Moore’s Law Is Dead: PlayStation 6 focuses on ray tracing with up to 10× PS5 performance, minor raster uplift

A recent leak from Moore’s Law Is Dead claims that Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 6 will deliver a dramatic increase in ray tracing performance, offering 5 to 10 times the capability of the base PlayStation 5. In contrast, rasterization improvements are expected to be far more modest — reportedly not even double the performance of the PlayStation 5 Pro — suggesting a strategic shift in Sony’s performance priorities.

According to Moore’s Law Is Dead, this decision reflects Sony’s internal analysis that most PlayStation 5 titles already handle 4K60 or 4K80 reliably, and 120Hz adoption among users remains limited. Rather than pushing raster further, Sony appears to be aiming for a locked 4K120 experience with substantially improved ray tracing. The PlayStation 6 reportedly incorporates custom silicon features co-developed with AMD, optimising hardware execution of specific workloads such as ray tracing and AI upscaling in a fashion similar to DLSS or FSR.

Moore’s Law Is Dead also mentions the possibility of a second PlayStation 6 model priced around 299 dollars, built with the same architecture but scaled for 1080p. This would mirror the dual-SKU strategy used with the PlayStation 5 and Digital Edition, but with more significant hardware differentiation. The primary model is expected to launch between 500 and 900 dollars, making it potentially very competitive against the rumoured Xbox “Magnus”, which may be around 30% faster but also more expensive.

Moore’s Law Is Dead teases that this is just “the tip of the iceberg,” adding, “I honestly know a lot more but I can’t say anything yet” — so let’s just watch this space.