PS5 PRO leak suggesting late 2024 release

[Devastator]

It could be enjoyable for us to discuss the current console landscape from our PCMR perspectives. Consoles are scams to a degree -- they are cleverly marketed but fall short in some critical aspects. They are essentially small x86 systems equipped with a simplified OS optimized for gaming. While they are cheaper than PCs, they also have lower performance, accompanied by more expensive games and a shift towards live service and digital-only game models. Exploring consoles keeps me informed and reinforces my appreciation for the freedom PCs offer.

There are rumors circulating about the PS5 PRO potentially having 60 GPU CUs (up from 36), a slightly increased CPU clock rate (with the same number of cores), and improved memory bandwidth. Details can be found in the accompanying image.

Despite owning a PS5, I rarely use it due to its lackluster performance compared to my PC (RTX 4080 and i9-13900K). However, the PS5 allows me to play Bloodborne, read Blu Rays, and was about five times cheaper than my PC. Certain limitations are annoying; for instance, BG3 struggles on a PS5, experiencing framerate dips to low 20s in Act III due to its underpowered CPU (this issue might also surface on a PC with a weaker CPU).

If the PS5 PRO debuts in late 2024, it would likely be a couple of years until the next generation. While doubling the CUs seems promising, I wonder if they will harness advancements in deep learning and frame generation. The current reliance on 'brute force rendering' on the PS5 contributes to my perception of its performance as lackluster (correct me if I'm wrong, but FSR is pretty poorly leveraged on the PS5; who knows whether the PS5 PRO will be built around FSR or not). PCs, on the other hand, can even widen their performance lead with FSR/DLSS and frame generation already in supported games. Still the appeal of the PS5 PRO for normies might hinge solely on the strategies of competitors like Microsoft and Nintendo, rather than developments in the PC realm.

Although consoles have limited appeal for me personally, it's worth noting that people are willing to invest thousands in gaming laptops that suffer from poor thermal performance and comparatively low sustained levels of TDP and GDP vs. both PCs and consoles. Of course, there's also the upsurge in Steam Deck and similar devices. I wonder where these fit into the picture.

(src)

 

[Tehdagah]

No disc drive, no buy.

 

[Zlaja]

from our PCMR perspectives

Despite owning a PS5

 

[Ezekiel]

I can't grasp why someone would cling to the limitations of a console instead of getting into personal computers that have most of the same games this generation. It's not just the inferior graphics and performance, but also lack of control/controller options, paywalls to access multiplayer portions, paywalls to back up saves, the worry that your games will not be playable on the next system, the crappy recording, the distracting fan noise that PlayStations make by packing so much hardware in such small sizes, how difficult or impossible it is to replace broken components (due to internals being made totally inaccessible by the way the metal is welded and parts being proprietary)... A crappy experience with few of the exclusives that made PlayStation special in the past, especially after they let their Japanese studios die. PlayStation is so bland now. How can getting into computers be so intimidating?

 

[Ezekiel]

However, the PS5 allows me to play Bloodborne, read Blu Rays

Could have gotten a PS4 or stayed with a PS4 for that. There are countless Blu-ray players that cost a fraction what the PS5 does.

 

[Tehdagah]

I can't grasp why someone would cling to the limitations of a console instead of getting into personal computers that have most of the same games this generation. It's not just the inferior graphics and performance, but also lack of control/controller options, paywalls to access multiplayer portions, paywalls to back up saves, the worry that your games will not be playable on the next system, the crappy recording, the distracting fan noise that PlayStations make by packing so much hardware in such small sizes, how difficult or impossible it is to replace broken components (due to internals being made totally inaccessible by the way the metal is welded and parts being proprietary)... A crappy experience with few of the exclusives that made PlayStation special in the past, especially after they let their Japanese studios die. PlayStation is so bland now. How can getting into computers be so intimidating?

I like to click on a game and play. No worries about optimization and trojans.

 

[deuxhero]

I can't grasp why someone would cling to the limitations of a console instead of getting into personal computers that have most of the same games this generation. It's not just the inferior graphics and performance, but also lack of control/controller options, paywalls to access multiplayer portions, paywalls to back up saves, the worry that your games will not be playable on the next system, the crappy recording, the distracting fan noise that PlayStations make by packing so much hardware in such small sizes, how difficult or impossible it is to replace broken components (due to internals being made totally inaccessible by the way the metal is welded and parts being proprietary)... A crappy experience with few of the exclusives that made PlayStation special in the past, especially after they let their Japanese studios die. PlayStation is so bland now. How can getting into computers be so intimidating?

Even the size isn't much of an advantage at this point. PS5 is bigger than some computer cases.

 

[Ezekiel]

I can't grasp why someone would cling to the limitations of a console instead of getting into personal computers that have most of the same games this generation. It's not just the inferior graphics and performance, but also lack of control/controller options, paywalls to access multiplayer portions, paywalls to back up saves, the worry that your games will not be playable on the next system, the crappy recording, the distracting fan noise that PlayStations make by packing so much hardware in such small sizes, how difficult or impossible it is to replace broken components (due to internals being made totally inaccessible by the way the metal is welded and parts being proprietary)... A crappy experience with few of the exclusives that made PlayStation special in the past, especially after they let their Japanese studios die. PlayStation is so bland now. How can getting into computers be so intimidating?

I like to click on a game and play. No worries about optimization and trojans.

"Click and play," lol.

1. Tap on game.
2. "Please insert disc"
3. Look for disc. Oops, left it in the other box after juggling between games.
4: Insert.
5. Update required.
6. Restart.
7. Play finally, but controller out of power (because the battery life is shit).

Edit: Forgot about needing to install the whole disc first, due to slow BD/UHD speeds. No, you definitely don't just click and play.

 

[Ezekiel]

I found my post!

Wanted to replace my PS4's thermal paste. The console is much too loud. It sits outside my room like a bad dog, connected with a long HDMI cable that goes under the door. Turns out you can't even replace the thermal paste without a goddamn soldering iron. Look at that cable laid across the plate. It's soldered on one side and fixed into some kind of perma-plug on the other. The motherboard plate also has the plate behind screwed in from the other side. I mean that those screws appear to be PART of that other plate. PlayStations are really uncivilized. Both dismantling videos I watched didn't go into taking off the motherboard plate. More convenient my butt, SumDrunkGuy.

 

[Devastator]

I can't grasp why someone would cling to the limitations of a console instead of getting into personal computers that have most of the same games this generation. It's not just the inferior graphics and performance, but also lack of control/controller options, paywalls to access multiplayer portions, paywalls to back up saves, the worry that your games will not be playable on the next system, the crappy recording, the distracting fan noise that PlayStations make by packing so much hardware in such small sizes, how difficult or impossible it is to replace broken components (due to internals being made totally inaccessible by the way the metal is welded and parts being proprietary)... A crappy experience with few of the exclusives that made PlayStation special in the past, especially after they let their Japanese studios die. PlayStation is so bland now. How can getting into computers be so intimidating?

I like to click on a game and play. No worries about optimization and trojans.

"Click and play," lol.

1. Tap on game.
2. "Please insert disc"
3. Look for disc. Oops, left it in the other box after juggling between games.
4: Insert.
5. Update required.
6. Restart.
7. Play finally, but controller out of power (because the battery life is shit).

Edit: Forgot about needing to install the whole disc first, due to slow BD/UHD speeds. No, you definitely don't just click and play.

I can't argue against those points. As someone who uses his console rarely, I often have to upgrade the system software each time I power it up, in addition to all the patches . Granted, Windows has its own updates, but those can be disabled completely or you can run Linux.

For console users, It's hard to deny that there are less catastrophic things to worry about in theory. They probably also use them every day so keeping them up to date isn't that much of an issue, I imagine most if not all patches can install in sleep mode.

Could have gotten a PS4 or stayed with a PS4 for that. There are countless Blu-ray players that cost a fraction what the PS5 does.

I had the first PS4 (the fat one) and I couldn't wait to get rid of it because if was so loud by design (I cleaned it regularly). Plus it was really showing its age. Despite Bloodborne not being optimized for PS4 PRO or PS5, it runs better on them. Playing BB on the original PS4 is an experience in itself, you get dips to low 20s in addition to the fucked up frame pacing.

As for Blu-ray, the PS4 cannot play 4K UHD ones.

P. S. The battery life of controllers really is shit. This was my main complaint regarding the PS4. It's a bit better on the PS5. If you played a game with a lot of feedback and controls that required a lot of input, the battery would drain in hours. Yes, it can last for 10 hours on more in more casual games... But even in Souls like games it drains too fast for comfort. I've seen people play online shooters and go through a PS4's controller battery in 3 hours.

 

[Ezekiel]

As for Blu Ray, the PS4 cannot play 4K UHD Blu-rays.

The PS5 can't play Dolby Vision, and some discs like Total Recall really need it due to poor compression. (Unless you import the Italian disc.)

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I like to click on a game and play. No worries about optimization and trojans.

Yeah, it's called a computer. We're not in the 90s anymore.

 

[Devastator]

I like to click on a game and play. No worries about optimization and trojans.

Yeah, it's called a computer. We're not in the 90s anymore.

I'm actually glad there's less click and play on PCs. So I don't think PCs should emulate consoles here too much.

You can tweak settings as needed. Starfield showed the console crowd readily accepts 30 FPS for an action game... in 2023! While 30 FPS suits turn-based or top-down games, for first-person ones, I want at least 60, even if it means 720p. I'm talking about new titles, of course. But sacrificing options for simplicity and feature parity between Series S and X is a downside.

This wouldn't be as bad if it didn't bleed into the castration of options. The lack of FOV sliders in many games may simply stem from player indifference. However, shooters on consoles offer FoV sliders and 120 FPS modes for a specific minority.

Click and play further loses charm if backward compatibility like PS4 to PS3 gets gutted or if game servers shut down, like in the Gran Turismo series.

 

[Konjad]

Last console I bought was PS3, so far I haven't found a reason to buy any newer. PS3 works for me vast majority of the time as a movie player than a gaming machine too.

 

[tritosine2k]

Starfield showed the console crowd readily accepts 30 FPS for an action game... in 2023! While 30 FPS suits turn-based or top-down games, for first-person ones, I want at least 60, even if it means 720p

First off they accepted 30 on flickerfree LCD and not for action games*.
30vs60 on CRT would be no brainer because thats motion doubling so simply detrimental.

But 60 on flickerfree lcd looks stupid. Especially when they rather
*emulate Hollywood (than make games) and Hollywood does suspension of disbelief majicks.
HFR is also 48 not 60.

 

[Hellraiser]

I found my post!

Wanted to replace my PS4's thermal paste. The console is much too loud. It sits outside my room like a bad dog, connected with a long HDMI cable that goes under the door. Turns out you can't even replace the thermal paste without a goddamn soldering iron. Look at that cable laid across the plate. It's soldered on one side and fixed into some kind of perma-plug on the other. The motherboard plate also has the plate behind screwed in from the other side. I mean that those screws appear to be PART of that other plate. PlayStations are really uncivilized. Both dismantling videos I watched didn't go into taking off the motherboard plate. More convenient my butt, SumDrunkGuy.

I tried fixing an overheating PS3 slim 3 or 4 times and I fucking hated taking that thing apart. Took an hour to take it apart and another hour to put it back together every damn time, but compared to the PS4 you have shown above the dissasembly was still kind of sane since it was just cramped as fuck but without any soldering needed, but just barely.

Also really fucking shoddy engineering, though still better than the original phat ones going YLOD, as the damn thing just overheated despite good new thermal paste and near pristine dust-free internals. Online speculation is that they fucked up the CPU's soldering design resulting in crappy heat transfer to the heatsink. I mean the fucking air it blew out was cold, WTF. Shame since it was one of the last CFW-capable models and it was a gift. Maybe one day I'll find some psycho who does one of those frankenstein mods where they replace the chips with the newer smaller ones from super slims somehow (I guess the die is smaller but the socket the same?).

In the end I got a good condition superslim with a nice HDD for cheaper than the drive alone from some pawn shop. The RTC doesn't work, probably a dead battery, but I read just one sentence online how those are hard to replace in super slims so I'm not even tempted to try to open it up to fix it. Fuck that, at least it runs at proper low temperatures and I could move my save files to it thanks to haxx, so I can live with setting the clock and date every time I turn it on.

Now compare that cramped nightmare to opening up a Dreamcast, Gamecube or a SNES. A fucking toddler with the right set of scredrivers can do it and put it back together in 15 minutes tops. Fucking decline of consumer electronics design. Fuck, even my CRT TV was easier to disassemble than the PS3 was, with the small difference that the damn thing is over 20 kilos so putting it on the desk was a hassle.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Last console I bought was PS3, so far I haven't found a reason to buy any newer. PS3 works for me vast majority of the time as a movie player than a gaming machine too.

The last generation of consoles with some arguable benefit, although it was a huge decline compared to the PS2. I honestly can't see why you'd buy anything newer. People just like to spend money on shit.

 

[antimeridian]

Maybe one day I'll find some psycho who does one of those frankenstein mods where they replace the chips with the newer smaller ones from super slims somehow (I guess the die is smaller but the socket the same?).

Man it blows my mind that someone out there would go through this just to play piss filter games at 20 fps. If you want a console from that era at least get the 360 and play at 25 fps instead. I guesws PS3 has some decent exclusives but just like, emulate them bro...

I guess tinkering with the hardware is its own reward, but still, doesn't seem like fun hardware.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Here is a list fo the games you'll be able to play in this console:

 

[Hellraiser]

Man it blows my mind that someone out there would go through this just to play piss filter games at 20 fps.

It was a gift that worked fine for quite some time after I got it a few years back, so I feel compelled to fix it (eventually, maybe, in the very long term) much more so than with other stuff for personal reasons. As for why people do such mods in general, autism I guess, because how else one can call wanting the "authentic experience" (minus shitty overheating issues, stock firmware, a working online store etc.) when currently emulation is superior AFAIK (unless it's a rare case like Wipeout HD where it actually runs 60 fps at 1080p on a PS3 I guess).

Although IIRC usually soldering autists do that frankenstein chip swap mod with the early PS3 phat models that were still PS1 and PS2 backwards compatible, since those suffer worst from the early Cell and RSX chip designs while they are also the most "valuable" due to both the backwards compatibility and being able to be fully hacked with custom firmware. That and they like soldering for some reason and are looking for excuses to do more of it, the sickos.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

But why is this needed though? While no games is a bit of a meme, Sony hasn't even given PS4 owners a real reason to upgrade yet, since everything is still being released on PS4. A slight upgrade over a system that's already a slight upgrade on some games? The new system is still quite expensive too, why buy a 499$ console when you could buy one for 199$ or so and suffer no real difference?

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Biggest benefit for me is couch gaming with a console and lack of not giving a fuck. Also if you got friend who aren't in the PC master race you can play console games with them easily and talk shit on the mic. Main downside for me is that some games just can't translate to a console controller very well, mainly very PC based games.

 

[Tehdagah]

I can't grasp why someone would cling to the limitations of a console instead of getting into personal computers that have most of the same games this generation. It's not just the inferior graphics and performance, but also lack of control/controller options, paywalls to access multiplayer portions, paywalls to back up saves, the worry that your games will not be playable on the next system, the crappy recording, the distracting fan noise that PlayStations make by packing so much hardware in such small sizes, how difficult or impossible it is to replace broken components (due to internals being made totally inaccessible by the way the metal is welded and parts being proprietary)... A crappy experience with few of the exclusives that made PlayStation special in the past, especially after they let their Japanese studios die. PlayStation is so bland now. How can getting into computers be so intimidating?

I like to click on a game and play. No worries about optimization and trojans.

"Click and play," lol.

1. Tap on game.
2. "Please insert disc"
3. Look for disc. Oops, left it in the other box after juggling between games.
4: Insert.
5. Update required.
6. Restart.
7. Play finally, but controller out of power (because the battery life is shit).

Edit: Forgot about needing to install the whole disc first, due to slow BD/UHD speeds. No, you definitely don't just click and play.

I click and play the PS+ games installed on the HDs. Discs are only for my favourite games.

Battery life is shit? I have two controllers

I like to click on a game and play. No worries about optimization and trojans.

Yeah, it's called a computer. We're not in the 90s anymore.

A PS4 can't get trojans. I'm not worried about my account being hacked.

Also on PC you have to share the disk space with everything else, not only games.

 

[Squidhead]

What the fuck are you doing (kiddie porn?) to get trojans?

 

[Ezekiel]

Biggest benefit for me is couch gaming with a console and lack of not giving a fuck. Also if you got friend who aren't in the PC master race you can play console games with them easily and talk shit on the mic. Main downside for me is that some games just can't translate to a console controller very well, mainly very PC based games.

I play PC games and emulators from my sofa with a controller all the time. Still looking for a small collapsible coffee table so that I can browse my filthy files easily from the sofa when I'm in the mood or listen to music with speakers at the proper distance while computing (meaning the two tower speakers and sub woofer while all the other speakers are inactive). Since I don't date and have no one to look normal for, my setup is already crazier than most peoples': home theater and desktop PC bedroom with mattress pressed up vertically against wall outside, carried in and placed in front of the sofa when I'm ready to sleep, and between the mattress and wall are actually the two doors that I removed from the in-wall closet in order to push the dresser in and put the AV receiver on top. The idea of adding a folding coffee table to this autistic transformers room seems delicious.