Last-minute PS5 Pro leaks indicate system will pack 16.7 TFLOPS GPU with 16GB dedicated GDDR6 VRAM — plus 2GB DDR5 system RAM

News
By
published

A video teardown seems to have escaped embargo, too.

PlayStation 5 Pro 30th Anniversary
(Image credit: Sony)

The launch of Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro is imminent, set to arrive in four days (on November 7) to the tune of $699 USD. At this price point, Sony is promising massively improved resolution and framerate through the use of AI upscaling with PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), and a souped-up CPU and GPU compared to the base PlayStation 5 released back in November 2020. Considering the absence of a similar upgrade from Microsoft's Xbox brand, it seems the high-end console gaming throne has truly been ceded to Sony — and an apparent teardown of the new strongest console appeared on YouTube just last night.

PS5 PRO POR DENTRO 👊😃 | PS5 PRO teardown - YouTube PS5 PRO POR DENTRO 👊😃 | PS5 PRO teardown - YouTube
Watch On

The video teardown of the PlayStation 5 Pro ahead of its street release date seems to be from a Portuguese console repair shop, with the process revealing an internal layout quite similar to the PlayStation 5 Slim model. Other sources have noted that these similarities would make PlayStation 5 Slim faceplates compatible with the Pro were the interlocking mechanisms not seemingly changed specifically to prevent that functionality, so this teardown also seems legitimate.

Aside from some noted similarities to the PS5 Pro, there isn't too much else immediately notable about this PlayStation 5 teardown unless you specifically wish to see the internals. You can't exactly gauge the way these internals will perform based on a teardown, though, since you'll just be left looking at circuit boards instead of numbers that could establish some expectations. For those, we'll be looking to a Twitter post that's also been drawing lots of press attention this week.

This supposed PlayStation 5 Pro specifications leak was posted yesterday afternoon on Twitter by user @videotechuk_, previously known for posting Rockstar Games leaks. This leak mostly includes information we already knew or expected, including that PlayStation 5 Pro will still be using the same Zen 2 architecture that its immediate PlayStation 5 predecessor is using. Sticking with Zen 2 is likely a conscious choice for strict compatibility with the base PlayStation 5, though some prior reports have mentioned the PS5 Pro could potentially support boosted clocks compared to the base.

What sticks out most about this purported specifications leak is that the PS5 Pro GPU is now slated to perform at an expected 16.7 teraflops and have a full 16GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM, not having to share it with CPU like on base PlayStation 5 models. Rumors also indicate the PlayStation 5 Pro will have 2GB of DDR5 RAM dedicated system memory. This marks quite a departure from previous PS5 models with unified memory.

Four years on from the original November 2020 release date of PlayStation 5, it's clear that gamers are more eager than ever to get their hands on the new PlayStation Pro console, even though it's Sony's second mid-generation "Pro" upgrade. If Xbox won't be doing it and you are unwilling to engage with PC gaming, the PlayStation 5 Pro still makes sense, and early benchmarking of its improvements in PSSR image quality and support for real-time ray tracing graphics look promising.

Christopher Harper
Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dimar
    Does it support Dolby Vision for UHD discs?
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    make PlayStation 5 Slim faceplates compatible with the Pro were the interlocking mechanisms not seemingly changed specifically to prevent that functionality

    still waiting for someone to figure out an adapter frame to connect to new console ,but other side offsets the clips to match original.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    16.7 TFLOPS GPU power with its own dedicated VRAM would put it in the area of an RX 7600 (14.09-21.75 TFLOPS, 1720-2655 clock speed), and well over a 50% increase from the PS5's 10.6 TFLOPS.

    Well, for $700...
    Reply
  • FunSurfer
    Ahm... Nvidia... 16GB VRAM cards in the 5000 series please...
    Reply
  • sdedalus83
    The DDR5 is likely reserved for the SSD, like the 512GB DDR4 on the PS5. SSDs often have 1GB of RAM per 1TB of capacity. It would make no sense to use a single 2GB DRAM package as system memory. Bandwidth would be pathetic and the capacity is entirely inadequate. Microsoft is constantly dealing with the self-inflicted headache of having 2GB of system memory with only 56GB/s of bandwidth on the Series S. Sony’s software and development platform are built around unified memory for the CPU and GPU. The only reason MS uses separate pools on the Xbox is that the software and dev tools are based on Windows and DirectX, where games and the associated OS processes assume separate pools connected across a slow bus. They attempt to reduce duplication and latency with DirectStorage but it’s not enough to keep the crippled S from delaying games and potentially forcing a replacement sooner than MS would like.
    Reply
  • heffeque
    Correction: it's not a Portuguese console repair shop, it's Brazilian.
    Reply
  • Pierce2623
    You should REALLY change the title to say 18GB system memory with 2GB reserved for the OS. A PS5 doesn’t have any dedicated VRAM at all, regardless of the fact that the system memory is GDDR6.
    Reply
  • dipique
    Pierce2623 said:
    You should REALLY change the title to say 18GB system memory with 2GB reserved for the OS. A PS5 doesn’t have any dedicated VRAM at all, regardless of the fact that the system memory is GDDR6.
    That’s nothing. According to this article, the CPU literally has no access to any RAM except for OS functions. I get the feeling that the author doesn’t really know how these things work…
    Reply
  • mo_osk
    Admin said:
    GPU is now slated to perform at an expected 16.7 teraflops and have a full 16GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM

    So the CPU has no ram at all? This article doesn't make any sense. Is someone proof reading this?
    Reply
  • fatpunk
    $850 USD (PS5 Pro + disc drive + stand) for only 16 TF? What a scam ! "Especially since only barely 5% of the games will be optimized for this console, the predicted flop is confirmed. Truly the worst PlayStation generation!"
    Reply