Sony's upgraded PS5 Pro: compared to mid-range Radeon RX 7700 XT GPU

TCL has been busy leaking out Sony and Microsoft's upgraded current-gen consoles, which we've already heard rumors about, but now we're finding out where the GPU performance might land when compared to the PC.

2

Polish website PPE attended a press event that TCL held recently, where it talked about its predictions for the upgraded consoles. TCL talked about the "new Xbox Series S/X" and "PS5 Pro" consoles, predicting that we'll see them push out 4K @ 60-120FPS "render" while they'll have 4K to 8K @ 60-120FPS "output".

More interestingly, TCL predicts that the upgraded consoles will have GPU power comparable to AMD's upcoming Navi 33-based Radeon RX 7700 XT graphics card. Out of context, this sounds amazing... but we did hear last month that the Radeon RX 7700 XT would beat the Radeon RX 6900 XT. So, what does this mean?

• Read more: PlayStation 5 Pro: ready for 8K gaming, priced at $600-$700 for 2023
• Read more: AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Navi 33 GPU beats RX 6900 XT at 1080p, and RT
• Read more: TCL: New PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X/S with 8K 60FPS coming in 2023 - 2024
• Read more: TCL CSOT debuts world's first 4K 240Hz monitor, yes... 4K 240FPS!

Sony uses a custom "Oberon" GPU inside of its current-gen PlayStation 5 (PS5) which is based on the RDNA2 GPU architecture, made on the 7nm process node by TSMC. The GPU has 2304 stream processors, 144 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 36 Compute Units. It's joined by 16GB of GDDR6 memory @ 14Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus with up to 448GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

So how could the upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro (PS5 Pro) be that much better than the PS5... we did hear with rumors the Navi 33 GPU will power the upgraded PS5 Pro and Xbox Series X/S consoles, so let's estimate. Navi 33 (Radeon RX 7700 XT) beating Navi 21 (Radeon RX 6900 XT) is the key.

2

Sony wouldn't want to use a new, higher-end GPU... but AMD making strides with its GPU architecture and enjoying Navi 21 beating performance with Navi 33 is how. The GPU will be upgraded (2304 shading units in the GPU inside of the PS5, I'm sure we're going to see many more shading units in Navi 33) but also the GDDR6 memory.

In the rumors about the upgraded PS5 Pro, Tom said: "Most people think they should double the CU count to 72 CUs, take some newer RDNA IP from later architectures (like RDNA 3 for example) that will be around, while they're designing this Pro console, and add Zen 4, up clock speeds, maybe get it up to 300W and release a $600 or $700 console in 2023, maybe to market -- then more prevalent 8K TVs".