The PS5 Pro Puts a Shiny Bow on the Console’s Best Games

After testing a handful of titles, I can say that the difference is appreciable if less stark than it was between the PS4 and PS4 Pro. Here’s why splurging for the upgrade may or may not make sense for you.

by · Popular Mechanics

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I have to admit, I was skeptical of the PS5 Pro. The new, upgraded redesign (which goes on sale tomorrow) follows in the footsteps of the PS4 Pro, launching four years after the launch of the PlayStation 5 to bring a number of very specific, targeted improvements that will empower game developers with the ability to make their games look better and animate more smoothly. The PS4 Pro, however, had changes that felt sorely needed: It added powerful visual upgrades like high-dynamic range and 4K sampling that could make some PS4 games look completely different. The difference between the PS5 and PS5 Pro is more subtle. It improves advanced features like ray-tracing, and adds AI super sampling for better performance, but there isn’t an X factor that’s going to blow your mind.

And yet, if you are the kind of person who cares about the nuances of how a game looks, the PS5 Pro makes a meaningful difference. In the broadest terms, PS5 Pro games look the way that PS5 games are supposed to look. They can run at a smooth 60 frames per second (fps) or higher at the highest possible sharpness and brightness if you choose. It isn’t night and day–in fact, you’ll have to look for some of the changes to really appreciate them–but you can see plainly that the added power does help.

The Expert: I’m a Senior Commerce Editor working with the Reviews team at Popular Mechanics. Perhaps more importantly, though, I covered video games as a reporter and critic for more than 10 years prior to broadening my horizons here at PopMech. I reviewed dozens of games for publications like IGN, Gamespot, GamesRadar, and Variety, among others. I’ve also reviewed a few consoles from prior generations, including the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Though I’m no longer an active game critic, I still generally keep up with what’s current in the games industry.

PlayStation 5 Pro Console

$699 at Amazon

What Makes A PS5 Pro?

Physically, the PS5 Pro has roughly the same shape and dimensions as the “slim” version of the PS5. (It has a thick triple-stripe in the middle instead of a single stripe.) It comes with the same DualSense controller. It plays all the same games. It, like the slim, requires an $80 disc drive upgrade to play physical games, so keep that in mind if you’ve been buying PS5 discs.

When you boil it down, the improved performance in the PS5 Pro comes from three things. First, there’s the raw power boost. The PS5 Pro has an upgraded GPU–though Sony hasn’t said specifically what’s inside, it claims it has 67 percent more compute units–and faster RAM (again, a Sony estimate claims 28 percent improved performance). When enabled, the extra power allows the console to render more detail while running at higher frame rates. It offers a much-needed storage upgrade as well, 2 Terabytes, up from 825 Gigabytes on the original PS5 and 1TB on the PS5 Slim, and Wi-Fi 7 support for better network performance if you have a top-of-the-line router.

As with its predecessor, the PS5 Pro also adds new technological updates that allow for improved visual fidelity beyond pure power. It features improved support for ray-tracing, or the ability to model in-game lighting realistically where light emanates from specific sources, dissipates naturally, and reflects off some surfaces. Technically, the PS5 supports ray-tracing already, but it rarely uses it to the same effect as you’d get from a high-end gaming PC. The PS5 Pro gets closer to that higher bar. Though it sometimes comes with a performance hit, the upgraded hardware wields ray-tracing more effectively, with improved lighting that brings out fine details in many games that were already there, but maybe weren’t as noticeable because of how they were lit. (I’ll do some game-specific breakdowns in a minute to explain exactly what I mean.)

Lastly, and arguably most importantly, The PS5 Pro adds PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, Sony’s version of AI-enabled visual upscaling technologies found in Nvidia (Deep Learn Super Sampling) and AMD (FidelityFX Super Resolution) PC graphics cards. Broadly speaking, this technology uses AI to predict and generate additional frames of animation in between the frames rendered by the console, further smoothing out gameplay. On a high-end gaming PC, this translates to higher frame rates while using the game’s top visual settings. On less powerful machines, you have to make fewer compromises in visual settings to hit 60+ frames per second.

Courtesy Sony PlayStation
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

And What Does That Do, Exactly?

From the limited number of games with PS5 Pro support enabled pre-launch, these upgrades work in tandem to conjure up modest, but noticeable, visual differences in every game I tried that had received a patch for PS5 Pro support.

Each game uses the PS5 Pro’s new hardware features in specific ways, which can vary quite a bit from game to game but usually fall into a few broad categories. The most common upgrade I saw was the ability to deliver a game’s sharpest visual settings while running at 60fps, rather than forcing you to choose between 4K resolution in “fidelity mode” and 60fps in “performance mode,” as the PS5 does.

If, like me, you tend to play PS5 games in performance mode to ensure smoother gameplay animation, this leads to substantially sharper visuals and more detail in most games, especially in foggy or misty areas, and when you look closely at things in the far distance. For players who normally choose fidelity mode on a standard PS5, your games will animate more smoothly.

Courtesy of Epic Games Publishing
Alan Wake 2

That’s the new baseline, though. There are more settings to fine-tune if you’re inclined. The option to switch between “performance” and “fidelity/quality/resolution” mode returns, though this time you’re often choosing between adding “advanced” ray-tracing at the expense of higher frame rate, or a performance mode that provides improved visuals at 60fps or higher if you’re playing on a 120-Hz TV or monitor.

Some games go even further, claiming larger performance improvements and/or providing more granular controls. Spider-Man 2, for example, gives you more granular controls for ray-tracing effects, similar to what you’d find on PC in Fidelity Pro mode. (Specifically, you can toggle ray-traced reflections and whether or not shadows adjust in size based on lighting conditions.) One game I tried, EA F1 2024, supports 8K resolution at 60 Hz if you have an 8K TV. (Full disclosure: I do not own an 8K TV, so I could not test it.) I’m aware of at least one other game that will support 8K resolution on PS5 Pro–unsurprisingly, it’s Gran Turismo 7–but racing games seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

Many games also offer a 120-Hz mode setting, which unlocks the ability for them to run at frame rates beyond 60fps in performance mode. I found that toggling it made the frame rate less consistent in most cases, as games would jump in frame rate for a short time then revert to their baseline–often 60fps in performance mode. Crucially, though, the frame rate never dipped too low or made the experience unpleasant to play.

Which Games Should I Play on PS5 Pro?

Since the PS5 Pro leans heavily on AI sampling and ray-tracing support, you aren’t going to see much of a raw performance boost on games that haven’t been specifically updated to support the new console. The few games I sampled, like Astro Bot, may have run slightly smoother on PS5 Pro, though the difference was small enough that you’d only notice if you were looking for it. Games with load times when you launch a game or boot up a save, though they are rare, may also move a little quicker.

Likewise, there’s not much new for players looking to dig deep in the PlayStation library. If you return to any PS4 games, there is an “enhance image quality” setting at the system level that will upscale last-gen games as best it can. Playing Doom (2016), I noticed some additional smoothing on the environments, but it was a subtle change.

Marvel / Sony
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

As of September 4, 2024, Sony claims there will be 55 games that support PS5 Pro’s extra power at launch day. The list includes much of Sony’s first-party catalog, like God of War: Ragnarok, The Last of Us: Part 1 and The Last of Us: Part 2 Remastered. It also has some of 2024’s latest AAA releases, including EA Sports College Football 25, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. (Here’s the full list.)

That’s not a huge percentage, given the console’s massive library, but it’s important to keep in mind that only the biggest, most graphics-intensive games will take meaningful advantage of advanced ray-tracing and AI super sampling. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the PS4 Pro launched with similarly limited support. But by the end of the PS4 lifecycle in 2020, you could generally count on dynamic settings for PS4 and PS4 Pro in most new games.

PS5 vs PS5 Pro Performance: Will I Be Able to See The Difference?

Tech talk is all well and good, but in the end, all of the changes are made to improve how games look and feel, so let me tell you a bit about my specific time with the console so far. Pre-launch, the number of games patched to support the PS5 Pro was very low, but I managed to test seven games in the last week: Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, Horizon Forbidden West, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, The Last of Us: Part 2 Remastered, Alan Wake 2, and EA Sports F1 24.

To test them, I played 20 to 60 minutes of each one–often the opening cutscene and gameplay sequence for the sake of consistency–on performance- and fidelity-minded modes on both PS5 and PS5 Pro. In a few cases, I either played beyond the first hour or jumped ahead to later chapters via old saves to get a better look at the ray-tracing. Here are my mini reviews of the PS5 versus the PS5 Pro.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart: In the opening sequence, the duo runs across a series of flying parade floats in a massive cityscape. I found that the whole game looked brighter on PS5 Pro, possibly because of ray-tracing elements that made reflective surfaces look shinier. This game is full of small, flashing particle effects–shattering wood, collectible bolts, lightning and lasers–and they all drew my eye more. I also noticed that, as I looked out from one float to the other, the far horizon was a bit fuzzy on PS5, but perfectly clear on PS5 Pro.

Interestingly, I found that the game ran at similar frame rates in performance and fidelity mode on PS5 Pro, though both were more stable than the frame rates on the standard PS5.

Alan Wake 2: Alan Wake 2 forces you to choose between ray-tracing at 30fps and 60fps with improved detail on PS5 Pro. The ray-tracing in “quality” mode was incredibly impressive when I looked in a bathroom mirror or at a neon sign–if you’ve already played the game, I recommend still popping in to check it out. That said, the game felt very chunky at 30fps, so I’d still recommend playing in performance mode, which looks similar to the PS5’s fidelity mode while running at 60fps.

The Last of Us Part 2: Remastered: Both The Last of Us: Part 1 and The Last of Us: Part 2 Remastered offer a single “Pro” mode that optimizes for 4K resolution at 60fps. As Joel rides to camp during the opening scene of Part 2, trees, tall grass and buildings all looked perfectly clear and sharp on PS5 Pro, where they had some minute pixelation on PS5, especially in performance mode. Likewise, the mountains and camp in the distance looked no longer grainy.

Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Screenshot from The Last of Us Part 2: Remastered

If you played this game in fidelity mode on PS5, the improved frame rate makes a huge difference in this game. Whether it’s Joel and Ellie walking or the horse’s trot, every controller character animates through their gait much more smoothly. The 30fps rate is fine here, but 60fps makes the improved visuals sing.

Horizon Forbidden West: Horizon Forbidden West offers the three visual modes on PS5 Pro, tied to frame rate–resolution (30fps), balanced (40fps), and performance (60fps). But all three modes featured visuals that surpassed “resolution” mode on PS5 in a few ways. In the opening cutscene and sequence at Far Zenith, distant environments and fog looked smooth, with graininess. Opaque but see-through elements like holograms and fire also looked sharper. Aloy, the protagonist, has also received a technical tune-up and some aesthetic visual changes. The most interesting changes, I thought, were to her hair, which is more detailed and moves more naturally than before.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: In the opening fight, the two Spider-Men, Peter Parker and Miles Morales, swing from Brooklyn to Manhattan for an epic battle with a gigantic Sandman. (If you aren’t familiar with the comics/movies, we are talking about a man made of literal sand, not the fable who makes children fall asleep.) I wasn’t expecting it, but this game took advantage of the 120-Hz frame rate in performance mode. It wasn’t stable, but I could see Parker swinging faster when the frame rate ticked up. It’s also a great showcase for ray-tracing: In fidelity mode, I could see light reflecting off buildings as I swung.

EA F1 24: Arguably the most interesting case, in part because it’s most superfluous, F1 24 lets you switch between 4K/60fps with ray-tracing, 4K/120fps, and 8K/60fps. Alternating between the PS5 and PS5 Pro, it was clear that the sideline elements looked sharper on the Pro, but I basically had to stop and look to see the difference. Switching to performance mode (4K/120fps) was far and away the highlight, as the world moved much faster as I sped around tracks in Japan and Saudi Arabia. Interestingly, at 120fps, I could clearly see the tires rotating as I drove, which is a neat detail. Unfortunately, 8K wasn’t on the menu for me, so that’s a story for another day.

So Should You Buy a PS5 Pro?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, dear reader, as is its worth. After years of covering games and gaming hardware, I have found that people’s perception of the subtleties of game performance varies quite a bit. There are players who crave a faster frame rate because they feel 30fps looks clunky, and there are those who can’t tell the difference. There are players who only play multiplayer shooters, and are therefore less inclined to notice whether the leaves on the tree above their target look sharp and bright or have ragged, pixelated edges. The PS5 Pro costs $700: That’s a lot of money for a game console. Though it’s an odd moniker, the “Pro” here makes a certain amount of sense for this upgraded console because it really isn’t going to make sense for everyone.

I will say, though, that even if you don’t notice nuanced changes to the fine details of how a game looks or runs, there’s a general qualitative boost in PS5 Pro-compatible games. I’m not sure the difference is going to make anyone’s jaw drop, but it may allow you to return to some of your old favorites and see them in a new light. At the very least, all the games you play going forward to look sharper and brighter, and possibly run at a higher frame rate, depending on the mode you choose.

If you don’t already own a PS5, the calculus of whether to buy a PS5 Pro is fairly straightforward. Are you willing to spend $200 extra to play the best-looking version of your games? If the answer is yes, buy the PS5 Pro.

For PS5 owners, who have already spent $500 on a PS5 and are now deciding whether or not to spend $700 more for an upgrade, the question is trickier. Since you’ve already bought into the PS5 ecosystem and can play all the games, you’re spending $700 for an upgrade, more than you spent the first time, for a technical boost that will lead to better graphics and performance. Ultimately, though, the question is the same: Are you willing to spend the money and make your games look and run better? If the answer is yes, buy the PS5 Pro.

Buy the PS5 Pro Console

Mike Epstein
Senior Commerce Editor, Reviews

Mike Epstein is a Senior Commerce Editor at Hearst Enthusiast Group, producing reviews for buying guides Popular Mechanics, Runner’s World, Bicycling, and Best Products. Prior to joining Hearst, he was a video game and technology critic for over 10 years, with bylines at IGN, Gamespot, Variety, Lifehacker, Kotaku, GamesRadar, Flavorwire and Digital Trends, among others. Now, he’s a jack of all trades, helping reviewers share everything they know about all kinds of technical gear, from snowblowers, to running shoes and bicycles, and every kind of gadget imaginable.