PS5 Pro: leaks, specs, price, and expected release date
Here's everything we know about Sony's rumored PlayStation 5 Pro
Sony is almost certainly working on a PS5 Pro – a more powerful, mid-gen refresh of the existing PlayStation 5 – and it could be released as early as this year. But what can players expect from a souped-up PS5? And is it really necessary?
New leaks and rumors suggest the console will finally allow Sony’s system to hit 8K resolution – despite the logo appearing on the PS5’s retail box – and will offer superior ray tracing performance and more stable frame rates at 4K.
Sony released the PS4 Pro in 2016, which was the first time the company had released a mid-cycle hardware upgrade during a console generation. The expectation, then, is that a PlayStation 5 Pro will follow suit, especially as the PlayStation 5 is now three years old and will reach its fourth year on sale in November this year. Here’s everything we know about the PS5 Pro so far, as well as some predictions.
PS5 Pro leaks
Another source has verified that the purported specs of the PS5 Pro are indeed real and that developers have been told to get ready for Sony’s new console. The Verge has managed to obtain the full list of specs for the more powerful PS5 and said developers are “able to order test kits right now”.
Developers have also been told to make sure every game submitted for certification from August should be “compatible with the PS5 Pro”. Games that are classed as PS5 Pro Enhanced will need to demonstrate an increase in resolution and/or frame rate, and add ray tracing options or improve upon the existing implementation.
Past PS5 Pro leaks
The latest PS5 Pro leak has outlined what requirements a game will need to meet to be classed as PS5 Pro Enhanced. The PS5 Pro Enhanced label can be given to PlayStation 5 games as long as the system improves titles in one or four of the following ways:
Increased target resolution for titles that run a fixed resolution on the standard console
Increased target maximum resolution for titles that run at variable resolution on the standard console
Increased target frame rate for titles that target a fixed frame rate on the standard console
Inclusion of PS5 Pro ray tracing effects
PS5 Pro Enhanced games must also be able to use PSSR to upscale a game’s resolution to 4K, a proprietary upscaling solution known as PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution.
An older PS5 Pro leak has spilled the beans on the console’s reported specs. According to Insider Gaming, the PS5 Pro’s has increased by 28% over the standard PS5, while the CPU is identical apart from including a ‘High CPU Frequency Mode’, which boosts the CPU by 10% over the current model.
The GPU is reportedly 45% faster than the PS5 when it comes to rasterization, and offers an improvement of up to 4x when it comes to ray tracing performance. The PS5 Pro will also employ a proprietary upscaling solution known as PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), which should provide similar results to Nvidia’s popular DLSS and AMD’s FSR upscaling technologies.
Don’t expect a storage increase, however. The PS5 Pro will retain the 1TB SSD of the PS5 Slim.
This leak was later corroborated by the tech experts at Digital Foundry, who confirmed the tech specs were real and that the PS5 Pro would be ‘the most powerful console yet’.
According to Keytogaming, the PS5 Pro has reportedly been in development since early 2022 and is codenamed ‘Project Trinity’. That’s similar to previous codenames Sony has used in the past: Morpheus was the codename for PSVR, and Neo was the codename for the PS4 Pro. Despite many thinking that Sony is giving The Matrix films a subtle nod with its naming scheme, they’re actually all from Greek mythology.
Back in May 2023, Insider Gaming reported that a PS5 Pro was tipped for next year and “100% in development”, but also caveated that “…the PlayStation 5 Pro could be canceled at any given time.” However, it seems like a PS5 Pro is very much in development according to the latest leak.
A new PS5 Pro leak has shed some more light on the console’s purported specs. According to a post on Resetera, the PlayStation 5 Pro will have a substantially more powerful GPU and a CPU with a higher clock speed. The console will also use a new upscaling technique to boost performance.
PS5 Pro specs
Here’s a quick breakdown of the PS5 Pro specs vs the standard PS5:
💨 CPU /Clock Speeds 8-core/16 thread Zen 2 CPU at 3.5GHz/3.85GHz vs 8 core/16 Thread Zen 2 CPU at 3.5GHz
💪 GPU Compute Units/ Architecture: 60 CUs, RNDA 3 (TBC) vs 36 CUs, RDNA 2
🚄 TFLOPs/GPU Clock Speed: 33.5TF/2.18GHz (TBC) vs 10.23TF/2.23GHz
💭 GDDR6 Memory: 16GB at 18Gbps vs 16GB at 14Gbps
🎮 Memory Available For Games: 13.7GB vs 12.5GB
📏 Memory Interface/Bandwidth: 256-bit/576GB/s vs 256-bit/448GB/s
The PS5 Pro will likely accomplish two things with its more powerful specs: better ray tracing performance and 8K resolution. Although there are a growing number of PS5 games with ray tracing support, frame rate and resolution almost always take a hit. Ray tracing takes a lot of computational power, and even though it’s a great addition for console gamers, it feels like a step too far for the current-gen consoles. However, a PS5 Pro could solve this.
Even though the PS5 box includes an 8K logo, it isn’t actually capable of outputting at 8K resolution. Only one PS5 game runs at 8K: The Touryst. But because the console can’t output at 8K, it simply downscales to 4K. If the PS5 Pro can output at 8K, it would at least make it appealing to those with capable displays. But don’t expect many games to hit that target with 60fps or even see any PS5 120fps games running at 8K – 60fps is currently the limit due to bandwidth restraints.
The PS5 Pro will reportedly feature 33.5TF of GPU compute power compared to the 10.2TF found in the standard PS5. It’s also likely that Sony will move to a 6nm production process allowing the APU to run at higher clock speeds. This added graphical horsepower should let the console boost existing PS5 titles that may struggle to maintain a steady 60fps or bump the resolution of titles that aren’t displaying at a native 4K resolution.
PS5 Pro price
When it comes to the price of the PS5 Disc vs Digital, Sony’s consoles cost $499 and $399, respectively. However, Sony has since announced a PS5 Slim model, which will replace the existing PlayStation 5 design. It’s out in November this year and costs $499 and $449 for the disc and digital models, respectively.
The PS5 Pro will be higher than the standard PS5 and could cost $599, the same price that the PlayStation 3 launched at back in 2006.
The PS4 Pro launched at $399, the same price as the PS5 Digital Edition, but it’s unlikely Sony will be able to hit that price point again, especially as the PS5 Slim isn’t receiving the typical price cut. The last thing the Japanese company will want to do is launch a more powerful console and raise the price down the line again, as it did with the PS5 in every country outside the US.
PS5 Pro release date
While a PS5 Pro release date hasn’t been shared – hardly surprising as the console is all but a rumor at this point – it’s tipped to release in November 2024, which is the same time frame as many predict the Nintendo Switch 2 will launch and the newly revealed Xbox Series X Slim.
If the PS5 Pro is released in November 2024, it'll be exactly four years since the PlayStation 5 was released. Sony released the PS4 Pro around three years after the PlayStation 4 was first released, so it isn’t too implausible to think we’ll see a PS5 Pro around this time.
Development kits are reportedly being sent out to studios in November this year, meaning developers will have 12 months to get the best PS5 games running on the souped-up PlayStation 5.
The console could be announced in September 2024, which would align with a November 2024 release date. Sony has conceded that the PS5 has entered the latter half of its life cycle and that hardware sales will begin to wane, making the prospect of a PS5 Pro release all the more likely.
Analysts also believe that the PS5 Pro will be released this year to capitalize on the upcoming launch of GTA 6 in 2025. “There seems to be a broad consensus in the game industry that Sony is indeed preparing a launch of a PS5 Pro in the second half of 2024,” Serkan Toto, CEO of Tokyo-based games consultancy Kantan Games, told CNBC.
“And Sony will want to make sure to have a great piece of hardware ready when GTA VI hits in 2025, a launch that will be a shot in the arm for the entire gaming industry.”
Do we need a PS5 Pro?
Playing PS5 games at a higher resolution and more stable frame rates will appeal to those who care about graphical fidelity and having the best performance available, but a PlayStation 5 Pro seems a bit premature.
This generation has been hampered due to PS5 supply issues and the widespread impact of Covid-19. It means that we’re still seeing cross-gen titles released (games that are on PS5 and PS4), with genuine PlayStation 5 exclusives in short supply.
Some may argue that we’re still waiting to see the generation truly begin, and releasing a more powerful console would only make the current PS5, which has surpassed 40 million units sold – feel like a second-run product before it’s even hit its stride.
Sony hasn’t been shy when it comes to releasing new products, though. We’ve already been treated to the PSVR 2, the DualSense Edge controller, and the PlayStation Portal and PS5 earbuds, which have all been released this year. The PS5 Slim also released in November 2023, as Sony continues to push new hardware.
Last updated: April 16, 2024