Digital Foundry says leaked PS5 Pro specs are real

Sony's mid-gen refresh reportedly goes big on upscaling over hardware improvements

Tech analysis group Digital Foundry says the leaked PS5 Pro specs are legitimate and offered some insight about what to expect from Sony’s mid-gen console refresh. Digital Foundry’s report suggests the PS5 Pro has fewer substantial hardware improvements, especially where the CPU is concerned, and says the console will improve resolution, while performance remains largely untouched.

Digital Foundry said the specifications come from Sony's devnet portal and a list of documented specifications intended for third-party developers.

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Here’s the technical breakdown:

Specs	PS5 Pro	PS5
CPU Clock Speeds	Eight core/16 Thread Zen 2 at 3.5GHz/3.85GHz	Eight core/16 Thread Zen 2 at 3.5GHz
GPU	60 CUs, RNDA 3 (TBC)	36 CUS, RDNA 2
Teraflops/GPU Clock Speed	33.5TF/ 2.18GHz	10.23TF/ 2.23GHz
GDDR6 Memory	16GB at 18Gbps	16GB at 14Gbps
Memory	13.7GB	12.5GB
Bandwidth	256-bit/576GB/s	256-bit/448GB/s

That’s a lot of tech jargon, but it essentially breaks down into three major areas. The first is the CPU, which Digital Foundry said is largely the same as the standard PS5. The difference is that Sony gives developers the option for a 10 percent clock speed boost in the PS5 Pro, which is enough to help modern games struggling to reach 30fps actually hit their target – but not 60fps. Unless Digital Foundry’s report is way off base, the PS5 Pro’s performance improvements will be minor at best.

Things get a bit more complicated with the GPU. The PS5 Pro’s GPU has more computing units (that’s what CU is for), and Sony said it – along with the small memory increase – should result in a 45 percent performance improvement for most games.

However, Digital Foundry said the GPU’s clock speed is actually slightly lower than the standard PS5’s, which points to strict power limits in line with the small CPU enhancements. What that actually means for performance is unclear, though ray tracing performance should be twice as fast – or four times as fast, depending on the game – compared to the standard PS5.

Digital Foundry says the real difference comes from the PS5 Pro’s machine learning and upscaling. Sony reportedly created its own upscaling software called PlayStation Spectral Resolution that fits into the GPU and can, theoretically, upscale a game running at 1080p to 4K in two milliseconds. Digital Foundry puts that on par with what AMD’s FSR2 software aims for, but says the PS5 Pro’s quality should be higher thanks to resolution multipliers similar to Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling.

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What that all boils down to is that, between the higher GPU power and better upscaling software, the PS5 Pro should be able to make PS5 games with image quality issues – which is a lot of them – look better. DF also says that makes the PS5 Pro a more niche offering than the PS4 Pro was and represents what they believe is a more sustainable future for gaming hardware – upscaling enhancements that are easier to implement and don’t result in higher costs for developers and consumers.