Sony PlayStation 5 Pro vs Sony PlayStation 5: What’s different?

Sony announced the new PlayStation 5 Pro this month, finally putting a name to the long-awaited semi-successor to the Sony PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Slim. However, take a closer peek and the Sony PS5 Pro may not seem to offer very clear improvements over the standard PS5.

If you’re someone who is thinking of getting a new console ahead of GTA 6, or someone who is pondering over whether their PS5 or PS5 Slim needs an upgrade already, we’re here to help. Today, we’ll be looking at all the new changes in the new PlayStation 5 Pro.

Sony PlayStation 5 Pro: What’s new?

The first thing you will notice is the very slight change in design. The Sony PlayStation 5 Pro comes with three black stripes on the side. The original PS5 has none, while the PS5 Slim has just one. This, however, is only a cosmetic change.

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The bigger, more impactful change is the lack of a disc variant. While the Sony PlayStation and PlayStation Slim come with both disc and digital variants, the PlayStation 5 Pro comes solely in a digital variant.

This means if you want to indulge in disc games like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the only way out is to grab Sony’s external disc adapter – a separate purchase on top of the $699 PS5 Pro.

Sony PlayStation 5 Pro: New specifications and features

Under the hood, the Sony PlayStation 5 Pro also comes with 2TB internal storage, which is twice that of the PS5 Slim and over twice the storage of the original PS5, which sports only 825GB.

This makes it an ideal purchase/upgrade for those who want to keep more games installed on their PlayStation 5 at a time. With newer titles sporting some really big game sizes, storage is often a concern for console gamers. The PS5 Pro may solve that.

Diving deeper into the performance, we look at the CPU, which is unchanged from the PS5 and PS5 Slim. The newer PS5 Pro is also powered by an AMD Zen 2 CPU, and should in theory offer the same loading and boot times as the regular PS5.

That said, the bigger change is in the GPU department. Sony claims that the new PS5 Pro can offer 45 per cent faster rendering – so 4K gaming at a stable 60fps should not be a problem.

The PlayStation 5 Pro is also likely to be better at 8K gaming, although just how much is yet to be tested. Since not many 8K TVs are available in the market right now, this may not be a problem for most gamers.

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The PlayStation 5 Pro may also do away with the Performance and Fidelity modes that most current-gen titles have to choose between today – to either prioritise better frame rates or better visuals. With its GPU boost and the new AI-powered PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) upscaling, the PS5 Pro may finally be able to do both.

Sony has also promised that the PS5 Pro comes with Advanced Ray Tracing which should be better than the regular Ray Tracing on the PlayStation 5 Pro. More dynamic reflections and refractions aside, this may mean Ray Tracing on the PlayStation series may finally catch up with that of gaming PCs of today, where Ray Tracing in games is far more superior. Of course, this will also depend on how well games are optimised to leverage the new Ray Tracing features.

Lastly, the PlayStation 5 Pro also supports Wi-Fi 7 routers, which means better, faster performance for those who actually own a Wi-Fi 7 router. However, if you plan on using the LAN port, this may not matter much to you.

The Sony PlayStation 5 is set to launch in the US on November 7 this year, and it remains to be seen when the console will be officially announced in India. The PS5 Pro costs a premium over the regular PS5 and PS5 Slim, something that may drive some buyers away. How much the console is priced at in India also remains to be seen.