Recent reports suggest that Sony anticipates the imminent leakage of the PlayStation 5 Pro's specifications. This expectation arises as PS5 Pro development kits are reportedly being distributed to third-party game studios, increasing the chances of information leaks. Tom Henderson, a known figure in gaming hardware leaks, and Insider Gaming head, commented on this development. Henderson's comments were in response to an inquiry about the authenticity of new PS5 Pro hardware rumors, indicating that Sony is progressing with its mid-generation console update, tentatively referred to as the PS5 Pro. This update is believed to be in a functional state, with development kits soon to be available to game developers.
Given that over three years have passed since the PlayStation 5's release, and with console generations typically spanning around eight years, a mid-cycle refresh is a common strategy employed by companies like Sony and Microsoft. These updates often involve hardware enhancements to improve performance and graphics quality.
An announcement for the PS5 Pro could possibly be made by 2024, assuming the validity of these reports. Regarding the rumored specifications, the PS5 Pro is speculated to include a significantly advanced GPU. This GPU, codenamed Viola and built on TSMC's N4P process node, is expected to have nearly double the Work Group Processors (WGPs) of the current PS5, totaling 30, and incorporate AMD's RDNA 3 architecture. However, it's important to note that the legitimacy of these leaks is uncertain. Additionally, the new Viola GPU is rumored to incorporate ray-tracing enhancements from AMD's forthcoming RDNA 4 architecture. This includes hardware acceleration for Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) traversal and a novel thread reordering technique to enhance ray tracing performance, akin to Nvidia's Shader Execution Reordering in its RTX 40 series GPUs.
The PS5 Pro is also rumored to feature AMD's latest XDNA2 neural processing unit, focused on AI-driven image upscaling. This technology aims to replicate the image quality improvements seen in Nvidia's DLSS and Intel's XeSS, utilizing AI for superior upscaling compared to traditional methods like FSR. Finally, the PS5 Pro is expected to have a marginally faster Zen 2 CPU, potentially clocked at 4.4 GHz. While not a substantial upgrade, it represents a performance improvement over the existing model.
