The PlayStation 5 Pro is out and it brings some serious upgrades comparing to the previous edition! This upgrades come with a cost of course. What cost you may ask? Well $699 in the US and €799 in Europe, makes us wonder, is it really worth it? If you are the type of gamer who want the best there is and doesn’t care about the price tag then this might be your new toy! Let’s dive into it and see what’s up!
To kick off, the PS5 Pro’s GPU is an absolute beast. With 60 Compute Units (CUs) using AMD’s RDNA 3 architecture, comparing to the 36 CUs of the PS5 slim, games look better, run smoother, and load a lot faster. Also, the new 18Gbps GDDR6 memory and the wider 576 GB/s memory bandwidth, enables it to handle all the demanding graphics and effects without issues!
Let’s not forget the PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), Sony’s new AI upscaling tech that Sony talks about. With it, games look sharper without slowing things down, and makes it perfect for ray traced games. But here is the catch. To take advantage of PSSR developers need to tweak their games, which means not every game will look better off the bat.
On the new PS5 Pro the storage is doubled, giving us a 2 TB SSD instead of the 1 TB on the Slim. A much needed upgrade because, we all know, modern games are huge! And to help you download these huge games, PS5 Pro supports Wi-Fi 7 which is great if you have a compatible router.
Design wise, the Pro doesn’t look that different from the slim. Slightly taller but lighter, weighting 6.8lbs / 3.1kg. The cooling system is as quiet as ever, keeping things quiet during your gaming sections. The Pro is still big, but fits perfectly in must setups.
On the developers side, the Pro is a bit of a challenge but exciting at the same time. The new PSSR tech enables them to create games that look better and run smoother than ever, but optimizing for this new console, will take time and effort. Which means we will have to wait some time before we see a lot of games that take advantage of the PS5 Pro capabilities.
Now it’s time to address the elephant in the room: Price! Coming at 200 to 300 more than the Slim, makes us wonder, is it really worth it to upgrade? For the hardcore gamers that want peak performance and don’t care about the price, it might be worth it. For those of you who already own a PS5 and are happy with it, it’s hard to justify it.
Sony’s aim is clearly the premium market, but they are not the only ones in the game. Microsoft’s Xbox Series X is a strong competitor and its growing stronger as cloud gaming becomes all the more popular. If Sony wants the PS5 Pro, they have to convince us that the upgrades are worth the extra money.
The PlayStation 5 Pro is undeniably impressive. It is faster, and more powerful than it’s predecessors. But it is also more expensive and the upgrades don’t matter to everyone. If you are a hardcore PS fan with a good setup, 4K TV or 120Hz monitor, its a tempting option. But if you’re just a regular gamer who’s happy with what you got, you might want to sit this one out.
