Digital Foundry recently put the PlayStation 5 Pro through its paces in terms of power consumption, uncovering some unexpected insights. In a detailed discussion on YouTube, hosts Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Oliver Mackenzie revealed that the PS5 Pro doesn’t use much more power than the original PS5, even though it’s equipped with a significantly beefier GPU.
The team at Digital Foundry conducted their tests using the PS5 Pro with games like Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2, and F1 24. They compared the Pro’s performance with the launch model PS5 and its updated version, the PS5 Slim. Notably, the Pro ran versions of these games exclusive to its capabilities, boosting graphical performance.
In their video breakdown, Elden Ring showed the PS5 Pro drawing about the same power as the Slim version. One instance detailed the Pro using 214.1 watts, while the Slim used 216.2 watts, and the original PS5 used 201.3 watts. Despite the similarity in power draw, the Pro managed higher frame rates, hitting 52 frames per second. Meanwhile, the PS5 Slim and the original model delivered 40 FPS and 37 FPS, respectively. It’s key to note the slight performance difference between the Slim and the launch models is based on a snapshot from Digital Foundry’s test; both consoles are generally identical in performance. Essentially, the Pro juggled its power usage efficiently, offering a 30% improvement in frame rates over the Slim without drawing extra energy.
Switching gears to Spider-Man 2, the situation was a bit different due to the game’s frame rate cap at 60 FPS on all consoles. Here, the PS5 Pro used the most power at 232 watts, slightly more than the Slim’s 218.2 watts and the launch model’s 208.1 watts. While the Pro did guzzle about 6% more power than the Slim and 11% more than the launch version in this game, it maintained impressive performance. Although specific data for F1 24 wasn’t compared here, it’s noted that the Pro hummed along at approximately 235 watts, maintaining a steady 60 FPS.
It’s also worth mentioning that the disparity between the launch model and the Slim isn’t trivial. Power consumption varies depending on the silicon’s quality inside each console, which could explain why the Slim appeared to lag behind its predecessor. Different quality silicon in consoles can handle CPU clock speeds at various voltage levels, affecting power draw.
Overall, the findings by Digital Foundry reveal that the PS5 Pro hits nearly the same power targets as the base PS5 models, regardless of its substantially more robust GPU. This was a revelation for the team, who initially suspected the Pro might require up to 300 watts.
Under the hood, the PS5 Pro boasts an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a 16.7 TFLOP RDNA-based GPU, coupled with 576 GB/s of memory bandwidth. While the original PS5 models have the same CPU—albeit possibly with different clock speeds—they feature a less powerful 10.28 TFLOP RDNA-based GPU, with 448 GB/s memory bandwidth.
