These sites are ad—free

The most expensive console I’ve ever bought?

No it isn’t. I bought PS3 console back in 2006-07 and it cost around 700€ that is in today’s value of 990€! I cannot believe that I bought a PS3 for that price, so thinking that I bought a PS5 Pro for 850€ doesn’t sound that bad. But still it feels little bit too much as of the console didn’t come with a disc drive nor even a stand. So, I had to buy those too. The disc drive was 140€ and the stand around 30€. All together I just spent 1020€ to get my newest toy. Does high price equal a good product?

PSSR, Ray tracing, new GPU… What else you’ve got?

PSSR standing for PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution that is an AI-driven upscaling on image quality. “PSSR analyses the game images pixel-by-pixel and can add an extraordinary amount of detail which boosts the effective resolution of the games,” explained Mark Cerny (PS5 Lead Architect) in a technical presentation of the PS5 Pro.

What this means, is that it sharpens the image from the original and also can show image in higher resolution. To be honest, when I watched the initial PS5 Pro reveal and technical presentation I was kinda disappointed of the little differences the new console could do. You literally needed a very good eyesight to see the differences in game graphics. But afterwards I read somewhere that PSSR is in its infancy and it will be developed more and developers can utilise it in new and various ways.

Ray tracing isn’t anything new. It has been around since PS5 and even longer in PC gaming, but to get it to work it will need some power to work the best and PS5 Pro promises that. Its “Advanced Ray Tracing” will bring more dynamic reflections and refraction of light, being at least double times better than in base PS5 console. For those who doesn’t know what ray tracing is, here is link to the IGN page of it (opens in a new window).

PS5 Pro also has a newly upgraded GPU that has 67% more Compute Units than the base PS5 has and 28% faster memory. All this enables 45% faster rendering of gameplay.

PS5 Pro is packed with 2 TB super fast SSD storage comparing it to the base model’s 825 GB. This really comes in handy as it always felt like I must delete an older game to be able to download a newest one. Now my video game collection can be much more various.

What does this all mean?

I’m not a technical wonder child (as we like to say in Finland), so I cannot give you any deep-dive to the technicals of the PS5 Pro console. All I can tell is what I experience as a basic video game player. Did I notice any difference to the base PS5 model? Yes, I did. Especially PS5 Pro Enhanced games such as like Horizon Forbidden West, God of War: Ragnarök and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. These games looked amazing. I own 4K HDR OLED TV and it does need that to be able to enjoy the best of any newest consoles, especially PS5 Pro. The console can also pump up the resolution up to 8K and 120fps on some games, but I cannot test them with my current TV. If you want a deep-dive into the PS5 Pro capabilities, I recommend you to watch Digital Foundry -videos of the topic on Youtube as they can give you the best information.

I own PSVR2 as well. At launch there is only one game that is suppored by PS5 Pro and that is Kayak VR: Mirage. But I believe there will be more games that will support the new console’s capabilities.

I think some of the the best looking games what PS5 Pro can offer at the moment are God of War: Ragnarök, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Horizon Forbidden West for sure.

Here are some 4K screenshots using PS5 Pro:

Final thoughts

I do believe that buying this expensive package was an investment for my future gaming. As the aspects like PSSR gets only better in coming years and developers can utilise it more, I know we’ll see something beautiful in the near future. All I can say that PS5 Pro is more for hardcore gamers because the base PS5 is still a banger console. Should you get a PS5 Pro? It offers kinda little at lauch, but if you don’t own a PS5 console yet, I’d say get the Pro, but if you’ll thinking of upgrading from the base version, do that only if you really want to.

SCORE:

4/5

“PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution that is an AI-driven upscaling on image quality”

RELEASE DATE: November 7, 2024
DEVELOPER: Sony
PUBLISHER: Sony

 

These sites are ad—free