PS5 Pro’s Efficiency Surprises: 30% More Performance with Similar Power Consumption as Base PS5

When Digital Foundry put the PlayStation 5 Pro to the test for power consumption, the findings were quite unexpected. As shared in a YouTube discussion by Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie, they discovered that even with a beefier GPU, the PS5 Pro doesn’t draw significantly more power than the standard PS5.

The testing covered Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2, and F1 24, each game running on the base PS5, the updated PS5 Slim, and the PS5 Pro. Interestingly, the Pro versions of these games boasted enhanced graphics, yet the power consumption remained surprisingly close to its counterparts.

During Elden Ring tests, the Pro consumed 214.1 watts, the Slim 216.2 watts, and the original model 201.3 watts. Despite this marginal difference, the Pro delivered a 30% boost in frame rates, hitting 52 FPS compared to 40 FPS on the Slim and 37 FPS on the launch model. Keep in mind that the difference between the Slim and the launch models isn’t that significant considering they’re basically the same in terms of hardware performance.

Spider-Man 2, however, had a twist. Locked at 60 FPS across all models, the Pro drew the most power at 232 watts, followed by the Slim at 218.2 watts, and the launch version at 208.1 watts. This means the Pro used about 6% more energy than the Slim and 11% more than the original. Although F1 24 wasn’t directly compared, the Pro consistently clocked in around 235 watts at 60 FPS.

It’s critical to note that discrepancies in power use among the models can arise due to variations in silicon quality, explaining why the Slim sometimes lags behind the older model. Not all consoles are created equal; some can hit top CPU speeds with less power.

Digital Foundry’s evaluation revealed that, courtesy of its robust 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a 16.7 TFLOP RDNA-based GPU paired with 576 GB/s of memory bandwidth, the PS5 Pro doesn’t exceed the power consumption of earlier models by much. Initially, they speculated the Pro might need over 300 watts for its powerful hardware.

In contrast, the original PS5 models are equipped with a less potent 10.28 TFLOP GPU and 448 GB/s of memory bandwidth—even though they share the same CPU, the clock speeds might vary slightly among units. All in all, the findings suggest that the PS5 Pro delivers more bang for your watt without sipping much more energy than its less powerful siblings.