PS5 Pro VS PC

[Citizen Cook]

I was wondering how the recently announced PlayStation 5 Professional stacks up against an equivalent gaming PC. Particularly the GPU.
I have an Nvidia 3080 Ti and I think the Pro might have it whooped. What do you guys think?

The PS5 Pro specs:

GPU: RDNA 2 60 compute units, 3840SMs.
Upscaling: PSSR (said to be better than FSR, worse than DLSS)
Ray Tracing hardware that Mark Cerny claims hasn’t been released in any of AMD’s current graphics cards.
CPU: AMD 8-core Zen 2 16 threads, 3.5GHz
RAM: 16GB GDDR6 560GB/s memory bandwidth
Storage: 2 TB NVME 5.5GB/s read
Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 7
Ports: Two USB-C ports on the front, two USB-A ports on the rear, HDMI 2.1 output, and Ethernet
Price: $699

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Originally posted by _I_:

i guess you dont understand what dynamically means?

on the fly scaling, when fps is low, it will lower res to help boost its performance
and the entire frame is not rendered at the same res, foreground/hud elements can be native 4k, but the scene may be 720p, or some models inbetween, not the entire frame is drawn at 4k, but parts are upscaled and overlayed on each other to make each 4k frame

I understand dynamic scaling just fine. However console developers have been designing their games to run consistent very low resolutions and relying on FSR to upscale to 4K. Not now and then when the frame rate dips, but for the entire game. That’s upscale abuse. DF have reported on the problem this entire generation.

Because the GPU performance to run 4K, high enough frame rate (60 FPS as you're requesting), and at the quality levels consumers demand simply isn't there. At least not at a price point you can put into a console, but arguably it's not there at all. Even if consoles don't do what is "ultra" equivalent on PC, that's silly anyway because ultra is diminished returns quality for a lot more performance.

We like to blame developers, we like to blame the publishers who set deadlines, we like to blame shareholders they are beholden to, and yes, most of those deserve some blame, but there's one other group that shoulders some of this responsibility, and it is us, the consumers. They're making games with better visuals because consumers demand it and because it sells. We've been more and more getting into territory where visuals are increasing at a diminished return rate, and to make it worse, this is coinciding with a time where GPUs are slowing in progress (especially per cost).

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have what is fundamentally a lower clocked RX 6700 non-XT (I've even heard some say a 6650 XT is a bit closer, despite the specifications more matching a 6700). It is RDNA2-based (RX 6000 series) and has 36 CUs (compute units) and 10.3 TFlops of performance (not the best metric, but people use these a lot when "one numbering" console potential especially).

The PlayStation 5 Pro GPU is a bit unknown. I've heard people mention it could be anywhere between a 7700 XT and 7800 XT, but with better ray tracing on top. It might be clocked lower so where it falls in that range is up to speculation. This isn't exactly a small jump, but it's not massive in all regards either. It's more skewed towards better ray-tracing. That better ray tracing has been quoted to be two to three times (or up to four times) faster. In just ray tracing, something like a 7800 XT would be about up to three-ish times faster than a 6700 non-XT using theoretical/AMD claims. Not all of the time spent rendering will be ray-traced stuff though, so don't expect a speedup this large overall. It is suspected to be a hybrid "RDNA3.5" sort of ordeal (RX 7000 is RDNA3 and the unreleased RX 8000 will be RDNA4). The CU count is up to 70 (from 36) and it now has ~32 TFlops (from 10.2), but RDNA3+ can "dual issue" for some instructions which gets this effective number, so maybe you could say it's anywhere between half of that (~16 TFlops) and that. This is why the CU increase is large but the overall increase has been quoted as closer to a third or so.

If you're more familiar with nVidia numbers, the 7800 XT is a bit faster than the RTX 4070 in rasterization, and a bit slower in ray tracing (The RTX 3080 would be a closer match in rasterization). Keep in mind that most of nVidia's better ray tracing shows up in titles that heavily use ray tracing/path tracing (think Cyberpunk 2077, or the "tech demos" like Portal RTX/Minecraft Bedrock). While more and more games use ray tracing now, few are to heavy extents like that. The 7700 XT is a bit slower, closer to the RTX 3070 Ti I think. The current PlayStation 5 is around an RTX 2070 Super or so, so it's going from that to anywhere between an RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 4070/3080. So the PlayStation 5 might be somewhere in that window in "theoretical hardware potential", but yeah, remember none of this is 1:1.

[Obsessive Power]

One of the main reasons for these mid gen refresh consoles is image quality improvements. For example, the PS4 Pro came about because of the increased uptake in 4K TV's.

Console only gamers aren't all tech heads like us. They go with buzz words like 4K, UHD, HDR and the like. PS4 Pro improved image quality in games that were 'PS4 Pro Enhanced', the same will be true with PS5 Pro. With the Pro, it seems to be more about PSSR than increased resolutions. It also has better Ray Tracing.

Unless a game is GPU limited on the PS5, the Pro isn't suddenly going to push the framerates up to 60fps and beyond. It looks like this is all about the GPU as the CPU is only slightly faster.

Just looking at some the latest games on the PlayStation 5 and Series X using FSR, the image quality in some of the latest titles isn't great. FSR is no where near as good as DLSS at upscaling lower resolutions. Lots of flickering and artifacts. PSSR seems to be capable of much better, just not quite as good as DLSS though. Then again, DLSS wasn't that great when it first came out either. PSSR has time to improve too.

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

I understand dynamic scaling just fine. However console developers have been designing their games to run consistent very low resolutions and relying on FSR to upscale to 4K. Not now and then when the frame rate dips, but for the entire game. That’s upscale abuse. DF have reported on the problem this entire generation.

Because the GPU performance to run 4K, high enough frame rate (60 FPS as you're requesting), and at the quality levels consumers demand simply isn't there. At least not at a price point you can put into a console, but arguably it's not there at all. Even if consoles don't do what is "ultra" equivalent on PC, that's silly anyway because ultra is diminished returns quality for a lot more performance.

We like to blame developers, we like to blame the publishers who set deadlines, we like to blame shareholders they are beholden to, and yes, most of those deserve some blame, but there's one other group that shoulders some of this responsibility, and it is us, the consumers. They're making games with better visuals because consumers demand it and because it sells. We've been more and more getting into territory where visuals are increasing at a diminished return rate, and to make it worse, this is coinciding with a time where GPUs are slowing in progress (especially per cost).

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have what is fundamentally a lower clocked RX 6700 non-XT (I've even heard some say a 6650 XT is a bit closer, despite the specifications more matching a 6700). It is RDNA2-based (RX 6000 series) and has 36 CUs (compute units) and 10.3 TFlops of performance (not the best metric, but people use these a lot when "one numbering" console potential especially).

The PlayStation 5 Pro GPU is a bit unknown. I've heard people mention it could be anywhere between a 7700 XT and 7800 XT, but with better ray tracing on top. It might be clocked lower so where it falls in that range is up to speculation. This isn't exactly a small jump, but it's not massive in all regards either. It's more skewed towards better ray-tracing. That better ray tracing has been quoted to be two to three times (or up to four times) faster. In just ray tracing, something like a 7800 XT would be about up to three-ish times faster than a 6700 non-XT using theoretical/AMD claims. Not all of the time spent rendering will be ray-traced stuff though, so don't expect a speedup this large overall. It is suspected to be a hybrid "RDNA3.5" sort of ordeal (RX 7000 is RDNA3 and the unreleased RX 8000 will be RDNA4). The CU count is up to 70 (from 36) and it now has ~32 TFlops (from 10.2), but RDNA3+ can "dual issue" for some instructions which gets this effective number, so maybe you could say it's anywhere between half of that (~16 TFlops) and that. This is why the CU increase is large but the overall increase has been quoted as closer to a third or so.

If you're more familiar with nVidia numbers, the 7800 XT is a bit faster than the RTX 4070 in rasterization, and a bit slower in ray tracing (The RTX 3080 would be a closer match in rasterization). Keep in mind that most of nVidia's better ray tracing shows up in titles that heavily use ray tracing/path tracing (think Cyberpunk 2077, or the "tech demos" like Portal RTX/Minecraft Bedrock). While more and more games use ray tracing now, few are to heavy extents like that. The 7700 XT is a bit slower, closer to the RTX 3070 Ti I think. The current PlayStation 5 is around an RTX 2070 Super or so, so it's going from that to anywhere between an RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 4070/3080. So the PlayStation 5 might be somewhere in that window in "theoretical hardware potential", but yeah, remember none of this is 1:1.

Here’s the thing, PS4 games like RDR2 do run at 4K/60 on the base PS5.
The developers reach are exceeding their grasp. They are building games that are too ambitious for the hardware.

You say that we the consumers demand better looking games but everything I read constantly tells me otherwise. Most gamers are demanding better performance these days and are quite happy with PS4 looking games running at 4K/60. They consider the graphical improvements this gen quite minimal.

Mark Cery said 75% of PS5 gamers are choosing performance mode over fidelity mode.

[C1REX]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

You say that we the consumers demand better looking games but everything I read constantly tells me otherwise. Most gamers are demanding better performance these days and are quite happy with PS4 looking games running at 4K/60.

I'm not so sure.
Some of the biggest games recently were Hogwarts, Black Myth Wukong, Dragons's Dogma 2, Resident Evil Village, Starfield, Baldurs Gate 3. All very good looking.

When the games like Elden Ring, Cyberpunk and RDR2 came out people were crying how badly optimised they were but people were buying them in millions of copies anyway. Only few years and few GPU generations later people are now saying how well optimised and good looking the games are.

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Here’s the thing, PS4 games like RDR2 do run at 4K/60 on the base PS5.
The developers reach are exceeding their grasp. They are building games that are too ambitious for the hardware.

You say that we the consumers demand better looking games but everything I read constantly tells me otherwise. Most gamers are demanding better performance these days and are quite happy with PS4 looking games running at 4K/60. They consider the graphical improvements this gen quite minimal.

Mark Cery said 75% of PS5 gamers are choosing performance mode over fidelity mode.

My statement that we are demanding better visuals was indeed generalized, but it's not wrong. That's not to say everyone prioritizes it to the same extent, but there's enough "X game came out Y years ago and looks almost as good as today's 2024 game, what gives" to demonstrate that some people don't think game visuals are increasing at a satisfying rate. We were seeing this in the mid-2010s with comparisons to Crysis, and we're seeing it in the early to mid-2020s with whatever good looking mid-2010s game is the comparison point. Point is, the best of yesterday and the average of today aren't always worlds apart in visuals like they used to be across generational leaps in the long past.

I've noticed over the last five to ten years that players' expectations have gone way up. Namely, the expectations of frame rate and resolution are much higher. For the first, CPUs have gotten faster to supply higher frame rates... most of the time. But the demanding moments are still demanding, so now you see whining about stutter. "My 120 FPS drops to 80 FPS and it's distracting/unplayable" or "I'm only getting 140 FPS or 200 FPS", and I kid you not, that second one happens more often that you'd think. Stutter is caused by variance in frame times. You need to stabilize those, which often means setting a frame rate cap not too high above your minimum frame rate, but most people have too much pride for that. And GPUs (remember, we're talking about the ones in the consoles and ones available to the masses, not whatever nVidia can create for four figures) haven't gotten faster enough to allow for the combination of increased visuals and resolution. Your own example supports this; a last generation game needs its successor console for 4K/60 FPS (and I'm finding people saying it doesn't quite maintain this even then?).

Saying people complain about performance doesn't mean they're not also demanding better visuals. Those aren't mutually exclusive things; both can be true. They both take from the same "performance budget" though, which is the problem. With consoles giving the choice of performance or visuals though, players are free to choose.

The above post is another good example of something I find funny. Today's "unoptimized" games often become tomorrow's "we used to do this" examples of optimization. Most of those examples of optimization weren't considered such in their time. People just have short memories.

Edit: And just to be clear, I somewhat agree with you where you say "they are building games that are too ambitious for the hardware", but I'm just saying that players' expectations are a big driving force in why.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

It takes PC specs equivalent to or better then PS5-PRO to run most modern games well enough like RDR2 , BG3, and Wukong

Especially with Wukong if you have lower then RTX 3080 for 1440p, forget it.

[r.linder]

Console and PC are not a perfect 1:1 comparison and console is built for lower performance than what the 3080 Ti is actually capable of.

[KillerAtWar]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

I was wondering how the recently announced PlayStation 5 Professional stacks up against an equivalent gaming PC. Particularly the GPU.
I have an Nvidia 3080 Ti and I think the Pro might have it whooped. What do you guys think?

The PS5 Pro specs:

GPU: RDNA 2 60 compute units, 3840SMs.
Upscaling: PSSR (said to be better than FSR, worse than DLSS)
Ray Tracing hardware that Mark Cerny claims hasn’t been released in any of AMD’s current graphics cards.
CPU: AMD 8-core Zen 2 16 threads, 3.5GHz
RAM: 16GB GDDR6 560GB/s memory bandwidth
Storage: 2 TB NVME 5.5GB/s read
Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 7
Ports: Two USB-C ports on the front, two USB-A ports on the rear, HDMI 2.1 output, and Ethernet
Price: $699

I wouldn`t say worse than DLSS as a RTX3070 laptop user DLSS is crap AMD FSR works & alot of 3K users have said for mega time DLSS is crap & I can asure u it is even on my desktop with a 3080 .I really think sony have got a good thing here for the console.

[SHREDDER]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

It takes PC specs equivalent to or better then PS5-PRO to run most modern games well enough like RDR2 , BG3, and Wukong

Especially with Wukong if you have lower then RTX 3080 for 1440p, forget it.

Now thanks to FSR if you have lower than 60 fps at max settings and you have RX 7000 RX 6000 RTX 3000 or RTX 4000 it dosent matter because if let say a game runs at 50-60 fps maxed or 40 and you have one of these cards then you enable FSR and you play at 60 fps. And now with the new amd drivers that released this week i saw some crazy results on benchmarks t read
https://community.amd.com/t5/gaming/boost-gaming-performance-by-2-5x-with-amd-software-adrenalin/ba-p/711458
On a greek gaming site that iam member someone said yesterday who also has a 6700xt like mine that now red dead redemption 2 runs 1440p maxed 150 fps while before it run at 90 fps!!!

That HUGE IMPROVEMENT. According to red dead redemption benchmak 7900xtx runs it 146 fps maxed without FSR and the new driver. And now we got this huge improvement just with one driver. He also said that Hogwards legacy now run maxed graphics ans max ray tracing with FSR he said it was running 60-70. And now with max graphics and max ray tracing 1440p without FSR but with the new driver it runs 120 he says!
I played at release date in february of 2023 maxed 1440p 60 fps and now i have deleted so i must redownload if i want to test it. But that some huge improvement! As for red dead redemption 2 i played it in 2020 and now i have also deleted it . But when i run the benchmark in november off 2021 when i got 6700xt(istill had it installed) it runs maxed 1440p 60 fps like all games do.

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by C1REX:

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

You say that we the consumers demand better looking games but everything I read constantly tells me otherwise. Most gamers are demanding better performance these days and are quite happy with PS4 looking games running at 4K/60.

I'm not so sure.
Some of the biggest games recently were Hogwarts, Black Myth Wukong, Dragons's Dogma 2, Resident Evil Village, Starfield, Baldurs Gate 3. All very good looking.

When the games like Elden Ring, Cyberpunk and RDR2 came out people were crying how badly optimised they were but people were buying them in millions of copies anyway. Only few years and few GPU generations later people are now saying how well optimised and good looking the games are.

I believe that those games would have sold just as well had they have good PS4 level graphics.
Games like RDR2 and Uncharted 4 on Steam look and run great.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

RDR2 looks a heck of alot better on PC when cranked up compared to PS4

Overall, the graphics is not everything if the gameplay and such is good.

Wukong uses Unreal Engine 5; so no, PS4 doesn't come close to being able to run something like that; the PS5, sure; just barely.

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Here’s the thing, PS4 games like RDR2 do run at 4K/60 on the base PS5.
The developers reach are exceeding their grasp. They are building games that are too ambitious for the hardware.

You say that we the consumers demand better looking games but everything I read constantly tells me otherwise. Most gamers are demanding better performance these days and are quite happy with PS4 looking games running at 4K/60. They consider the graphical improvements this gen quite minimal.

Mark Cery said 75% of PS5 gamers are choosing performance mode over fidelity mode.

My statement that we are demanding better visuals was indeed generalized, but it's not wrong. That's not to say everyone prioritizes it to the same extent, but there's enough "X game came out Y years ago and looks almost as good as today's 2024 game, what gives" to demonstrate that some people don't think game visuals are increasing at a satisfying rate. We were seeing this in the mid-2010s with comparisons to Crysis, and we're seeing it in the early to mid-2020s with whatever good looking mid-2010s game is the comparison point. Point is, the best of yesterday and the average of today aren't always worlds apart in visuals like they used to be across generational leaps in the long past.

I've noticed over the last five to ten years that players' expectations have gone way up. Namely, the expectations of frame rate and resolution are much higher. For the first, CPUs have gotten faster to supply higher frame rates... most of the time. But the demanding moments are still demanding, so now you see whining about stutter. "My 120 FPS drops to 80 FPS and it's distracting/unplayable" or "I'm only getting 140 FPS or 200 FPS", and I kid you not, that second one happens more often that you'd think. Stutter is caused by variance in frame times. You need to stabilize those, which often means setting a frame rate cap not too high above your minimum frame rate, but most people have too much pride for that. And GPUs (remember, we're talking about the ones in the consoles and ones available to the masses, not whatever nVidia can create for four figures) haven't gotten faster enough to allow for the combination of increased visuals and resolution. Your own example supports this; a last generation game needs its successor console for 4K/60 FPS (and I'm finding people saying it doesn't quite maintain this even then?).

Saying people complain about performance doesn't mean they're not also demanding better visuals. Those aren't mutually exclusive things; both can be true. They both take from the same "performance budget" though, which is the problem. With consoles giving the choice of performance or visuals though, players are free to choose.

The above post is another good example of something I find funny. Today's "unoptimized" games often become tomorrow's "we used to do this" examples of optimization. Most of those examples of optimization weren't considered such in their time. People just have short memories.

Edit: And just to be clear, I somewhat agree with you where you say "they are building games that are too ambitious for the hardware", but I'm just saying that players' expectations are a big driving force in why.

I think a much of those people’s complaints are simply dissatisfaction not with way the games look but with resentment for having to buy new hardware for such meagre visual gains. If the industry were still making PS4 level games and having them run on older hardware at 4K/60 or 1440/120 very few would be complaining.

We are at the point of diminishing returns and more and more people are slowly waking up to that fact and the PS5 has been a big wake-up call for them in console world.
If people don’t care about Ray tracing (many do not) they can keep their current hardware for many years to come thanks to upscalers.

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

RDR2 looks a heck of alot better on PC when cranked up compared to PS4

Overall, the graphics is not everything if the gameplay and such is good.

Wukong uses Unreal Engine 5; so no, PS4 doesn't come close to being able to run something like that; the PS5, sure; just barely.

That’s why I’ve been arguing that developers should be limiting their games to PS4 levels so that they can run great on PS5 tech. It would be cheaper for them, increase profits, and please gamers with rock solid gameplay.
Instead they do what they always do, push the tech too far and cripple the experience with 30fps and blurry FSR upscaling.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

RDR2 looks a heck of alot better on PC when cranked up compared to PS4

Overall, the graphics is not everything if the gameplay and such is good.

Wukong uses Unreal Engine 5; so no, PS4 doesn't come close to being able to run something like that; the PS5, sure; just barely.

That’s why I’ve been arguing that developers should be limiting their games to PS4 levels so that they can run great on PS5 tech. It would be cheaper for them, increase profits, and please gamers with rock solid gameplay.
Instead they do what they always do, push the tech too far and cripple the experience with 30fps and blurry FSR upscaling.

Play this @ the 4K option and see what you think; it's playing on PS5 @ 60 FPS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zm3jM9cgFE

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

I think a much of those people’s complaints are simply dissatisfaction not with way the games look but with resentment for having to buy new hardware for such meagre visual gains. If the industry were still making PS4 level games and having them run on older hardware at 4K/60 or 1440/120 very few would be complaining.

We are at the point of diminishing returns and more and more people are slowly waking up to that fact and the PS5 has been a big wake-up call for them in console world.
If people don’t care about Ray tracing (many do not) they can keep their current hardware for many years to come thanks to upscalers.

Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily disagree with anything you said here, at least not in entirety. While you use the example of the PlayStation 5 being the final straw that broke the camel's back, things were already close to that with the PlayStation 4 though.

The industry is in... interesting times right now. Projects have gotten so massive in scope with long development times and high costs, and they need to sell record breaking numbers to justify themselves. This was already the case before this generation. The analysts are going to look at sales numbers with a detachment to what "gamers want" because what gamers want is so varied (it's subjective), but sales numbers speak volumes to them, and those will be the driving force they use to pitch project viability to shareholders.

Once a trend comes, if you start developing a massive title to try and be one of the next big things, you're probably already too late. And trying to be the trailblazer for one of those trends is something that happens so seldomly, which is why gaming companies won't take risks as often. Being a Minecraft, a League of Legends, a Fortnight, or whatever isn't something that happens often. And being one of those things you can cash in on yearly with a franchise, like Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed, probably less so. Even many of those long running franchises, and Final Fantasy comes to mind as a personal one, are husks of their former selves now. Yet, they still sell... but barely enough to justify the development of them.

At the same time, despite rising development costs and time frames, pricing has stayed the same (or even gone down), despite inflation. This is why DLC and season passes and micro-transactions have become things.

So gamers expect more, better games, with better visuals, with better performance, and at the same price. It's literally a "something has got to give" scenario. Back in the 1990s and earlier, tech jumps alone just allowed games to be so much more. Diminished returns kicked in long ago, well, well before the PlayStation 5. the PlayStation 6 will release and people will go "but we'd be fine with PlayStation 5 level graphics". Truth is, the vast majority of games don't use the latest level of visuals, so we already have plenty of that. Yet it's often these massive next generation titles that have a pretty sizable part of the public attention, so it's like we're saying one thing, but our actions are showing another.