In-Depth Look at PlayStation 5 Pro Specs and ‘FLOPflation’ Myth Dispelled by Mark Cerny, PS5 System Architect

Yesterday, PlayStation shared a video featuring Mark Cerny at Sony Interactive Entertainment’s headquarters, where he led a technical seminar on the PS5 Pro. Cerny, the system architect, offered an in-depth look at the new hardware for the PS5 Pro, while also addressing some misconceptions circulating about the console. He took a moment to dispel what he called “FLOPflation,” referring to a mistakenly leaked figure of 33.5 TFLOPs that arose from a misunderstanding by a leaker incorrectly assuming a full adoption of RDNA 3-inspired architecture.

In truth, the PS5 Pro actually delivers 16.7 TFLOPs, an increase from the PS5’s 10 TFLOPs. Notably, one of the accurate bits of information that emerged before the official release highlighted that the PS5 Pro could reach 300 TOPS with 8-bit calculations. For 16-bit calculations, the performance hits 67 TFLOPS. Cerny pointed out that despite using several RDNA 3 features, the PS5 Pro’s architecture—Sony’s customized AMD RDNA 2—preserves much of its original structure. This design choice ensures that developers won’t have to rewrite their code to run on the new hardware.

Cerny went on to detail the enhanced Ray Acceleration structure of the PS5 Pro, which now employs BVH8 (Bounding Volume Hierarchy) and features enhanced “Stack management in hardware.” This translates to better management and simpler, more efficient execution of graphics shader code on the new console.

To elaborate, BVH involves the use of bounding boxes—a staple in 3D rendering—to facilitate calculations involving graphics, such as reflections. For RT (ray tracing) calculations on the PS5, BVH4 was employed, utilizing groups of 4 bounding boxes. The PS5 Pro advances this to BVH8, utilizing 8 bounding boxes. Furthermore, the Ray Intersection Engine sees a boost from handling 4 boxes and 1 triangle (as it did in the PS5) to processing 8 boxes and 2 triangles in the PS5 Pro.

These advancements in ray tracing performance on the PS5 Pro—powered by this finely tuned version of RDNA 2 GPU architecture originally found in the PS5—result in significant performance enhancements, particularly noticeable with complex light reflections on curved and uneven surfaces. However, when it comes to shadows and flat reflections, the gains are somewhat more restrained.

For those eager to dive deeper into the technical aspects, there’s a comprehensive 37-minute video detailing the PlayStation 5 Pro. It offers a fascinating look at the competitive console landscape and the technology that lies at its core.

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