PS5 Pro Boosts Performance by 30% with Minimal Increase in Power Usage Compared to Base Model

Digital Foundry recently conducted an intriguing analysis of the PlayStation 5 Pro’s power usage, and the findings were quite unexpected. The team, consisting of Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie, shared their insights in a YouTube video discussion. Despite the PS5 Pro boasting a vastly superior GPU, it surprisingly consumes almost the same amount of power as the standard PS5.

To delve into this, Digital Foundry put the PS5 Pro through its paces with games like “Elden Ring,” “Spider-Man 2,” and “F1 24” — all of which were compared against the original PS5 and the updated PS5 Slim. The Pro model ran versions of these games that featured enhanced graphics exclusive to the console.

In “Elden Ring,” for instance, the PS5 Pro’s power consumption was nearly the same as the PS5 Slim’s. One segment of the video showed the Pro using 214.1 watts, the Slim at 216.2 watts, and the original PS5 recording at 201.3 watts. The PS5 Pro, however, managed far superior frame rates, clocking in at 52 FPS compared to the Slim’s 40 FPS and the launch model’s 37 FPS. It’s worth noting that the frame rate differences between the Slim and the launch models aren’t significant, as these figures are just one snapshot of Digital Foundry’s testing. Nonetheless, the PS5 Pro managed to deliver a 30% increase in frame rate while maintaining similar power levels to the Slim.

Looking at “Spider-Man 2,” the narrative shifted slightly because the game is capped at 60 FPS on all devices. Here, the PS5 Pro recorded the highest power use at 232 watts, followed by the PS5 Slim at 218.2 watts and the launch model at 208.1 watts. Thus, the Pro used 6% more power than the Slim and 11% more than the launch model. While Digital Foundry didn’t have a direct comparison for “F1 24,” the PS5 Pro held steady at about 235 watts while running the game at 60 FPS.

It’s crucial to recognize that both the launch and Slim models can exhibit power variations due to differences in silicon quality. This variability affects performance since some units can maintain their specified CPU speeds with less voltage.

Digital Foundry was taken aback by how the PS5 Pro aligns closely with the base models in terms of power usage, despite integrating a much more advanced GPU. They had anticipated it would need upwards of 300 watts.

The PS5 Pro is equipped with an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and an RDNA-based GPU capable of 16.7 TFLOPs, alongside a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s. In comparison, the standard PS5 models come with the same CPU, but with a less powerful 10.28 TFLOP GPU and 448 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

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