Sony has finally confirmed and announced the PS5 Pro that will be released on November 7th. With that in mind, it also talked about what kind of improvements this new version of the console will actually bring compared to the original device. Unfortunately, it’s not very specific on the specs and just gives us a general overview of what kind of boost the hardware is getting, you can see the whole technical presentation to find out more about the reveal.
On the other hand, the RTX 4090 is Nvidia’s flagship graphics card at the moment, before the release of the RTX 50 series. With the power of the Ada architecture, has plenty of power behind it, with nothing being able to reach up against it, not even AMD’s top GPUs. So it’s highly unlikely a console will match up to it in any capacity, but we see if it can catch up in any capacity with what we know so far.
Spec comparison
Starting off by comparing the specs of the two GPUs, we can see what kind of differences there are from that. Be aware it’s not going to be a direct one-to-one comparison, as the PS5 is based on AMD RDNA 2 architecture, a generation behind and with a completely different setup from Nvidia’s own hardware. It also is a console processor which is going to be different from a discrete card’s performance.
In the announcement, Sony boasted of a larger graphics chip in the Pro version of the console. With a boost of 67% in the compute units inside, if the TechPowerUp information is correct for the initial specs, the CU number would increase from 36 to 60. That will also see the same effect on the stream processors increasing up to 3,840. There is also a possibility that the PS5 Pro upgrading to the RDNA 3 architecture from RDNA 2 would boost its potential with that, but that is not yet confirmed and came from a previous leak.
On the other hand, the RTX 4090 has 16,384 CUDA cores and 128 SMs. Even though they’re not a one-to-one comparison to AMD’s shading units or CUs, it’s quite the vast difference and quite a lot more powerful. Especially as Nvidia is known for its rasterization performance and the ray-tracing capabilities of its cards. Looking at 4090 reviews it is easy to see what it is capable of.
Performance expectations
With that kind of specifications on the original PS5, the Oberon chip had the same sort of specs as the RX 6700. With the increase in specs that puts it on par with the RX 6800, however, if it is an RDNA 3 chip now, it would make it the same specs as the RX 7800 XT.
But as a console, the optimization and performance are vastly different to a gaming PC. As the PS5 aims for 4K performance, it jumps between quality and performance settings, targeting either better-looking graphics but a lower FPS, or something lower-looking but much higher FPS – up to 120.
Now the PS5 Pro is targeting 60 FPS with the higher fidelity options. Likely also helped via the new PSSR upscaling that can boost what it can achieve especially in games optimized for it specifically.
| GPU | Cyberpunk 2077 4k average fps |
|---|---|
| RTX 4090 | 74 |
| RX 6800 | 28 |
| RX 7800 XT | 39 |
In comparison, our GPU tests give us a quick comparison of the kind of performance you can expect from the GPUs mentioned. Tested for our reviews in Cyberpunk 2077, the RX 7800 XT does fall behind the 4090 by around 35FPS, nearly half as much. Unless of course, the PS5 Pro opts for the older RDNA 2, then it could fall even 10 lower. However, we can expect the optimizations and settings to push it higher to make it playable on the console.
Even then the quality compared to the 4090 is going to take a beating, so it can be outplayed by the discrete Nvidia GPU. It’s not really a surprise considering the one PC component is almost the size of the whole console. At least Sony is looking to improve the ray tracing as well on the Pro, so the graphics and performance should both look to improve in general for a better feel overall.
Final word
Overall, the PS5 Pro vs PS5 is quite an improvement. But it’s highly unlikely to match the full power of the RTX 4090 GPU. It might be a hint that this is the case as the $700 price tag is less than half of what the GPU MSRP is, but at least you get a whole machine for it and not just one piece of the whole.
