PS5 Pro is official, seriously powerful – and seriously expensive
Most powerful PlayStation yet uses AI upscaling
Sony has officially revealed the PS5 Pro. It’s the most powerful PlayStation games console ever, with a larger GPU, uprated ray tracing effects, and AI-powered upscaling tech. It’ll arrive in November – but without a disc drive included, and for an eye-watering $700/£700.
The new hardware debuted in a brief video presentation by PlayStation hardware architect Mark Cerny, focusing on the three main hardware improvements. An upgraded GPU has 67% more compute units than the standard PS5, and 28% faster memory; the combo delivers up to 45% faster rendering in games, for much smoother gameplay.
According to Cerny, three quarters of PS5 players would pick a game’s Performance preset, prioritising frame rates over the one quarter of gamers that chose higher visual quality. PS5 Pro owners won’t need to make that choice – it’ll manage a solid 60fps at the highest possible detail.
That’ll partly be down to new upscaling tech, which uses machine learning to generate extra pixels on the fly. PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution sounds a lot like Nvidia DLSS, which PC gamers now rely on to boost frame rates in demanding titles – especially with fancy effects like ray tracing enabled. Ray tracing is reportedly two to three times as fast on PS5 Pro as on a regular PS5, for more realistic lighting effects without a performance penalty.
Further info was revealed in a post on the official PlayStation blog, including confirmation PS5 Pro will be digital-only – but support Sony’s Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Drive addon. The console is as tall as the original PS5, and as wide as the updated ‘slim’ version. Three black stripes down the side of the system mark it out as the Pro model.
The new console supports VRR adaptive refresh, and can output a native 8K resolution to compatible TVs. It also has Wi-Fi 7 on board, in countries where it’s supported. Existing Dual Sense controllers will play nicely with it, as will PlayStation VR2 and the PlayStation Portal handheld. The UI will be identical to the standard console.
Existing games will be updated as PS5 Pro Enhanced titles, which will take advantage of all that extra power. Alan Wake 2, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Gran Turismo 7, Hogwarts Legacy, Horizon Forbidden West, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and The Last of Us Part II Remastered will be among the first wave. A new PS5 Pro Game Boost will give PS4 and PS5 titles a performance leg up compared to a vanilla PS5 console, and an Enhanced Image Quality option for certain PS4 games will upscale gameplay with a simple option toggle.
PS5 Pro is launching on November 7, but it won’t be cheap: expect to pay $700/£700/€800 to get one under your telly. That does include 2TB of storage as standard, at least.
Pre-orders will open on September 26, at direct.playstation.com.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
