The next upgrade in console performance has been shown off by Sony. The PS5 Pro has been shown off with improved specs and capabilities, although the price might sway a lot of buyers. But how much has it actually changed? We take a look at how much that has affected the performance and if the PS5 Pro GPU holds up against the RTX 3080.
With the November 2024 launch date of the console, it comes over four years since the release of Nvidia’s popular graphics card. However, it’s not just the years apart that bring some difference considering the PlayStation is based on an AMD processor, which gives it a fundamental difference to the discrete graphics card. With that in mind, with the help of the PS5 Pro technical presentation, let’s see if we can compare the two using the information we have so far.
How do they differ?
The core comparison starts with how the setup of each of the graphics processors differs. Starting off with the 3080, we know it’s based on the Ampere architecture with 8,704 CUDA cores and 68 SMs on board. As for the memory onboard, it has 10GB of GDDR6X that has an overall bandwidth of around 760 GB/s. A rather strong and fast card that made it a force to be reckoned with.
As for the PS5 Pro GPU, we haven’t got all the information but rather the improvements over the original. With a supposed 67% more compute units and 28% faster memory, there is quite a change. As the initial RDNA 2 Oberon processor had 2,304 Streaming processors, 36 CUs, and a 448GB/s memory bandwidth, we can get an idea of what that will look like in the next console. That roughly calculates to 3,840 SPs, 60CUs, and 570GB/s memory.
All in all the larger GPU means a likely new one that has not been named or fully shown off yet. But these specs would put it on par with the RX 6800 in the same family. However, there have been talks that Sony might upgrade to something newer from AMD with an RDNA 3 chip instead. Making it more like the RX 7800 XT instead, but since it is a console chip it won’t be on par with the performance, but gives us a good potential look at what it can do.
Potential performance
Consoles work and behave differently from gaming PCs, with different optimizations and targets, it’s not going to be a one-to-one comparison. But we can look at the GPUs it will be comparable to see how they may compare. As we look at our GPU tests from previous reviews and benchmarks of them. In this case, we can see the kind of framerates the RTX 3080 gets vs the RX 7800 XT the PS5 Pro is potentially equivalent to.
| GPU | Doom Eternal 4k average fps |
|---|---|
| RTX 3080 | 146 |
| RX 7800 XT | 153 |
With that, we see that they aren’t too far apart when it comes to just Doom Eternal 4k, but it’s the limited overlap in recorded benchmarks for the two. But with the generational improvement of RDNA 3 it is feasible for the newer GPU to beat out the Nvidia one instead.
Even with the raw performance outclassing the desktop GPU, it will have the ability to get something more out of it with the boosts its software can do. That includes using PSSR vs DLSS, which is capable of upscaling and boosting the framerate of the games even at 4k which the Pro promises to achieve. That is also the case for the ray tracing performance as Sony aims for high fidelity and framerate instead of many opting for performance mode on the PS5.
As it would hope to achieve a stable 60FPS with ray tracing and high-quality visuals, moving away from having to choose from that, it should give you the best of both. Something that the RTX 3080 review shows is capable of already in our tests. Leading us to believe the Pro should be on par with the 3080.
Final word
Overall, the PS5 Pro vs PS5 should be a good improvement in the quality and framerate of performance. If it brings the expected specs it’s quite likely going to match the 3080s capabilities. With the exclusives on board as well, it might make a compelling choice, but the price might be quite the detriment.
