Sony PlayStation 5 Pro Review - The Digital Foundry Verdict

Rich Leadbetter, John Linneman and Oliver Mackenzie combine their impressions and tests to deliver the Digital Foundry verdict on the PlayStation 5 Pro. How does the console improve PS5 and PS4 games? How good is PSSR based on testing across a range of games? And what of the enhanced RT features? Everything you need to know is right here.

Note: DSC compression is visually lossless, but not mathematically lossless. Apologies for the error.

0:00:00 Overview
0:01:00 Hardware impressions
0:05:44 8K support and display options
0:12:34 PS4 image quality enhancement
0:17:36 Game boost - Elden Ring and GPU bound games
0:32:01 Game boost - CPU bound games
0:35:57 Ray tracing upgrades
0:42:29 PSSR testing
0:58:02 Power consumption
1:05:16 Overall impressions - is PS5 Pro worth the money?

[CRK__Gaming]

Hardware: Smaller and lighter than the original PS5 (0:16) . Quiet and well-built (1:42) . Familiar user experience (2:23) Optical drive requires online connection (3:06) HDMI Controller: Still limited to 32 Gbps bandwidth (6:58) Supports 8K output at 60Hz with HDR (8:17) . Uses display stream compression (DSC) for 8K output (7:53) PS4 Image Enhancement: . Post-process filter that enhances 2D elements (13:36) . Doesn't affect temporal aliasing (14:18) Comparable to other upscaling solutions like FSR (15:06) Game Boost: Uses the full power of the PS5 Pro for non-Pro games (17:54) . Performance improvements vary depending on the game (21:43) Doesn't utilize the Pro's extra RT features (22:47) Ray Tracing: . Enhanced RT support for some games (36:16) PSSR implementation varies in quality (42:56) . Horizon Forbidden West has excellent image quality (49:33) Power Consumption: . PS5 Pro consumes similar power the PS5 Slim (1:00:01) . Efficient for the performance it delivers (1:02:00) Final Verdict: . Expensive console (1:05:26) Nice improvements, but not game-changing (1:08:16) Good for those who can tell the difference and have the funds (1:18:23)
Raises questions about the future of console pricing (1:17:03)

[michaelmcclain]

8K isn't something consol makers should even think about considering they're yet to conquer even a steady 1080P 60FPS

[viktorshuryha]

Could you cover some of these topics in future videos?
- PS5 Pro + PSVR2: How does it compare to the standard PS5 and a PC + PSVR2?
- PS5 Pro + Remote Play: Is there any difference in image quality?
- Why are we still seeing Fidelity Pro modes targeting 30 FPS on a Pro console?
- Comparing PS5 Pro hardware in patched games to PC equivalents from Nvidia and AMD

[mohamad-abdo]

As mentioned before by experts in the community, better hardware will not fix bad software. It's either developers give time and effort to optimizing their game or we'll be constantly be suffering from poor performance no matter how much hardware we throw at it.

[digitalXP]

Thank you for mentioning how expensive digital games are vs physical!! Physical is not only much cheaper you can trade in or re sell when you finish!

[buenoblue]

John was raging at Rich ripping the packaging lol😂

[FEWGEE]

It's smaller and lighter because it doesn't have a disc drive lol.

[WeeGeeX]

Curious, whats the patch notes for this video 😅

[jalias]

What you said about physical vs digital pricing is always overlooked for some reason, glad you said it. I used to have one or two games at a time and trade them in when done. Brand new releases a few weeks afterwards are still worth most of the price so my cost was actually less than 50% of sale price, and significantly less than digital.

When in reality digital should be cheaper because there are no manufacturer and distribution costs.

[geminijinxies]

The PS4 image quality enhance thing makes me think it's tech lifted directly from Sony's top of the line TVs. They upscale low res content very well.

[FunkyVerbV]

I liked how Oliver laughed when John said he booted up Suicide Squad

[leon]

Other media : Lets do an unbox and put up a score.
DF: How about an 1h 20m indepth review ?

[grillmeisterkush]

There's in depth reviews, and there's 80 minute long reviews. Yall go above and beyond everytime it's so awesome!

[donkeyy]

The one thing that we all can agree I think is that Guerilla needs to tell every developer out there how to make a good AA upscaler

[GK-stqm]

Metaphor falling below 60fps on both the PS5 and the Pro is hilarious to me considering how that game looks.

[Tomb-G]

Sony 2019: 8k

Sony 2024: 890p upscaler

[briansh]

For the 2nd time in a row we get a new piece of hardware….. that we can play OLD games at less than 60fps. The cpu limitation section of this video was very enlightening.

[Juzzer]

Bought the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X at launch; they were exciting and had very obvious improvements over the base models. I’ve been an early adopter of everything new in this space, but PS5 Pro is gonna be a hard pass for me. Having to zoom in and compare images side by side and STILL not see anything that impressively improves on the original is just not worth the crazy asking price. I’m sure that Sony couldn’t give a rat’s ass what I think and do, but that’s my £0.02.

[CaSsErDoDoLiVe]

I don't see any compelling reason to upgrade to the PS5 Pro. This video confirms my initial thoughts. I'll wait for the PS6. I don’t understand what Sony trying to do last 2 years with announcements, cancellations, hardwares and business management.

[DoctorHades]

Great review video. However, it is a bit disappointing to hear that the best image quality (by far judging by the praise) is for two Horizon games that don't even use PSSR. It somehow undervalues the usefulness of PSSR much in the same way as checkerboard rendering on PS4 Pro, which most developers ended up not using despite being a hardware feature, I believe.