, but now.... Who am I kidding I'll still be a day one buyer, but I feel like I might be unhappy with it...

[peppeaccardo]

I love how they are speculating on some numbers and making conclusions like this console is alreaedy out and running games. They HAVE TO be doubtful about anything that is not MS branded ... otherwise they get no sponsorship. Open your eyes people this is how modern "journalism" works (please note the double quotes).
Peace

P.S. Interesting how these people have sliced and diced every Playstation exclusive in the last few years ... feels like SONY should be paying them for their job and not MS.

[Smitty2020]

I hope they leave the old gen behind and actually have a reason to purchase the new console

[TheEroica]

The 8 downvotes are from overly sensitive Sony fans who have been paying for remakes all generation.

[jwillj2k4]

At least those remakes make the most of the hardware they run on. You’re still enamored by 360 games being upscale to 4K

[BrettAwesome]

Aaaaahahahaha. What does Xbox have?

[Sonic1881]

It will be weird for Microsoft to abandon the Series X/S and the fanbase this early, especially since they haven't released all their first party exclusives yet.

[darthv72]

Abandon...?

[IRetrouk]

They dropped the original after 4 years didn't they?

[Jingsing]

You had to go and add Xbox in your comment, no sneaky attempts or we will nose dive your comment.

[Battlestar23]

Doesn't sound like it's a worthy upgrade imo. With Xbox looking like they will be releasing their next gen console in a year or 2 Sony gamers will be stuck playing games on outdated hardware.

[S2Killinit]

Wow what a spin. More like xbox gamers will be left in the cold when MS leaves them behind early.

Lets be honest here, this is happening because developers cant optimize every game for 3 different xbox SKUs. Since PlayStation is coming out with a PRO, and MS cant do the same, MS will abandon some of their gamers because their 2 SKU strategy backfired.

Also, it would be wise for MS to avoid releasing consoles day and date with PlayStation from now on. That way, MS can claim to be the “highest selling console” when the next gen PlayStation arrives.

[crazyCoconuts]

Regarding the staggered release, that's what they did with X1X and I'm not sure it's obvious that worked out in the end. They miss out on a year of potential sales before the next gen kicks off, and they obviously didn't end up dethroning PS4 Pro. Didn't they even end up discontinuing the X1X early in the next gen lifecycle? Kinda a disaster.

[Profchaos]

as a PS fan to me this doesn't seem like a worthwhile upgrade go watch the video the df guys are not all that impressed and have more concerns than positive praise here. But it's still a option available to the hardcore

However we all know Xbox made a huge mistake with the s and are looking to press the restart button early

[S2Killinit]

Yeah DF is a MS mouthpiece. So no surprise there.

[PhillyDonJawn]

2026-2028 wouldn't be early. And tbh a pro for this generation is nearly pointless.

[S2Killinit]

@PhillydonJown
Wait if a PRO is useless, then why is a new generation in 2026 is ok?

[JackBNimble]

I'm still waiting for Sony to take advantage of ogps5 hardware, and you think a pro is going do anything other then line Sony's pockets?

[darthv72]

@S2, if new systems came in 26, that is 6 years after the previous release. That is a nice round number. I've seen console releases anywhere from 4 years to 8 between platforms. Sony themselves have done 5, 6 and 7 year cycles. It all comes down to when they feel the time is right.

[seanpitt23]

In a year or 2 haha it will be holiday 2026 at the earliest.. so that's 2 years and 7 months away but most likely it will be 2027 just depending on wheres the AMD road map is by then..

[Hypertension140]

They are skipping ahead the NEXT generation, of course it's going to be more powerful. At least the PS5 pro will be the most powerful console of its generation, and for much longer than the Xbox One X. The PS6 is probably another 3 to 4 years away.

Sony will also have the most powerful console next gen, thanks to Microsoft getting a headstart and them possibly working on a portable Xbox that will hold the entire gen back.

[PhillyDonJawn]

Truth be told that probably the best thing to do. 360 had a year head start and it worked very well for them. It reigned over ps3 here in America. The most powerful feat can be recouped via mid gen refresh. If I was MS I'd always shoot to get my console out first then wait and release the midgen refresh at the same time and more powerful or 1 year early but higher priced to make it more powerful that it can compete with a midgen console that releases a year later at $100 cheaper. Then Just drop the price to match

[DarXyde]

PhillyDonJawn,

Except the last time they rushed out hardware, the CPU had a 33% failure rate.

Maybe hardware reliability should be the priority, or is that crazy talk?

[darthv72]

@Xyde... sure, which is why XBO/S/X and Series X/S have been very reliable as a result. Even 360 S/E were better than the first gen units.

[DarXyde]

Darthv72,

You miss my point.

Releasing first is not the issue.

The issue is releasing something before it's ready to secure an advantage. If it's properly ready two years ahead of PS6, cool.

But don't do it fit the sake of early sales at the expense of quality.

[crazyCoconuts]

"releasing their next gen console in a year or 2 "
Talk about optimism.

[SyntheticForm]

Worthiness is subjective. The CPU seems disappointing though; with only a marginal increase. That said, I'll probably jump in because I like new hardware and having the best versions of everything I can.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

You might want to take another look at that hardware if that's your take. And Xbox is not releasing their next generation console in a year lol.

[jwillj2k4]

You’ll be playing your games in the cloud telling yourself that the 720p res and extra controller lag allows more players to play together since you’re all having the same sh*t experience.

[ironmonkey]

Haha exactly Xbox is looking, like a window shopper lost and confused. How's that halo helldivers coming working out?

[anast]

Xbox is releasing a mobile device that will be heavy on streaming.

[darthv72]

They already promote one... and I have it, it works great. I use it just as much as the Portal.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/...

[shinoff2183]

Ewwwww

[Kingrizzy90]

Sony has never been stuck using outdated hardware, i don't know where you got that from. thats usually nintendo that does that.

[DOMination-]

If Microsoft release an actual next-gen console then it may do very well for a few years but then the tables will turn when the PS6 comes out. It will be like the 360/PS3 gen again however this time there's considerably less exciting around the Xbox brand.

[Blad3runner00]

I surely hope people aren't expecting 60fps in games on PS5 Pro.
Based on this video, you aren't going to get a big improvement, frame rate wise, on CPU intensive games.

[Obscure_Observer]

"I surely hope people aren't expecting 60fps in games on PS5 Pro.
Based on this video, you aren't going to get a big improvement, frame rate wise, on CPU intensive games."

Namely GTA VI

Unlike the PS4 Pro vs PS4, the 1% clock speed boost in comparison with the base PS5 is a lame joke.

Games will run pretty much the same.

[crazyCoconuts]

So the PS engineers just spent 10s of millions to push out an update that will make our games run pretty much the same?
I have more faith in them than that. They know what is bottlenecking our games better than the wanna be developers at DF.

[Sonic1881]

The key to the PS5 Pro will be Sony PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution Upscaling (PSSR), an AI-based upscaling solution similar to DLSS and XeSS that will debut with the PS5 Pro and the GPU will have a 45% increase. It's like they're just testing this new feature before they launch and get ready for the PS6. But I do agree that the 1%-10% CPU clock speed boost won't probably make a huge difference for *CPU intensive games*.

[Eonjay]

Games already run at 60 FPS on the PS5. So how would this make games worse. Why are people acting like the vast majority of games on PS5 aren't 60FPS?

[crazyCoconuts]

Exactly @eon. So every game that has a performance mode with decreased resolution and graphical features could be improved. Like running the quality mode graphics at performance mode FPS.

[Einhander1972]

So hows that Series S working out for you? I guess is future games can't run at 60FPS on a PS5 Pro then they won't even be able to hit 1 FPS on the Series S right?

[Zenzuu]

Zen 2 3700x, which the PS5 cpu is loosely based on, may be outdated by today's standard, but it still has enough processing power to run the majority of today's games at 60fps.

Framerate wise, the extra boost from the GPU will allow more games to at least run at that target framerate more stably. It's a welcome upgrade. I'll just trade in my original PS5 at my local EB game store to offset some of the cost and get the PS5 Pro.

[dumahim]

Yeah, sounds like better Ray Tracing and better resolutions and upscaling.

edit: with PSSR, it'll be interesting to how well it upscales. If there's already a 60 fps performance mode, it could be used to bridge the image gap between quality and performance modes.

[SyntheticForm]

Which would very welcome to me.

I really, really hate the resolution decrease in FFVII Rebirth when switching to performance.

[fr0sty]

There's also the fact that it doesn't require a game to be patched in order to work, it can work on all existing PS4 and PS5 games.

[I_am_Batman]

@frosty: Where are you getting that from? We still lack the information on how this will work exactly, but generally speaking you can't really do this on the driver level properly, because at that point you lack all the depth and motion vector information, which is why a proper upsampling algorithm needs to be implemented on the engine level.

According to the information we have, PSSR doesn't require the project to be ported to the newest SDK, which potentially makes patching it for already released games more realistic, but it would still require a patch and the implementation probably wouldn't be trivial.

FFVII Rebirth is a good example of this. It's not like the base PS5 can't support better upsampling than the TAA solution used there, but the reason it is used there, is because that's what UE4 supports natively. Just because PS5 Pro offers a better solution, doesn't mean that it's easy for any game to benefit from it.

With that said, it's impossible to judge how difficult an implementation would be at this point based on public information. It's possible (if not likely) that Sony will work with developers to create plugins for the most commonly used engines. The fact that the PS5 Pro has dedicated hardware for it is encouraging, but I certainly wouldn't count on every game benefiting from it automatically.

[andy85]

Thankfully there isn't that many games that are CPU intensive. Those are generally the ones that are stuck at 30. Thankfully I can count those on one hand. (Why they do it in the first place baffles me because the games dont look any different and it means the console versions run like ass). Bad engines? Bumping titles like Forbidden west and GOW to 120 will be awesome though.

[Destiny1080]

a locked 40fps will still be a massive boost over 30fps

[Profchaos]

A locked 40 would mean vrr finally becomes viable on all games as a vrr display owner I've been basically beging for this so it won't happen.

Also don't think we will see it happen based on a extra 10 percent

[andy85]

Dunno why you're getting downvotes. 40 fps when you're playing feels like a massive different. 50% more frames after all. I played Plague tale day one, jumping to the 40 fps mode felt so much better to play. It's a great middle ground when the titles offer that mode

[crazyCoconuts]

I surely am. DLSS boosts my fps immensely on my PC with a 7 year old CPU. If PS has created something akin to DLSS you better believe there will be major boosts to our frame rate.

[Profchaos]

Unfortunately you're right we won't see a fps bump with just a 10 percent CPU clock increase.

I predict we are just going to see games run at similar performance caps however they won't drop as many frames and run at a upscaled 4k thanks to pssr

[SyntheticForm]

When I think of "PRO" PlayStation consoles I don't think of huge increases over the base model across the board. I don't expect a PS6, but a nice bump to the PS5. That's what we're getting here. For some, the increases will be absolutely worth it and for others not so much.

[Ninver]

Stick with ps5

[Eonjay]

This doesn't make sense. The problem hasn't been not getting 60FPS. We already get that. The problem is that some performance modes are still blurry.

[Babadook7]

Uh. Most ps5 games have a 60 fps mode already. Because for a console the cpu is already decent.

[Grievous]

What CPU intensive games though? The whole article is based on this but nearly all PS5 games have a performance mode running at 60 fps that is simply limited from hitting that all the time because of GPU power.

[purple101]

Il post the easy to digest analysis

CPU 10% increase
Memory 28% increase
Audio 35% increase
GPU 45% increase

+ custom Raytracing chip, to take workload off the main gpu

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

Thank you, could not bear these guys with the side commentary for 10 minutes, let alone one hour!

[Sonic1881]

It would be interesting to see if the PS5 PRO will be compatible to a Gen5 NVMe M.2 SSD with heatsink. That would be insane. That gen 5 NVMe does wonders with loading speed in my PC

[fr0sty]

The internal SSD in the PS5 almost reaches gen 5 speeds when the kraken hardware decompression is factored in.

[purple101]

Ps6 m8

[I_am_Batman]

It won't. A Gen 5 chipset would just increase the bill of materials for little to no gain whatsoever. The Pro console still has 16GB of VRAM, which means there is no point in increasing the SSD bandwidth since the base PS5 already can fill the entier VRAM pool in 2 seconds. Games that take significantly longer to load aren't bottlenecked by the SSD bandwidth to begin with, so increasing that won't do much in those cases.

[P_Bomb]

“In real terms, those hoping that PS5 Pro will turn CPU-limited 30fps titles into super-smooth 60fps experiences will be disappointed.”

Aw nuts! 😞

[Eonjay]

They are talking about a problem that doesn't really exist. They don't list CPU limited games because they're really aren't many.

The games I want boosted already have 60 FPS modes. I just want them at higher resolutions.

[crazyCoconuts]

And with the better graphical settings and ray tracing

[Zenzuu]

It's a welcome upgrade.

Will be trading in my original PS5 at my local EB game store to offset some of the cost & get the PS5 Pro.

[I_am_Batman]

I doubt I'll even do that. The upgrade is too small to be worth it in my opinion. In fact, I'm even surprised they went through with this, considering how small of an upgrade it is in terms of raw performance. Maybe they see most of the value in using it as a test run for a feature set that will continue to develop into the next generation.

I suspect that by the time the list of games using the Pro's features will be substantial enough to warrant getting one, the PS6 might be on the horizon. I might just ride it out on my base PS5, but I'm gonna wait and see before deciding.

[Demetrius]

I figured it wouldn't be a huge jump, gotta save some power for ps6 I guess, I still feel like devs will hold back cause they barely been utilizing the base ps5 power

[Ironmike]

I see there's no mention of rise of the ronin performance issuse which digital foundry just done its not hitting 60 fps but Ray tracing mode is closer to it but a big hit on resolution bit they did say game was decent they might patch it day one .love the down vote for just telling the truth some ppl are really sad on here

[Profchaos]

I think people need to temper expectations this system won't suddenly make 30 fps games run at 60fps there's only a 10 percent increase in CPU clocks so performance in most games will see a negligible update at best. Meaning that a game that struggles to hold a frame rate cap should be able to hit the cap.

The most interesting thing about this system is the new image upscaling tech.

The gpu is definately improved however we don't know if developers will use this for improving the image quality or adding new effects to games or just a resolution increase.

I'd like people to get out of the hype bubble and ask is this really good enough and do I really want to pay for a upgrade.

[Ironmike]

Only way we know is when it's released or digital foundry check it prior

[ReignMan_27]

That's pretty much how I'm looking at the PS5 Pro also. There's a lot of games out right now that already have 60 fps performance modes, but with low internal resolutions. My guess would be that those performance modes will see the biggest improvements with resolution and etc. UE5 games, for example, will probably benefit quite a bit visually with the GPU bump.

[Good-Smurf]

It's not Sony's fault though as AMD atm have yet to make any consumer product that gave significant boost in CPU performance even in PC space.
And the CPU that can do that right now uses eats up so much wattage that it became inappropriate for game console, imagine running 500+ watts power supply, supplying power to CPU and GPU in comparatively compact console form factor it's a nightmare scenario for Sony try to keep the machine cool and silent.
My 3080Ti gaming laptop already uses huge 330W external power supply so imagine running full power GPU and internal PSU.
Even if they can make one the cooling unit alone would be half the size of PS4, so it won't be a console anymore form factor wise.

[RhinoGamer88]

Depends on what Sony will give me for the base PS5. Give me $300 for it, and then I am in (if the price is under $600).

[Stevonidas]

One more time,

If you want high framerates in your games...

GET
A
PC

You're welcome.

[hiawa23]

Great advice, except if you are a console only gamer and just want the best the consoles can offer, no PC needed.

[Good-Smurf]

Frames per dollar on PC right now are still lousy though.

[fr0sty]

And spend twice as much for the same performance as a PS5 pro? No thank you.

[Shikoku]

I'm interested in the PS5 pro if it's real but God damn man they need to leave the PS4 and Pro behind and start making games only for the PS5 other wise the games can't take advantage if they don't announce they are done with the last gen console when the release the PS5 pro then I'm not buying it

[fr0sty]

They stopped making cross-gen games a while back. At least on the bigger titles.

[hiawa23]

I am fine with the original but looking forward to the Pro. Will move my launch digital console to backup. Awesome, news, new PS hardware new Nintendo hardware coming in the next year and whatever MS has planned. Looking forward to it all, no fanboy toxic nonsense. Play everything...

[Skuletor]

Your.comment includes toxic fanboy nonsense.

[hiawa23]

No fanboy, as I like and enjoy what they all bring to the table. We will have to agree to disagree and leave it there. Thanks for chiming in👍.

[neomahi]

Until the next Xbox, right? And back and forth we go. So, where the PS5 Pro is slightly more powerful than the PS5, the PS6 is only 45% more powerful than the PS5 Pro...... Oh, and there's still not a reason to own a PS5, because everything is playable on the PS4 Pro and still playable on base PS4. Mid-gen refreshes suck. Now you're buying a console every 3 years instead of 5 years, unless you got to enjoy the PS3 vs Xbox 360 years where Sony pushed for console longevity of 10 years, what an awesome time. They just kept finding new ways of using the hardware and Microsoft didn't want to release their next gen console plans until they knew what Sony was up to and Sony still destroyed them. Now, Xbox just waits and sees what's Sony does to try and 1up them to try to have the "world's most powerful console" which still isn't working for them, is it. Most powerful doesn't mean most successful

[fr0sty]

Show me where you can play Spider-Man 2, final Fantasy rebirth, helldivers 2 on a PS4... Or Wolverine, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, final Fantasy 16, death stranding 2...

[Ironmike]

Looking at ronin u could probably play that on ps4 at 30 fps though

[TwoPicklesGood]

No thanks. Sony should be focusing on games not a pointless pro edition console that’s only being made to try save get some quick cash from us before the ps6 releases. We need first party exclusives and we need them quickly. Crap like this is making me lose faith in Sony.

[Grilla]

Sony doesn’t release Pro’s to get “quick cash”. It’s to stop ppl that want the latest and greatest from migrating over to pc.

[FlameWater]

GTA6 will run like ass on the Vanilla PS5

[fr0sty]

Considering that PS5 is the best selling console that Grand theft Auto VI can run on, chances, are their developing it around that console's hardware. That's where they're going to sell the most copies.

[Shikoku]

As it will likely be console release first then PC like a year later and both consoles use AMD it should be fine.

[FlameWater]

Just like Cyber Punk?

[fr0sty]

Cyberpunk was a disaster on all consoles and PC.

[Rainbowcookie]

That said , even with specs , you can only guess a ball park performance. On paper the Xbox has the edge so far and Ps5 was said to be behind spec wise... we haven't seen many games outright performing Ps5. So in this case specs are just specs. We don't know what innovation will be inside as to how it is put together.

[Good-Smurf]

What these guys expected and disappointed about?
It's a mid-gen enhanced console it won't have big jumps in CPU power it's weird because they knew the wattage limitations imposed on consoles cooling and form factor and the AMD chips available to Sony at the moment are obviously not going to give them huge boost in clock speed, only GPU is the only area they can get a noticeable jump in performance.
These guys jumped the gun again already feeling disappointed not knowing that Sony can't price this thing model out of proportion like PC hardware can.
These guys being tech enthusiasts they sure have a lot of unrealistic expectations and condescending attitude.
It's funny because they are the ones that affected the worst by all the leaks and not us and this episode showed just that.

[fr0sty]

Exactly, the PS4 pro didn't do much to improve on the PS4's extremely weak CPU, and yet it still provided a noticeable difference in quality when playing games on it.

[Ironmike]

Mine never I bought my ps4 pro for the last of us part 2 and tbh I had it for 2yrs and I could barley see the difference tbh

[fr0sty]

It ran the games at twice the resolution... If you couldn't see the difference it was because you didn't have a TV good enough.

[TheGrimReaper]

I've seen a recent DF video where they all agreed on that only in rare occasions current gen console games are held back by the CPU.
In this video I am kinda hearing the opposite from them. The difference between Xbox SX and PS5 in TFs was a big topic back then at DF. Now a threefold increase is negliable.

Don't get me wrong, I like DF. But sometimes you have to read between the lines.

Let's wait and see. Currently I am planning to upgrade to a pro.

[PassNextquestion]

I'm not even sure if games are being programed to take advantage of all the cores on these CPU's whether it be consoles or PC's.

[TheGrimReaper]

It is not a question if they are used. It is more to question how they are used.
But I wouldn't think about this as a factor anymore.
Back in PS3 days using SPUs to parallelize and speed up things was kind of a paradigm shift. New CPUs with more cores became the status quo years ago. So while true, I think most devs/engines are capable to scale accordingly.

[gold_drake]

sounds amazing, especially the pssr

however, i will skip it and save my money for the ps6. its not that far away now.

[SeTTriP]

I listing to nothing DF has to say when speculating anything PS...the actually said the the PS5 didn't have ray trace capabilities when the specs were leaked

[PassNextquestion]

It doesn't have dedicated raytracing hardware. You can do anything in software mode it just means it won't perform as well like it would with dedicated hardware.

I gather you can get around this by doing less complicated ray tracing, less bouncing rays

[SeTTriP]

Doesn't erase the fact that it does and they said it wasn't possible in no way shape or from that PS5 would have it.even laugh at the notion.

[wiegraf]

Yet they're still developing with the PS4 in mind

[Nittdarko]

can't wait for people to realise GTA6 is still going to run at 30FPS

[purple101]

How about 40fps with vrr? A lá Spider-Man

[Einhander1972]

But 60 FPS on Series S though right?

[ROCKY28]

Don't believe the hype - this pro version will be slightly better - you will finally get 4K 120 but don't ever think you will get
true 8K (it will be checker boarded) and you will never see a AAA game running at 8K...
Plus... nobody has a 8K HDTV as there is nothing to watch !!!

[Tzuno]

They basically OC'd the cpu 10% more and jumped from RX 6700 to RX 7600, wonder about the temps...
AMD moving to new tech while Sony buys cheap chips from them, planned move.

[Demetrius]

Mfs will still hold back tho from using that power I'm ready to see some thoroughly made gems, the open world genre needs to be improved on I guess it's up to rockstar again lol, I mean come on they really gone allow rockstar to blow up out the water again in the open world genre after having only 1 new game the whole ps4 gen and 1 this gen 🤦🏾 tired of just roaming around pretty scenery with no interior to go in, barely any activities, no interactions etc with all the power the series x and ps5 has its so underutilized

[Tedakin]

If PS5 Pro is this year then the next Xbox is in 2026, does this mean the 2 companies are getting out of sync with hardware? They always release the same time, same year. This could cause misalignment for the first time since the 360/ps3.

[Barlos]

Will wait to see the price. I don't yet feel like I've seen all that base PS5 is capable of yet, so I'm definitely not convinced I need a PS5 Pro in my life.

[repsahj]

DF is no longer reliable. They no longer say fair to those they don't favor anymore.

[clevernickname]

I will get excited when this is actually announced by Sony.

[OneLove]

Interesting. No article about sony pausing production of PS VR 2 from low sale expectations and a surplus of the product.

[Smellsforfree]

"Digital Foundry verifies them"

No they did not. They speculated on the rumors from other news organizations that have claimed to verify the information.

[Psychonaut85]

I’m interested to see what effect the PSSR has. Sad the CPU isn’t much more powerful, but I guess it’s to be expected, it’s a midgen bump. I’m sure Sony first party will take advantage, but unless they start announcing stuff soon first party Sony games are pretty scarce for the next while. Wolverine at some point, no idea what Naughty Dog or Sony Santa Monica is doing. So unless there’s some kind of shadow drop, tought to get too hyped. This will be niche, I’ll get one, but I’m probably in the minority.

[Agent75]

There's hardly any games for the current model and Sony has put VR2 manufacturing on hold due to low sales. Waste of time banging on with Pro consoles. Concentrate on games and bringing down the price of VR2.

[Muigi]

This should at least brute force the PS5 version of Elden Ring to run at a locked 60.