The PlayStation 5 Pro was announced in September, and immediately people reacted with disbelief to the price: £699/$699, without a disc drive. Adjusted for inflation, it is the second-most expensive games console ever released – beaten only by the PlayStation 3, whose price was quickly slashed when it turned out nobody was willing to work a second job to afford one. It’s an addition to, rather than a replacement for, the original PS5 model. All games released so far work on the Pro, and all future PS5 games will work on both models.
For your money, you get an upgraded GPU (graphics processing unit), which is overall 45% more powerful that the original PS5’s; AI upscaling, which makes images more detailed; and advanced ray tracing, which makes the lighting better. In plain English, it’s supposed to make all PS5 games prettier and faster.
My partner and I bought one last week, with an added disc drive to complement the 2TB of storage (an extra £100, though they are now in short supply). For context: I mostly play games on my Steam Deck or my Nintendo Switch, and can only just tell the difference between 30FPS and 60FPS. I appreciate a gorgeous game – God of War and Ratchet and Clank have blown me away on PS5 – but graphical performance is not hugely important to me. My partner, meanwhile, is a lifelong early adopter and PC gamer who is very invested in his tech. Here is our verdict.
The idea behind this console upgrade is removing all compromises. The original PS5’s graphical options let you pick between fidelity and performance – how good everything looks v how fast everything moves. Choose fidelity and the lighting and detail of each scene will be better, but the frame rate will be lower. Choose performance and the frame rate will be higher, making things feel silky-smooth during play, but some of the fancier lighting effects and detail are turned off. With the PS5 Pro, the compromises have been removed: now you can have the higher detail at a higher frame rate.
As to whether you can actually see this difference will depend a lot on your TV. If you don’t have a 4K TV, for instance, there is absolutely no point in this console. Most high-end TVs now have a lot of built-in effects and features that smooth out frame rates and otherwise improve the look and performance of what you’re playing, so the difference might not look as huge as you’re expecting. Personally, as someone who is not invested at all in high-end tech, I can see and feel a small but noticeable difference when I compare the same game on PS5 and Pro on our 4K TV. My partner, whose eye is better trained for these things, feels that the contrast is more obvious.
This lack of compromise is what tech-minded gamers hoped for from this generation of consoles in the first place, so it is nice to finally have it. Indeed, I reckon the ideal customer for the PS5 Pro is someone who’s been holding off on buying a PS5 because it didn’t feel like enough of an upgrade from the PS4. Most people are unlikely to play a PS5 exclusive such as Spider-Man 2 or Horizon Forbidden West again simply because it’s a little better-looking on an upgraded console. But if you’ve never played these games in the first place then you’ll now be able to enjoy them at their very best.
Speaking of enjoying games at their best: this console has a feature called PS5 Pro Game Boost, which enhances all the 8,500+ backwards-compatible PlayStation 4 games as well. Some of the PS4’s best games have been specifically remastered for PS5 already, including The Last of Us parts I and II and Horizon Zero Dawn, but plenty haven’t, and they benefit hugely from this upgrade. The difference here would be noticeable to anyone.
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Typically, Sony has released these upgraded consoles just after the midpoint of a PlayStation’s lifespan, so we can assume we’ll get three to four years’ worth of use out of the PS5 Pro before the PlayStation 6 comes along. As for whether it’s worth the money? If you already have a really nice TV, you like to have the latest tech, and you haven’t already played every PS5 game worth playing, you will, like my partner, be very happy with it. It’s a nice-to-have, rather than an essential. You can be reassured that if, like me, you balk at paying this much for any games console, you are not missing out on much.
