PS5 Pro: Delivers 30% More Performance with Minimal Power Increase Compared to Base PS5

Digital Foundry recently delved into the power consumption of the PlayStation 5 Pro, uncovering some intriguing insights. In a YouTube discussion featuring Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie, they found that the PS5 Pro, despite boasting a much more advanced GPU, draws almost the same amount of power as the standard PS5.

The team put the PS5 Pro through its paces using games like Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2, and F1 24. They compared it against the original PS5, the updated PS5 Slim, and the Pro version itself, evaluating how each handled the Pro-exclusive enhancements in these titles.

With Elden Ring, the power consumption of the PS5 Pro was strikingly similar to that of the PS5 Slim. During one part of the video, the Pro used 214.1 watts, the Slim 216.2 watts, and the original PS5 201.3 watts. Despite the parallel power usage, the Pro delivered a superior gameplay experience with a frame rate of 52 FPS, compared to the Slim’s 40 FPS and the original’s 37 FPS. It’s important to note that the frame rate differences between the Slim and the original aren’t significant, as they’re based on a single snapshot from Digital Foundry’s testing. Essentially, the PS5 Pro matched the PS5 Slim in power use while offering a 30% increase in frame rate.

The story took a slightly different turn with Spider-Man 2, as the game maintained a steady 60 FPS across all consoles. In this case, the Pro consumed the most power at 232 watts, followed by the Slim at 218.2 watts, and the launch model at 208.1 watts. Here, the Pro used 6% more power than the Slim and 11% more than the original model. Though there weren’t direct comparisons for F1 24, Digital Foundry reported the Pro’s consumption at around 235 watts, again locked at 60FPS.

When considering power consumption, it’s crucial to understand that variations can occur due to differences in silicon quality, explaining why the Slim might appear slightly less efficient than the launch version. Different consoles can run their CPUs at various voltages due to these variances.

Digital Foundry’s findings confirmed that the PS5 Pro doesn’t demand significantly more power than the base models, which was a delightful surprise, as they initially expected it to approach the 300-watt mark.

The PS5 Pro is equipped with an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a formidable RDNA-based GPU rated at 16.7 TFLOPs, alongside 576 GB/s of memory bandwidth. In contrast, the standard PS5s feature the same CPU (though possibly with varying clock speeds), a weaker 10.28 TFLOP GPU, and 448 GB/s of memory bandwidth.