Digital Foundry recently explored just how the PlayStation 5 Pro handles power usage, and the findings were quite unexpected. In a detailed YouTube discussion with Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie chipping in, it was revealed that the PS5 Pro doesn’t consume significantly more energy than the original PS5. This comes despite the fact that the Pro model boasts a considerably more robust GPU.
Their analysis included tests with Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2, and F1 24. The team’s approach involved comparing these titles on the launch edition of the PS5, the revamped PS5 Slim, and the Pro model. Importantly, all games were run using enhanced graphical settings exclusive to the Pro edition.
In Elden Ring, the PS5 Pro’s power consumption was practically in line with the PS5 Slim. One example from their video showed the Pro at 214.1 watts, the Slim at 216.2 watts, and the original PS5 managing to use 201.3 watts. However, frame rates told a different story—52 FPS on the Pro, in contrast to 40 FPS on the Slim and 37 FPS on the original PS5. It’s worth noting that the frame rate difference between the Slim and the original PS5 models might not be significant, as this data was pulled from a single snapshot in the benchmark. Still, with the Pro’s power usage almost equal to the Slim, it delivered a 30% boost in frame rates.
When it came to Spider-Man 2, the narrative shifted a bit as all consoles ran the game capped at 60 FPS. Here, the PS5 Pro’s power consumption peaked at 232 watts, followed by the Slim at 218.2 watts and the original PS5 at 208.1 watts. For this title, the Pro drew about 6% more power than the Slim and 11% more than the launch model. While there wasn’t a direct power comparison available for F1 24, the PS5 Pro hit around 235 watts, holding a steady 60FPS in-game.
It’s important to keep in mind that the discrepancies in power between the models can be influenced by variations in silicon quality, which might explain why the Slim didn’t perform as efficiently as the original PS5. Different consoles can achieve their specified CPU clock speeds at varying voltages due to these differences.
Ultimately, Digital Foundry concluded that the PS5 Pro’s power consumption is remarkably similar to that of the standard PS5 models, despite its substantial GPU upgrade. This finding was surprising even for Digital Foundry, as it was initially assumed the Pro would consume more, perhaps over 300 watts.
The PS5 Pro packs an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a robust 16.7 TFLOP RDNA-based GPU with a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s. In comparison, the original PS5 models come with the same CPU (though subject to clock speed variations) but feature a significantly less powerful 10.28 TFLOP RDNA-based GPU, offering 448 GB/s memory bandwidth.
