The PlayStation 5 Pro had been long rumored, and Sony started teasing it as PlayStation celebrated its 30-year anniversary. As expected, the new PS5 Pro features a redesigned chassis that omits the optical drive. But more importantly to hardware enthusiasts, it's getting a big upgrade in the GPU department along with improvements to the memory subsystem. Here's the breakdown of what's changing and how it will affect performance.
A lot has changed in the hardware world since the original PlayStation 5 was revealed in September 2020. Back then, Zen 2 / Ryzen 3000 CPUs were the fastest processors from AMD, though they were superseded by Zen 3 and Ryzen 5000 just a couple of months after the PS5 announcement. Each Ryzen CPU generation has typically brought a 10–15 percent improvement in IPC (instructions per cycle), a key performance indicator. AMD just launched its Zen 5 and Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, which are three full generations newer than the original PS5 processor. However, if you were hoping to see that in the PS5 Pro, prepare for some disappointment.
The PS5 Pro will seemingly stick with the Zen 2 architecture on the CPU — at least, Cerny made no mention of any CPU upgrades. That may allow PlayStation to better maintain backward compatibility and save on costs, That's not necessarily a bad thing, as the CPU generally isn't holding back performance on the PS5. There could be a shrink in the process node, from the original TSMC N7 7nm-class used on the PS5 to a more modern TSMC node like N5 or even N4P. Sony hasn't provided any details on this aspect yet. If there's a node shrink, which seems probable, it would bring some power and efficiency improvements to the table, allowing for slightly higher clocks on the CPU.
The big change is in the graphics department. The PS5 was the first taste of AMD's then-nascent RDNA 2 architecture — the PC 'Big Navi' Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs wouldn't begin shipping until November 18, 2020, one day before the PS5 officially went on sale. Even then, the PS5's 36 CU (Compute Unit) design only matches the RX 6700 10GB in terms of core specs. While it's a reasonably capable GPU for mainstream gaming, it certainly can't keep up with the likes of the RX 6800 XT, never mind the current generation RX 7800 XT. Now, we're looking forward to the AMD RDNA 4 GPUs, which are expected to begin shipping in early 2025.
So, what have Sony and AMD cooked up for the PS5 Pro? Sony isn't quite spilling all the beans, but it did say there's a 67% increase in compute units and 28% faster memory. There are also enhancements to double or even triple the ray tracing throughput and AI hardware of some form.
