The PS5 Pro Delivers 30% More Performance with Almost Identical Power Usage as the Base PS5

In an unexpected twist, Digital Foundry’s recent analysis of the PlayStation 5 Pro revealed some intriguing findings regarding its power consumption. Their detailed chat on YouTube, featuring experts Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie, uncovered that the PS5 Pro operates with virtually no extra power compared to the original PS5, even though it comes packed with a much more robust GPU.

To test the Pro’s performance, Digital Foundry put it through its paces with games like Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2, and F1 24. They compared it against both the first PS5 model and its refreshed version, the PS5 Slim. The Pro, of course, ran versions of the games with enhanced visual fidelity exclusive to its model.

When diving into specifics with Elden Ring, the PS5 Pro’s power usage closely matched that of the Slim. At one point, they recorded the Pro using 214.1 watts, the Slim at 216.2 watts, and the original PS5 at 201.3 watts. However, the Pro significantly outperformed in frame rates, hitting 52 FPS, compared to the Slim’s 40 FPS and the launch model’s 37 FPS. It’s worth noting that the difference between the Slim and the original’s frame rate is minimal and can vary, as both share similar performance capabilities. Essentially, the PS5 Pro offers a 30% boost in frame rates while maintaining nearly the same power usage as the Slim.

In contrast, the story shifts slightly with Spider-Man 2, where each console is locked at 60 FPS. Here, the PS5 Pro led the pack with a power draw of 232 watts, followed by the Slim at 218.2 watts, and the original at 208.1 watts. The Pro here used 6% more power than the Slim and 11% more than the launch version. Although specific F1 24 comparisons weren’t provided, the PS5 Pro seemed to hover around 235 watts, while maintaining a lock at 60 FPS.

It’s also important to remember that differences in power consumption between the launch and Slim models can often be attributed to the quality of silicon in the consoles. This means some units may still clock lower at better voltages than others, explaining any performance discrepancies.

Ultimately, Digital Foundry’s experiments confirmed the PS5 Pro’s impressive power management, suggesting it operates similarly to the base models despite its amped-up GPU. Many anticipated higher figures, perhaps over 300 watts, making these findings quite the surprise.

Under the hood, the PS5 Pro sports an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a formidable 16.7 TFLOP RDNA-based GPU, with a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s. On the other hand, the standard models house the same CPU but with a less powerful 10.28 TFLOP RDNA GPU, and come with a 448 GB/s memory bandwidth.

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