Sony PS5 Pro vs PS4 Pro: How do the two Pro consoles compare?

Sony has announced the PS5 Pro, almost four years after the reveal of the original PS5 console promising gamers great frame rates without compromising resolution and vice versa.

Sony has previous for this mid-generation hardware boost. Back in 2016, Sony announced a PS4 Pro to build on 2013’s PS4. That also brought a big upgrade to proceedings, offering 4K HDR gaming on a PlayStation console for the first time and set the table for that to be a native, expected experience on PS5.

If you bought a PS4 Pro, you probably own the PS5 because the former was designed for folks who want the most premium console gaming experiences. However, if you stuck with the PS4 Pro in the knowledge that few games have been truly exclusive to the newer hardware, now is definitely the time to jump on that upgrade and enjoy the best games this generation has to offer with the best possible performance.

PS4 Pro was about 4K, PS5 Pro removes PS5 compromises

Ideologically, the PS4 Pro was probably a bigger step up on the PS4 than the PS5 Pro is on the PS5.

The arrival of 4K HDR gaming on the PS4 Pro felt like a leap into the future, even though it was mostly powered by upscaling technology rather than offering a truly native 2160p experience.

It still doubled the resolution from 1080p on the PS4 and added high dynamic range, while improving frame rates on the original in some circumstances. At 4K resolution, it wasn’t quite powerful enough to push the all important frame rates that provide a smooth experience even at 30fps, let alone the 60fps you’ll be able to get at top resolutions on PS5 Pro.

And lets get one thing clear, the PS4 Pro didn’t do anything as well as the PS5.

In the PS5 era, native 4K HDR gaming is now standard while new lighting and shading features like ray tracing have added untold realism. However, gamers still had to pick whether to prioritise the best resolution or the highest frame rates with Fidelity Mode or Performance Mode.

In the case of the PS5 Pro, Sony says they’ll no longer have to make this compromise. So this console is less about pushing a new standard and more about making the best of the existing ones… at the same time.

It’ll be like combining the PS5’s Performance Mode with 60 frames per second, while enjoying the best possible resolution of the Fidelity Mode.

PS5 Pro can count on PC-like upscaling

Artificial intelligence was a twinkle in the eye of tech’s biggest minds back in 2016 when the PS4 Pro arrived, but since then it has been used by gaming manufacturers to give it a helping hand with graphical performance and upscaling imagery through pixel-by-pixel analysis. That’s the case with the new PS5 Pro.

Sony officially announced the new PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) technology, which is its interpretation of Nvidia’s DLSS technology and AMD’s FSR upscaling technology for PC gamers. Sony says that existing games can be retrofitted with the tech and new games will carry the standard with a PS5 Enhanced label.

PS4 Pro games also carried their own Enhanced Label for games like God of War or Marvel’s Spider-Man.

PS5 Pro is less of a design shift

While the PS4 Pro looked like you’d stuck another deck atop the PS4, the PS5 Pro has managed to maintain pretty much the same size as the existing PS5 while boosting hardware like the GPU and relying a little more on AI to do some heavy lifting to upscale imagery.

PS5 Pro is a tougher ask, price wise

The most startling element of the PS5 Pro is the price. It doesn’t have a disc drive as standard (one can be added for an additional cost) and still costs £699.99 / $699.99.

The PS4 Pro, which introduced 4K HDR gaming to PlayStation gamers for the first time and was arguably a larger leap forward than PS5 to PS5 Pro cost £349.99 / $399 when it arrived in 2016. In the UK, the price of going Pro has now doubled. The PS4 Pro had a disc drive too!