I made a $700 bet on the PS5 Pro being a worthwhile investment, and given the title above, you can see how well it went.
Listen, I understand that the PS5 Pro has a slew of disadvantages compared to the best gaming laptops, but you shouldn’t count it out because of its price or its limitations. Believe it or not, the PS5 Pro’s price is actually one of the reasons why you should buy it. That’s not all; there are plenty of other features that the PS5 Pro offers that you won’t get out of a PC.
Here are 5 reasons you should buy a PS5 Pro instead of a gaming laptop.
5. It’s actually cheaper
Yes, $700 is expensive as hell for a console, but when you’re up against gaming laptops, the PS5 Pro starts to look downright affordable. On average, you can get a gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU for around $700. You can peruse our best gaming laptop deals to see what’s available right now, but let’s take a look at why the PS5 is going to blow away any laptops in this price range.
The PS5 Pro’s AMD 16.7-TFLOP GPU is on par with an RTX 4070 mobile GPU, which features 15.6 TFLOPS. For those who don’t know, TFLOPS is a measurement used to track theoretical performance. It wouldn’t be accurate to compare performance one to one.
Now, outside of the theoretical performance, it’s still tough to compare the PS5 Pro’s GPU to a laptop GPU because there are no simple benchmarks. Despite that, the RTX 4070 mobile GPU clocked an average of 53 frames per second on Ultra, 4K DLSS settings in God of War Ragnarök. Meanwhile, on PS5 Pro Enhanced mode, Digital Foundry clocked anywhere between 64 to 120 fps. Digital Foundry discovered that PS5 Enhanced mode upscales to 4K from 1440p. With that in mind, I looked at the RTX 4070’s 1440p test, and it averaged 74 fps.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 also received the PS5 Pro Enhanced upgrade. The RTX 4070 GPU scored 38 fps on 4K DLSS and 55 fps on 1440p. Meanwhile, the PS5 Pro, upscaled from 1440p to 4K, averaged around 40 to 55 fps.
Of course, not all games will experience a similar ratio in performance. And I cannot guarantee that the PS5 versions of those games feature all of the graphical upgrades found in the PC version when at max settings. But in terms of price-to-performance ratio, the PS5 Pro beats gaming laptops at their asking price.
4. Get the best first
If you don’t care for PlayStation-exclusive titles, you might as well move on to the next section. However, if you love a good grind in Valhalla, you should be the first to experience it. Right now, I am anxiously awaiting the release of Ghost of Yōtei.
We haven’t heard about the PS5 Pro graphical capabilities that Ghost of Yōtei will take advantage of yet. However, considering its reveal soon after the PS5 Pro, it’s more likely to be “PS5 Pro Enhanced” than not.
It’s not just that, though. You will likely need to wait at least a year before PlayStation exclusives launch on PC. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launched in October 2023 and it’s still not available for PC. You will get it soon, though, on January 30, 2025.
3. That controller, though
This is the part where I’d harp on the DualSense controller, but technically, PC does have access to the controller’s haptic feedback capabilities… But I’m still going to harp on the DualSense. Sorry, but you can’t access all those sweet features unless you’re wired in. Which, as a PC user, is incredibly frustrating.
You might be thinking, “Well, my keyboard and mouse are superior anyway.” To that, I say, well-well, the PS5 Pro can be operated with a keyboard and mouse. Granted, not every game features this functionality, but there are quite a few big titles, like Death Stranding and Final Fantasy XIV.
2. PSSR changes the game
What is truly exclusive to the PS5 Pro is PSSR, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution. Again, PCs offer plenty of access to AI-upscaling technology. However, the processes by which they function are different.
The PS5 Pro will always have an advantage over PC when we’re talking about exclusives, and that’s because those titles were designed with PSSR in mind. Any other game is up for debate, however.
1. A fresh game catalog
PlayStation Plus is another unique feature. You have access to a wide range of games, including Ubisoft+ Classics and legacy PlayStation titles. Sure, it’s for the high-high price of $160 per year (for Premium), but this is unavailable for PC.
There are other subscription-based services for PC, like Xbox Game Pass, but none of them will feature PlayStation exclusives in their library.
Bottom line
A lot of these reasons bank on your investment in PlayStation exclusives. But even if you don’t care, the price of the PS5 Pro alone is a better investment than a budget gaming laptop.
However, one of the biggest disadvantages of the PS5 Pro over a gaming laptop is what I learned by playing Middle-earth: Shadow of War. Developers have severely starved console gamers of graphical settings for years, so experiencing the full power of the PS5 Pro will be difficult on older titles with 30-fps frame caps.
But if you’re in it for newer titles, PS5 Pro is 100% the way to go.
