Comparing a PC and a console is a little like comparing apples and oranges, they both stave off the hunger we have for gaming, but they do it differently. With the announcement of the PS5 Pro and all of its upgrades over the original, users are questioning how it stacks up against PC hardware. Let the “PS5 Pro killer PC builds” ensue.
According to Sony, the new Pro console contains 67% more compute units and 28% faster memory than the standard PS5. This results in a very respectable claim of 45% faster rendering for a smoother experience. There is a lot of talk from Sony, but how does this stack up against the RTX 4060? Well, we need to do some math.
The standard PS5 has 36 CUs, resulting in 2,304 Shading Units, says TechPowerup, which is about equivalent to an RX 6700 from AMD, the PS5 Pro apparently has 67% more, so 36 x 1.67 is ~60, likely making 3,840 shading units (if the ratios are still the same) Which is about equivalent to the RX 6800. So that means it’s the RTX 4060 vs the RX 6800, right? Not exactly.
Following the announcement, it has been assumed that the PS5 Pro GPU is likely RDNA 3 based, according to sources such as Wccftech and PCGamer, the latter listing it as a “60 CUs RDNA 3 GPU”. At the specifications we calculated, this could make it closer to the 7800 XT. That would better justify the steep $699 price tag.
PS5 Pro vs RTX 4060
Since we don’t know what exactly is going to be powering the PS5 Pro just yet, but the evidence does appear to suggest that the PS5 Pro GPU will be closer to the RX 6800 and the RX 7800 XT, we can use these as a guideline of comparison – at least for the time-being.
The following is each GPU results in Cyberpunk 2077 via our in-house GPU testing:
| GPU | CP 2077 AVG FPS | CP 2077 99th % FPS |
|---|---|---|
| RTX 4060 | 77 | 60 |
| RX 6800 | 109 | 82 |
| RX 7800 XT | 140 | 102 |
As we can see from these results, the RX 6800 and the 7800 XT are leaps and bounds ahead of the RTX 4060. Though the actual PS5 Pro chip will not be a full-sized dedicated GPU chip, it’ll likely be more miniaturized and optimized for power consumption, it should still be able to stack up against a desktop 4060.
Where the PS5 Pro chip loses in power delivery optimizations, it’ll gain more from the fact that games are optimized for that specific hardware. Of course, this is just one game, but it serves as a snippet of what we can expect out of the PS5 Pro when it launches.
Sony also boasts that the Advanced Ray Tracing that has been incorporated can “at times” cast rays at triple the speeds of the current PS5. Not to mention the introduction of PSSR, Sony’s AI-driven upscaler.
Console hardware is more optimized
Because of the limited hardware on consoles, developers can optimize games to work on the hardware incorporated in the PS5 Pro, resulting in better performance. This cannot be said for PC gamers, as there are so many hardware combinations out there, that developers cannot optimize games for every combination out there, so they take a more general approach.
A well-optimized game can make all the difference, probably why PC ports have been so bad lately, it’s just easier to optimize for the consoles and appease that market. But that’s a discussion for another article.
How will the GPU be kept cool?
The standard PS5 has one chonky single barrel fan design that routes air over the components, as there is no confirmed change on the design of the PS5 Pro cooling-wise, we can assume that this will be the setup in place. The RTX 4060 also has single fan cards, but that fan is designed to cool just the GPU, and it doesn’t have to worry about cooling an entire system.
From this, it can be assumed that the GPU in the PS5 Pro may be tuned down slightly, as the TDP for a standard 4060 is 115W, whereas the entire TDP for the PS5 was 180W. It’s unlikely that the rest of the PS5 Pro (if the TDP is similar) will be powered on just 65W.
