The PS5 Pro is one of the strongest pieces of gaming hardware on the market, but how do its specs stack up against the original PlayStation 5 and is it really worth the extra money?
Mid-generation console “refreshes” have become the standard in gaming. The trouble for players is that the benefits of an upgrade are often vague. While this used to be a straightforward process, with hardware like the Nintendo DS XL being a bigger piece of hardware, that’s no longer the case.
Now, hardware upgrades come down to cores, teraflops, and other things that the layman doesn’t actually understand. With that in mind, here’s a technical breakdown of the PS5 Pro vs the PS5 and a straightforward explanation of what the pricier console brings to the table.
PS5 vs PS5 Pro specs comparison
The PS5 Pro offers a significant upgrade from the base PS5 in terms of specs alongside rendering technology that can make for an improved experience in some games.
The jump in specs isn’t transformational, but it is measurably and demonstrably better. Here are the nitty-gritty numbers:
| PS5 | PS5 Pro | |
| Storage | 1 TB SSD | 2 TB SSD |
| WiFi | WiFi 6 | WiFi 7 |
| CPU | 8 x Zen 2 core | 8 core, 16 thread AMD Zen 2 |
| GPU | 10.28 TFLOPS | 16.7 TFLOPs |
| RAM | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 |
The key differences between the PS5 and PS5 Pro when it comes to hardware are the upgraded WiFi and the improved GPU. While one might not think much of WiFi 7 as a feature, this is important for anyone that’s using their PS5 for 4K streaming or could be in the future. Though this can confer some benefits when gaming or downloading software, the main appeal is its ability to stream ultra HD content.
In this vein, the PS5 Pro also offers an improved GPU alongside upscaling technology that will allow players to have better 4K gaming experiences. The PS5 Pro boasts “PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution Upscaling,” which is a proprietary upscaling technology. Upscaling in gaming allows games to be rendered at a lower resolution with AI being used to compensate. This lets games maintain their visual fidelity without taxing the hardware as much.
The long and short of this is that the PS5 Pro is more capable of delivering a high-quality, ultra HD gaming experience. There are still some real questions as to whether this is worth it for most gamers, though.
Is the PS5 Pro worth it?
The PS5 Pro is only worth getting for gamers who are seeking the most high-fidelity gaming experience possible. That means anyone that doesn’t have a particularly great TV and isn’t playing the biggest AAA releases won’t necessarily see any difference between the PS5 and PS5 Pro.
The PS5 Pro’s specs also don’t mean anything next to a base PS5 if gamers aren’t playing games that utilize them. Anyone that is firing up their PlayStation 5 to play games like Stardew Valley, or even more recent cross-platform releases like Valorant or Wuthering Waves, won’t see a particularly big difference between the two consoles.
What’s more, even with PS5 Pro-enhanced games, the differences can be extremely small.
Alongside this, gamers who still buy physical copies of games also have a bit of thinking to do. In addition to the extra markup for the PS5 Pro, disk drives are sold separately at $80. This means that the real price difference between a PS5 Slim with the disk drive and a PS5 Pro with the disk drive comes to $280.
The PS5 Pro is ultimately meant to serve a very specific audience that is seeking a premium experience with certain games. That only applies to a small percentage of the PlayStation fandom.
