As per recent reports, details about the hardware design of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s presumed mid-generation console, the PlayStation 5 Pro, have purportedly been disclosed before an anticipated announcement in September 2024. The leak, originating from the reputable source Dealabs, is known for accurately unveiling industry news before official releases. According to the leak, the final packaging of the PS5 Pro’s design has been documented in a screenshot, although sharing the actual image is restricted due to copyright constraints. Consequently, Dealabs has offered a sketch derived from the leaked design to depict the console’s visual aesthetics.
The leaked sketch unveils significant design resemblances between the PS5 Pro and the recently revealed PS5 Slim. Both consoles exhibit a comparable external design, with the PS5 Pro featuring two USB-C ports and a power button on the front panel. A notable deviation is the presence of three black stripes on the PS5 Pro’s faceplates, suggesting compatibility with custom and special edition faceplates designed for the PS5 Slim. The sketch also indicates a slightly thicker profile for the PS5 Pro, potentially to accommodate enhanced hardware components.
Notably, the leaked information raises questions about the existence of a disc drive in the PS5 Pro. The sketch and leaked packaging hint at the absence of an internal disc drive, possibly reflecting an effort to reduce production costs and offer a more competitive pricing strategy. However, there is speculation that the PS5 Pro could remain compatible with the external disc drive currently available for the PS5.
Parallel to the design leak, reports concerning the hardware specifications of the PS5 Pro had surfaced earlier. The rumored console is expected to offer substantial enhancements over the base model, primarily in terms of graphical performance. According to the leaks, the PS5 Pro’s GPU is anticipated to deliver a potential 45% increase in rasterization performance and a two to four times improvement in ray-tracing capabilities, contingent on the specific metric used. These advancements are expected to stem from the integration of a new AMD GPU architecture, possibly RDNA4 or a custom RDNA3 design.
These upgrades signify that the PS5 Pro may offer enhanced ray-tracing effects, including more precise global illumination, reflections, ambient occlusion, and shadows. Nevertheless, the speculated improvements may not achieve the kind of path tracing observed in demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077 or Alan Wake II, which typically necessitate substantial computational power associated with high-end PC hardware.
Despite the focus on GPU improvements, the leaked specifications offer limited insights into the PS5 Pro’s CPU performance and unified memory bandwidth. Similar to the approach adopted in the PS4 Pro, the console is expected to feature a moderate increase in CPU clock speed. This could potentially limit the console’s ability to deliver higher frame rates in CPU-intensive games reliant on physics simulations and environmental interactions, such as the highly anticipated GTA VI by Rockstar Games. Nonetheless, the PS5 Pro is projected to offer enhanced graphical settings and potentially more stable frame rates, even if it may not substantially improve overall performance.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the PS5 Pro’s purported specifications is the addition of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s proprietary image reconstruction technology, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR). This technology, reportedly fueled by a custom Machine Learning architecture capable of 300 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second) of 8-bit computation, is anticipated to deliver superior image quality compared to AMD’s FSR2. If effectively implemented, PSSR could emerge as a compelling feature for the PS5 Pro, particularly for the enthusiast market. Nevertheless, the extent of its impact will hinge on the developers’ adoption and support of the technology in their games.