It’s looking increasingly likely that a PS5 Pro will launch by the end of this year, acting as a mid-cycle upgrade on Sony’s existing PS5 console.
Like previous Pro consoles from PlayStation, the PS5 Pro is expected to support all of the same games as the base console, just with a higher performance ceiling.
A substantial leak via Insider Gaming suggests the PS5 Pro will boast 45% faster rendering speeds than the PS5, as well as a 2-3x boost to ray tracing. It also looks as if PlayStation will launch its own upscaling technology called PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution Upscaling), which could help to artificially boost frame rates, similar to how AMD’s FSR technology works.
For a deeper dive into all of the leaked and rumoured specs of the PS5 Pro, keep on reading.
Release date
The PS5 Pro is still on course to launch in the latter end of 2024 according to Insider Gaming.
This sounds like a credible time frame for a launch, with PS5 wanting to boost hardware sales after revising its target of selling 25 million consoles sold down to 21 million.
The PS4 Pro arrived in stores in November 2016. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Sony target the same month so it can benefit from Christmas sales.
Price
The price of the PS5 Pro is not clear, although Moore’s Law is Dead has suggested that it could be priced as high as $700.
However, it’s possible that the PS5 Pro may have a more reasonable price of $499/£449, adopting the same price point as the vanilla PS5. Since the PS4 Pro launched with the same £349.99/$399.99 price point as the base PS4, it would make sense for Sony to stick to the same tactics.
Until we know more about the pricing for the PS5 Pro, we recommend that you take these rumours with a healthy dose of scepticism, as Sony may have a completely different plan in mind.
Specs
A massive leak, courtesy of Insider Gaming, has detailed the potential specs of the PS5 Pro – and we think they look credible. You can check them out in the table below:
| PS5 Pro | PS5 | |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen Zen 2 (Up to 3.85GHz) | AMD Ryzen Zen 2 (Up to 3.5GHz) |
| GPU | 33.5 Teraflops | 10.28 Teraflops |
| System memory | 576 GB/s | 448 GB/s |
| AI Accelerator | 300 TOPS | N/A |
| Storage | Up to 1TB | Up to 1TB |
Insider Gamer claims that the PS5 Pro will use the exact same AMD Ryzen Zen 2 processor as before, but this time, will be overclocked to reach a higher 3.85GHz clock speed. This means the PS5 Pro will see a 10% increase to CPU clock speeds compared to its predecessor.
VideoCardz reports that the PS5 Pro will be powered by a new AMD RDNA 3 GPU, which is the same architecture you’ll find in AMD’s latest graphics cards. According to Insider Gaming, this upgrade could see a jump up to 33.5 Teraflops (from 10.28 Teraflops) in terms of GPU performance, resulting in a 45% faster rendering speed.
Sony has also been tipped to introduce its PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution Upscaling) technology, which will be used to push the frame rate of supported games even further, in a similar fashion to AMD’s FSR solution.
Thanks to both the performance boost and implementation of PSSR, Insider Gamer reports that the PS5 Pro will be targeting a 4K 60 FPS and 8K 30FPS performance, although future updates and improvements to PSSR could potentially see those targets increased to 4K 120FPS and 8K 60FPS.
It would make a lot of sense for the PS5 Pro to use software solutions to boost performance, as both Nvidia and AMD have done the same with their graphics cards to great success.
Design
We don’t know much about the potential PS5 Pro design at the time of writing.
Insider Gamer reports that the PS5 Pro will use the same detachable disk drive as the new PS5 Slim model, so you’ll be able to use the accessory on both iterations of the console.
We can also assume that the PS5 Pro will need to be larger than the PS5 Slim in order to accommodate the upgraded GPU, and allow for a bigger cooling system to keep the console running at an optimal performance.
Aside from that, we don’t know what Sony is planning for the design of the upgraded console. We can’t imagine it looking too different to the base console, although a change of the default colour scheme is certainly possible.
When Sony launched the PS4 Pro, it shipped it with the same controller that PS4 did. That leads us to assuming the PS5 Pro will ship with a DualSense controller, although it would be a nice surprise if it bundled in the DualSense Edge controller instead.
The Trusted Take
I think it’s the right time for Sony to launch a PS5 Pro. There’s finally enough stock for the PS5 to be available in most retailers, so a mid-cycle upgrade would no longer feel like a slap in the face for those yet to upgrade to the latest generation.
I’ve also started to notice the limitations of the standard PS5, especially when ray tracing is activated. I really don’t like being forced to choose between a high frame rate and high fidelity – the main appeal of consoles is that you don’t have to worry about fiddling with performance settings like you do with a PC.
However, my biggest concern with the PS5 is that there aren’t enough high profile games to take full advantage of the cutting-edge hardware. The addition of the PS5 Pro will not solve that issue, and with Sony confirming that there won’t be another major first-party game until April 2025, it raises the question why anyone should bother to upgrade.
