The PS5 Pro Offers Impressive 30% Performance Boost with Minimal Increase in Power Consumption Compared to the Base PS5

Recently, during a performance review, the folks over at Digital Foundry put the PlayStation 5 Pro through its paces, and the results were unexpected. In their candid discussion on YouTube with Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie, they revealed that despite the PS5 Pro’s more robust GPU, its power consumption is almost on par with the standard PS5 model.

The team at Digital Foundry tested the console using games like Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2, and F1 24. These tests were compared across the original PS5 launch model, the newer PS5 Slim, and the Pro model. Notably, the Pro model was run using game versions optimized for its enhanced graphics capabilities.

When tackling Elden Ring, the power draw for the PS5 Pro was similar to that of the PS5 Slim. At a point during the tests, the Pro consumed 214.1 watts, the Slim operated at 216.2 watts, and the original model at 201.3 watts. Even so, the PS5 Pro managed to deliver higher frame rates, logging 52 FPS compared to 40 FPS on the Slim and 37 FPS on the launch model. However, it’s worth noting that the performance figures, especially between the Slim and launch models, should be viewed with some flexibility as they were captured from a single snapshot during testing. Impressively, the Pro maintained similar power use to the Slim while boosting frame rates by around 30%.

With Spider-Man 2, things became a bit distinct, as the game was locked at 60 FPS across all the systems. Here, the PS5 Pro recorded the highest power usage at 232 watts, whereas the PS5 Slim and launch models came in at 218.2 and 208.1 watts respectively. In this scenario, the Pro consumed 6% more power than the Slim and 11% more than the original model. There isn’t detailed data for F1 24, but the PS5 Pro powered through it while consistently operating around 235 watts, locked at 60FPS.

An interesting insight into the launch and Slim variants: power consumption tends to vary due to the silicon quality. This can cause performance differences, where some consoles can run at advertised speeds at lower voltages. This variability explains why sometimes Slim was slightly less efficient than the original model.

Through their analysis, Digital Foundry concluded that the PS5 Pro’s power consumption mostly aligns with that of the original models, despite its upgraded GPU. This realization surprised the team, who initially assumed the Pro might require more than 300 watts.

The PS5 Pro is equipped with a powerful 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a 16.7 TFLOP RDNA-based GPU, and it offers 576 GB/s of memory bandwidth. In contrast, the regular PS5 has similar CPU capabilities, though potentially at different clock speeds, with a less potent 10.28 TFLOP RDNA-based GPU featuring 448 GB/s of bandwidth.

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