Droolworthy PS5 Pro leak: 4.4 GHz AMD Zen 2, RX 7800 XT-class RDNA 3.5 GPU, and XDNA 2 NPU for Sept 2024 could make it the perfect GTA VI console

Rumors about a possible PlayStation 5 (PS5) Pro have been doing the rounds for quite some time now. We've reported on several leaks that discussed the likely specifications of the purported "world's most powerful console". Now, fresh leaks have emerged that reaffirm some of the earlier rumors.

According to a post on the ResetEra forums by RandomlyRandom67, the Sony PS5 Pro will continue to use an AMD Zen 2 architecture-based CPU, but one that's fabbed on the TSMC N4P node. The CPU architecture is apparently being retained for compatibility reasons but will see clocks up to 4.4 GHz.

For perspective, the current PS5 allows variable clocks up to 3.5 GHz. However, this should not be construed as "boost clocks" in the traditional sense of the term. The CPU frequencies are "capped" so as to allow for equivalent performance across PS5 units. The PS5's architecture allows the GPU to run at max power even if it means loaning some from the CPU. If true, the 4.4 GHz clock should be seen in light of this.

RandomlyRandom67's new claims regarding the PS5 Pro are below:

• Viola is fabbed on TSMC N4P.
• GFX1115
• Viola's CPU is maintaining the zen2 architecture found in the existing PS5 for compatibility, but the frequency will once again be dynamic with a peak of 4.4GHz. 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 8 MB of L3 shared (4 MB per CCX).
• Viola's die is 30WGPs when fully enabled, but it will only have 28WGPs (56 CUs) enabled for the silicon in retail PS5 Pro units.
• Trinity is the culmination of three key technologies. Fast storage (hardware accelerated compression and decompression, already an existing key PS5 technology), accelerated ray tracing, and upscaling.
• Architecture is RDNA3, but it's taking ray tracing improvements from RDNA4. BVH traversal will be handled by dedicated RT hardware rather than fully relying on the shaders. It will also include thread reordering to reduce data and execution divergence, something akin to Ada Lovelace SER and Intel Arc's TSU.
• 3584 shaders, 224 TMUs, and 96 ROPs.
• 16GB of 18 gbps GDDR6. 256-bit memory bus with 576 GB/s memory bandwidth.
• The GPU frequency target is 2.0 GHz. This lands the dual-issue TFLOPs in the range of 28.67 TFLOPs peak (224 (TMUs) * 2 (operations, dual issue) * 2 (core clock)). 14.33 TFLOPs if we ignore the dual-issue factor.
• 50-60% rasterization uplift over Oberon and Oberon Plus, over twice the raw RT performance.
• XDNA2 NPU will be featured for the purpose of accelerating Sony's bespoke temporal machine learning upscaling technique. This will be one of the core focuses of the PS5 Pro, like we saw with checkboard rendering for the PS4 Pro. Temporally stable upscaled 4K output at higher than 30 FPS is the goal.
• September 2024 reveal"

Initially, the forum post indicated the GPU to have 30 workgroup processors (WGPs) or 60 compute units (CUs), of which 28 WGP (56 CUs) would be enabled. Known leaker @Kepler_L2 on X seems to be confident that the PS5 Pro's GPU will actually feature 32 WGPs (64 CUs) or which 30 WGPs (60 CUs) will be active.

Assuming this is true, this should give rise to 3,840 shaders and 240 Texture Mapping Units (TMUs), which is a pretty significant bump in graphics horsepower over the PS5's 2,304 shader count.

While the PS5's GPU is essentially a slightly nerfed Radeon RX 6700 XT, the purported PS5 Pro's graphics unit is likely to be equivalent to an RX 7800 XT or the RX 7700 XT at the very least.

It will also borrow some RDNA 4 tech such as BVH traversal on dedicated ray tracing pipelines instead of having the shaders to do the work. The PS5 Pro's GPU is also expected to offer a variant of Shader Execution Reordering (SER) similar to Nvidia's implementation in current Ada Lovelace cards. SER is a way to optimize ray tracing threads similar to how a CPU does thread scheduling.

An interesting aspect of this leak is the PS5 Pro's memory subsystem. The leaker points to 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus. This seems to be slower than the Xbox Series X's 320-bit memory bus at first glance, but the rumored 18 Gbps speeds in the PS5 Pro should still yield a faster 576 GBps bandwidth compared to 560 GBps in the Series X.

Finally, we might get to see AMD bring its XDNA 2 neural processing to the PS5 Pro. Sony is expected to emphasize a lot on the NPU to help with upscaling and other AI stuff, such as possibly NPCs made with generative AI.

While the leak is juicy, it does pique curiosity:

• Will the PS5 Pro actually become a reality? If so, at what markup over the PS5?
• What would be the kind of fragmentation between games made for the PS5 and the PS5 Pro?
• How much of a real-world gain does this add up to?
• And more importantly, how will Microsoft respond to this?

With PS5 Pro dev kits already rumored to be in select developers' hands, more credible information may start surfacing in the coming months.

One thing is increasingly becoming apparent, though. This could just be the perfect console for GTA VI pending Microsoft's move.

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