PS5 Pro Delivers 30% Boost in Performance with Virtually Unchanged Power Consumption Compared to Base Model

Digital Foundry recently took a closer look at the power consumption of the PlayStation 5 Pro, and their findings were quite unexpected. In a detailed discussion on YouTube featuring experts Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie, they discovered that the PS5 Pro uses almost the same amount of power as the original PS5, even though it packs a much beefier GPU.

To get a clearer picture, Digital Foundry tested the PS5 Pro with games like Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2, and F1 24. These games were put side by side with the original PS5, the updated PS5 Slim, and, of course, the PS5 Pro, which ran enhanced versions with improved graphics exclusive to this model.

In Elden Ring’s test, the PS5 Pro and the PS5 Slim showed nearly identical power usage. The video revealed the Pro drew 214.1 watts, while the Slim was at 216.2 watts, and the original model at 201.3 watts. The Pro, however, delivered a far superior frame rate at 52 FPS compared to the Slim at 40 FPS and the original at 37 FPS. It’s important to note that the slight frame rate differences between the Slim and the original PS5 in this snapshot should be taken with a grain of salt, as their performance levels are essentially the same. Remarkably, while consuming roughly the same power as the PS5 Slim, the PS5 Pro delivered a 30% boost in frame rate.

Switching over to Spider-Man 2, the results varied a bit as all three consoles maintained a locked 60 FPS. Here, the PS5 Pro pulled the most power at 232 watts, compared to the Slim’s 218.2 watts, and the original PS5 at 208.1 watts. In this instance, the Pro used 6% more power than the PS5 Slim and 11% more than the original model. Although there wasn’t a direct comparison for F1 24, Digital Foundry noted that the Pro hovered around 235 watts in-game, still at 60 FPS.

It’s worth mentioning that the slight discrepancies between the launch model and the Slim aren’t trivial. Power consumption can be influenced by the quality of the silicon, which may result in the Slim not performing as well as expected. Variability in silicon means some consoles can achieve optimal CPU performance at lower voltages.

Ultimately, Digital Foundry’s analysis confirmed that the PlayStation 5 Pro maintains similar power consumption levels as the standard PS5 models, despite housing a much more robust GPU. This was a surprise to the team, who initially thought the Pro might draw more than 300 watts.

The PS5 Pro is equipped with an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a formidable 16.7 TFLOP GPU based on RDNA architecture, offering a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s. In contrast, the regular PS5 models come with a weaker 10.28 TFLOP GPU and a memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s, though they share the same basic CPU, albeit with potential differences in clock speeds.