Sony’s upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro console has been teased for a while, with last week thinking that the just-announced Grand Theft Auto 6 would be a huge system seller for an upgraded PS5 Pro console… and now we have more info on the PS5 Pro from nothing.
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New information about the PlayStation 5 Pro comes from leaker Kepler and the ResetEra forums, where we heard that the PS5 Pro is codenamed “Trinity.” In contrast, the upgraded SoC inside the console is codenamed “Viola.” The APU will see the CPU side boosted up to 4.4GHz, which makes sense as we’ve been hearing about the “lower 4GHz band” in rumors for a couple of months now.
Viola is still using the Zen 2 architecture found inside the regular PS5 for compatibility, but the CPU will boost up to 4.4GHz. There is also said to be 64KB of L1 cache per core, 512KB of L2 cache per core, and 8MB of shared L3 cache (4MB per CCX).
Now, let’s talk about the GPU… The PlayStation 5 Pro, also known as the Viola, has 30 WGP (Working Group Processors) enabled in its developer kits, but the final PS5 Pro console is said to be… At retail it will only have 28 WGP (or 56 CU) enabled. AMD’s current RDNA 3 architecture will be the basis for the Viola and PS5 Pro, but takes ray tracing improvements from the upcoming RDNA 4 architecture.
We can expect significant improvements in ray tracing performance on PlayStation 5 Pro, pulled from the GPU, 3,584 shaders, 224 TMU, and 96 ROPs. The PS5 Pro will also have a unified RAM upgrade, with 16GB of 18GB/s GDDR6 memory with up to 576GB/s of memory bandwidth. The GPU is targeting clock speeds of 2.0GHz, with 14.33 TFLOPs of compute performance.
Performance-wise, the PlayStation 5 Pro should be 50-60% faster than the regular PlayStation 5… and more than double the performance of the PS5 when it comes to games with raw RT (ray tracing) performance. But, we can expect more performance with Sony including the XDNA2 NPU (Neural Processing Unit), an AI-based part of the SoC that will be used to accelerate Sony’s interim machine learning upscaling technology.
This will reportedly be one of the “primary focuses” of the PS5 Pro, which will aim to temporarily improve 4K throughput at above 30fps. I’d be disappointed not to see 4K at 60fps on almost all PlayStation 5 Pro-based games, with 8K at 30fps being an option for certain games like Grand Theft Auto 6.
3The new Viola SoC will be placed on TSMC’s new N4P node, and the PlayStation 5 Pro console itself will reportedly be unveiled in September 2024. This gives Sony at least 3-6 months before Rockstar is ready to unleash Grand Theft Auto 6 world, and I’m sure it will be one of the biggest titles for the upgraded PS5 Pro console.
New information about PlayStation 5 Pro:
- The violin is built on a TSMC N4P.
- GFX1115
- Viola’s CPU maintains the zen2 architecture found in the current PS5 for compatibility, but the frequency will once again be dynamic with a peak of 4.4GHz. 64KB of L1 cache per core, 512KB of L2 cache per core, and 8MB of shared L3 (4MB per CCX).
- The Viola die is 30WGPs when fully enabled, but will only have 28WGPs (56 CUs) silicon enabled in retail PS5 Pro units.
- The trinity is the culmination of three main techniques. Accelerated storage (hardware-accelerated compression and decompression, already a key technology found in the PS5), accelerated ray tracing, and upscaling.
- The architecture is RDNA3, but requires improvements in ray tracing from RDNA4. BVH traversal will be handled by dedicated RT hardware rather than relying entirely on shaders. It will also involve reordering threads to reduce data and execution variation, something similar to Intel Arc’s Ada Lovelace SER and TSU.
- 3584 shaders, 224 TMUs, 96 ROPs.
- 16GB 18Gbps GDDR6. 256-bit memory bus with a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s.
- The GPU frequency target is 2.0 GHz. This brings the dual-version TFLOPs to a range of 28.67 peak TFLOPs (224 (TMUs) * 2 (processes, dual-version) * 2 (core clock)). 14.33 TFLOPs if we ignore the double problem factor.
- 50-60% increased drip compared to Oberon and Oberon Plus, more than twice the raw RT performance.
- The XDNA2 NPU will be on display for the purpose of accelerating Sony’s custom temporary machine learning upscaling technology. This will be one of the main focus points for the PS5 Pro, as we saw in the PS4 Pro verification panel demo. The goal is to output temporarily stable 4K at above 30fps.
- Revealed September 2024
The cutting-edge AI technology set to hit the market in November 2024 is poised to revolutionize the gaming industry. With performance benchmarks that surpass the highly-anticipated PS5 by a staggering 60%, and boasting a 2x faster rendering time with ray tracing, this new technology is set to redefine the gaming experience. Gamers can expect lightning-fast load times, unparalleled graphics, and immersive gameplay that will set a new standard for the future of gaming. Get ready to level up your gaming experience with this groundbreaking release.