PS5 Pro has improved ray tracing capabilities compared to the base model, but it may not be extremely transformative. On the other hand, the PlayStation Spectrum Super-Resolution Upscaler could make a huge difference.
Tech experts at DigitalFoundry recently reviewed three key features of the PS5 Pro in a new video, highlighting that the system's ray tracing capabilities may not be as transformative as, say, NVIDIA's Turing architecture. First, the tech demo hosted by Mark Cerny was very vague on the subject, and focused on games that already have some kind of ray tracing support, like Hogwarts Legacy and Gran Turismo 7.
Early leaks also suggest there are some minor optimizations, and that seems to be what was shown off during the tech reveal, although in Gran Turismo 7's case, adding ray tracing to the races might be a good showcase of what the system is capable of, as the ray-traced reflections the game already supports are pretty high-end. Hogwarts Legacy, on the other hand, isn't a particularly good showcase, as ray-traced reflections look grainy, suggesting they're low-resolution even on PS5 Pro. The game also runs at 30 frames per second, which is definitely not good, but understandable considering it's an open-world game.
Of the three key features of the PS5 Pro, the one that could really make a big difference is the AI-powered PlayStation Spectral Super-Resolution upconverter, especially for 4K displays, as similar upconverters like NVIDIA DLSS don't require a very high base resolution to upconvert images to higher resolutions with good image quality. This upscaler also frees up some GPU performance to do other things, including better ray tracing. Unfortunately, according to DigitalFoundry, even the PSSR wasn't properly featured in the tech demo, as Sony focuses on its first-party games, which generally have excellent image quality even in the base model's performance mode. The real test will be third-party games, as AMDFSR2 and Unreal Engine 5 games are often upscaled from very low resolutions, and their image quality is often not very good.
Even so, the PS5 Pro's AI-powered upscaler already looks transformative. This upscaler can be applied to existing games without upgrading the SDK, and it will likely require the same inputs as implementing AMDFSR2, so most games should be able to benefit from it with minimal developer investment. As GPU performance improves, allowing games that use dynamic resolution scaling to have better range, and a leaked benchmark confirms this, the PlayStation Spectrum Super Resolution Upscaler may be the system's best feature.
Considering its high price, it remains to be seen whether these optimizations will attract players who own the base model to upgrade to PS5 Pro.