The PS5 Pro is currently the fastest gaming console in the world. But despite all its successes, it seems to be falling short, slower than what Sony originally announced.
What problem does the PS5 Pro have? First of all, Sony can be satisfied, as the PS5 Pro is reportedly selling very well. However, according to tests of the new console by the YouTubers and tech experts from Digital Foundry, Sony’s new product fails to meet one of its core promises: 45 percent more native graphics performance – that is, without the use of AI upscaling.
Because although all tested games run better on the PS5 Pro without a patch compared to the slower standard variants, they do not meet this claim made in the advertising campaigns.
The memory is the problem
This is how big the difference is between advertising and reality: The tests by Digital Foundry estimate the performance increase due to the game boost mode of the PS5 Pro at about 30 to 35 percent. The titles optimized with Pro patches stand out positively. They can benefit more from the better hardware, either through more FPS, more stable frame rates, or better visuals. However, there are currently only a few of them; we have a list of the titles for you. You can find all other important information about the PS5 here with us.
Where does the discrepancy come from? Digital Foundry has identified the memory of the PS5 Pro as the culpable component. Its bandwidth simply isn’t sufficient to deliver more frames per second to the screens. This creates what is known as a bottleneck. Even if the CPU and GPU could do more, this holds them back.
The situation is similar for the PS4 Pro. There, too, the bandwidth of the memory only increased by 28 percent compared to the base model – far less than, for example, CPU performance (via versus).
Therefore, the deficit should be even greater with increasing resolution. The reason would be that as the resolution increases, less memory or a narrow connection becomes a bigger burden. At lower resolutions, the PS5 Pro could theoretically get closer to the 45 percent even without an individual Pro patch, according to wccftech.
A feature that is coming to living rooms for the first time on a PlayStation console is PSSR. This is Sony’s approach to AI-supported upscaling from lower resolutions to higher ones. We already touched on it in the introduction. You can read more about this technology, which is comparable to Nvidia’s approach DLSS, in this article: What is PSSR? The new technology of the PS5 Pro explained
