Digital Foundry recently put the PlayStation 5 Pro to the test to evaluate its power consumption, and the findings were quite unexpected. In a YouTube discussion with Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie, they revealed that despite the PS5 Pro’s enhanced GPU, it uses nearly the same amount of power as the standard PS5.
To delve deeper, they tested the PS5 Pro with games like Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2, and F1 24. Each game was played on the original PS5, the updated PS5 Slim, and, of course, the PS5 Pro, ensuring they examined the Pro version of each game to see the improved graphics on offer.
When running Elden Ring, the PS5 Pro’s power draw was nearly on par with the PS5 Slim. In one highlighted segment, the Pro clocked in at 214.1 watts, while the Slim used 216.2 watts, and the launch model drew 201.3 watts. Despite the minimal power draw differences, the Pro delivered a much higher frame rate, hitting 52 FPS compared to the Slim’s 40 FPS and the launch model’s 37 FPS. It’s important to note that the performance variance between the Slim and launch models isn’t a big deal, as they perform similarly across broader tests. The Pro stood out by delivering roughly a 30% boost in frame rate without increasing power consumption significantly.
Spider-Man 2 presented a slightly different scenario since it’s capped at 60 FPS on every console. In this case, the Pro used 232 watts, the Slim 218.2 watts, and the launch model 208.1 watts. This means the Pro needed about 6% more power than the Slim and 11% more than the original model. Unfortunately, specific F1 24 comparisons weren’t provided, but Digital Foundry noted the PS5 Pro ran at about 235 watts, maintaining a steady 60 FPS.
Take into account the variations in power draw across models, which could be attributed to the silicon quality differences. The PS5 Slim’s performance didn’t exactly shine over the launch model because some consoles can hit their CPU clock speeds at a lower voltage, depending on the silicon quality.
In conclusion, Digital Foundry’s analysis confirmed that the PS5 Pro’s power use closely aligns with the base PS5 models, despite its more robust GPU, which was a pleasant surprise considering there were concerns it might exceed 300 watts.
Regarding specifications, the PS5 Pro is powered by an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a GPU capable of 16.7 TFLOPs, boasting memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s. Meanwhile, the typical PS5s offer the same CPU (though clock speeds may vary) and a less potent 10.28 TFLOP GPU with 448 GB/s memory bandwidth.
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