The PS5 Pro has been formally announced, and our PS5 Pro review is now live too.
Cutting to the important info, the PS5 Pro release date was November 7, 2024, and you know buy a PS5 Pro with stock readily available.
The PS5 Pro is a seriously capable console offering boosts to performance across the board. The big three upgrades of a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and Sony’s own AI-driven upscaling tech, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) are all exciting propositions and, from our testing, bring games more to life than they’ve ever been.
Now that it’s out in the wild, we’re running down everything we know about the PlayStation 5 Pro right here in one convenient place for you so you have all the information to hand. It’s an exciting time to consider upgrading from either the launch PS5 or PS5 Slim and there’s plenty to read about and get stuck into.
PS5 Pro: cut to the chase
What is it? The mid-generation console successor upgrade to PlayStation 5How much is it? $699.99 | £699.99 | AU$1,200 | €799.99 | ¥119.980When does it come out? November 7, 2024What will its upgrades be? A 45% boost to GPU, a 2TB SSD, AI-powered upscaling tech called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, and enhanced ray-tracing.Are reviews out? Yes! Our full PlayStation 5 Pro review is here.
The PS5 Pro release date was November 7, 2024.
The PS5 Pro costs $699.99, £699.99, AU$1,199, €799.99, and ¥119.980.
However, the real cost for enthusiasts may be more as the Pro doesn’t come with a disc drive or vertical stand and those will have to be bought separately, so there’s an extra chunk of cash right there. It all adds up to a premium pricey affair.
If you need to know where to buy a PS5 Pros then our dedicated page will help you out. The good news is that PS5 Pro stock is readily available and there are no shortages.
For some background, PS5 Pro pre-orders originally started on September 26 at PlayStation Direct, while other retailers began listing PS5 Pro pre-orders on October 10.
In conjunction with the PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection pre-orders that began on the same day, demand proved very high indeed for the PS5 Pro, and the console sold out twice during the day on both sides of the Atlantic at PlayStation Direct.
We now have a much fuller idea, with very gray areas left, of the PS5 Pro specs given we’ve been hands-on and reviewed the console. Below is a table breaking down the full specs.
The cold, hard numbers of the GPU upgrade are that the PS5 Pro will have 67% more compute units and 28% faster memory; resulting in 45% faster rendering of in-game action. Complement this with the boost to ray-tracing capability, and PSSR (the AI-driven upscaling tech), and the results are impressive. Games can offer both fidelity and performance at the same time now, and the results can be breathtaking.
But that’s not all, the PS5 Pro should boost the performance of non-enhanced PS5 games as well as PlayStation 4 games – but that’s something we haven’t witnessed as clearly in our testing so far.
In terms of the PS5 Pro vs PS5 matchup, the new console is a clear winner spec-wise and, from my testing, presents games in some excellent new ways.
The PS5 Pro’s 2TB SSD is an extremely welcome spec upgrade as we always found the workable space on the base and slim models particularly hard to work with if you played even one or two live service games or big online shooters like Call of Duty Warzone.
In our testing, we had around 20 PS5 and PS4 games installed at once on the 2TB SSD and still had more than 300GB free to use. The extra breathing is a huge boost and makes for a tangible operation change for good on the day-to-day.
On to the 4K UHD Blu-ray disc drive, which is a separate entity to the console and something that it is compatible with, rather than comes with. This will sting a bit for those enthusiasts who want the most performant console, and have large physical game collections as they’ll need to fork out some extra cash.
To make the all-digital configuration somewhat better, there’s the boost to connectivity via the upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 which will make a huge difference.
The PS5 Pro shares the same design language as the PS5 Slim and the wider PS5 family. It’s cut from exactly the same cloth and looks incredibly familiar and similar with sweeping curves, a white and black aesthetic, and a ‘fanned’ flare design.
The main difference that we can tell, from afar, is the inclusion of the black strips in the center of each side. We don’t know whether these are extra fans or just a design decision.
All in, from a size and a dimension perspective, it looks like it can be a straight swap – the PS5 Pro fitting exactly in the same kind of space that your current PS5 does, although it is about as tall as the launch model of the PS5.
It’s also worth mentioning here that while the PS5 Slim disc drive is compatible with the Pro, the existing console covers are not and you will have to wait until Sony brings out bespoke PS5 Pro plates for some customization options
The question of whether or not you should buy a PS5 Pro is an interesting one.
To start things off, putting it bluntly, the punchy price may make the decision up for many people. A list price of $700 or £700 is an incredible amount of money for a home console.
However, to examine the proposition more broadly, the matter of whether or not you should buy a PS5 Pro will depend on your specific needs, wants, and desires when it comes to gaming consoles.
For those without a PS5 already, if you’ve waited for the game library of the PS5 to fill out and are solely interested in finding a way to play those existing games then we recommend at least considering the PS5 Pro now. It presents the best and arguable definitive way to enjoy PS5 games and get the most out of the games (especially if you have a 120Hz display). Having said that, if you’re not a graphics obsessive, and given the high price, if you can’t stretch to $700 / £700 as a newcomer to the PS5, then the ‘base’ or standard PS5 or PS5 Slimill be more than enough for you. It’s still a splendid console that offers a whole host of attractive features and means to get the most out of games and presents them beautifully.
If you’ve got a PS5 already then an upgrade is going to be for you if you desire to be at the bleeding edge of what PlayStationcan offer, are a proper console gaming enthusiast, and want the most performant console going – if this is you and you have an eye for nuanced changes to gameplay and games’ graphics, then the Pro is not going to disappoint.
If you’re a current PS5 owner who doesn’t need such graphical advancement – they are not transformational, after all – then sticking with your base or Slim PS5 is an entirely legitimate and sound approach to take.
That’s a very boiled-down version of our thought process on whether you should buy a Pro, but head over to our full PlayStation 5 Pro review for more info.
How much does the PS5 Pro cost and is it available?
The PS5 Pro is out now, and costs $700 / £700 AU$1,199.
Will the PS5 Pro support 8K?
It wasn’t long ago that Sony seemingly started to remove the ‘8K’ logo from the packaging of the PS5 which was a spec or trait of the console that always felt a bit of a reach.
However, in the official PlayStation Blog announcing the PS5 Pro, Sony does claim that the console will support 8K gaming.
Does the PS5 Pro come with a disc drive?
By default, the PS5 Pro is pitched as an all-digital console that can have one of the existing disc drives (from the PS5 Slim) added to it as an extra. So no, the PS5 Pro does not come with a disc drive by default, and you’ll have to buy this separately.
You can check out the latest stock levels by heading over to our where to buy a PS5 Pro disc drive and stand page.
Does the PS5 Pro come with a stand?
Like the disc drive, sadly the PS5 Pro does not come with a vertical stand by default. Like the PS5 Slim, you will have to buy this separately if that’s how you prefer to keep your consoles.
You can check out the latest stock levels by heading over to our where to buy a PS5 Pro vertical stand and disc drive page.
Upgrade your audio with one of the best PS5 headsetsBoost your storage with a top SSD for PS5PS6: when can we expect the PlayStation 6 and what do we want to see?