After a series of rumors and leaks from different sources, Sony has announced the PlayStation 5 Proa console that will be released on November 7th of this year. Although the existence of the console was not a big revelation, its price of US$ 700 exceeded many expectations.
With a $200 difference between the official price of the PS5 and the PS5 Pro, many found the price charged for the new hardware to be too steep.
But what if you don't want to play on a Pro console of this generation, but are looking for a similar experience on PChow much will you pay and which parts should you buy? Let's explore these options throughout this article!
How does a PS5 Pro compare to a PC?
Any direct comparison between a console, of any brand, and a computer should be made with caution. The systems have similarities, but they function and are assembled in different ways.
This means that no comparison is perfectbut it's still possible to get pretty close, especially since we're already familiar with the performance of the base PS5. Hardware comparisons here will be more based on the practical performance the PS5 Pro should deliver against different PC specs.
What is a PC equivalent to the P5 Pro?
Processor
Starting with the CPU, according to the leaks that are now practically confirmed, The PS5 Pro's processor should be basically the same as the base PS5'sonly with a larger margin for frequency operation.
Comparative tests carried out on several games show that the PS5 is very well matched with the Ryzen 5 3600. This specific model is already difficult to find on the market, but we can use one here that is equivalent, but slightly superior, the Ryzen 5 5500.
Video card
The improvement in graphics performance, which is the big highlight of the PS5 Pro, is what deserves the most attention.
The base PS5 bears strong similarities to the 10GB AMD Radeon RX 6700. Given the leaked documentation, as well as the announcement that the PS5 Pro will have a 45% increase in graphics performance, your GPU must be equivalent to RX 6800.
The comparison to AMD cards is generally the most appropriate, as both the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S are platforms with AMD hardware. However, for the PS5 Pro specifically, this may not be the most appropriate.
In addition to the overall higher graphics performance, the two other marketing pillars surrounding the new console are better Ray Tracing performance and usage and a enhanced upscaling technology, PSSRbased on Artificial intelligence and which probably has AI accelerators in the hardware.
On these two points, at least in today's market, NVIDIA RTX cards are the best fit for these technologies — with DLSS upscaling and Ray Tracing performance superior to AMD cards, in general.
The ideal comparison would then be with the RTX 3070 Ti, however, as this model is increasingly scarce on the market, for this article the equivalent considered is the RTX 4060 Ti. All of these cards deliver very similar performance in games.
Having an RTX 40, it is also possible to have access to the DLSS frame generation technology, while PlayStation, so far, only has FSR 3 at its disposal as a frame generator for some titles.
Memories
The equivalence between the memory of a desktop PC and a console is perhaps the point at which the two systems differ the most. While a PS5 Pro has a unified memory which is divided between the use of the CPU and GPU, PCs have dedicated memories for each of them. The RTX 4060 Ti, for example, has 8 GB dedicated to video memory. While the processor will use the RAM.
To maintain the standard of a mid-range PC, 16 GB RAM It's enough to deliver well in any current game, so let's continue with this configuration, in this case with two 8 GB DDR4 modules to operate in Dual Channel.
Storage
Storage has always been one of the important points for the PlayStation 5 due to the speed of its SSD and continues in the PS5 Pro also with a greater capacity of 2 GB.
The PS5's internal SSD read speed is 5,500 MB/s while its write speed is 4,400 MB/s. We can find equivalent, and even superior, specifications on the market today for desktops at less prohibitive prices than at the original launch of the PlayStation 5.
Motherboard
The choice of motherboard here is not as relevant when compared to the PS5 Pro, since we only need a model that is compatible with the chosen parts. Therefore, we will opt for a simple AM4 motherboard that is compatible with the processor, the memories and with an NVME PCIe 4.0 slot for the SSD.
Power supply
When choosing a power supply for any system, you need to check the manufacturer's recommendation for your specific video card model, which is the component that consumes the most power on your computer.
You can get this very popular 650W model from MSI for a good cost-benefit. This also gives you some 'leeway' for any future upgrades to your machine, such as for the arrival of the next generation of NVIDIA cards, since the RTX 4060 Ti requires a 550W power supply.
Total value of a PC equivalent to the PlayStation 5 Pro
With all the parts chosen, we can use the MeuPC.net website to list the parts and prices of each component. In addition to what was listed above, we also added the value of a simple and popular case to the system.
Adding up all the values, we have a computer that costs a total of around R$ 6.454,75 with current market values.
It is worth noting that it is possible to reduce this price and still have an experience quite equivalent to a PlayStation 5 Pro, choosing a more basic motherboard and even a simpler NVMe SSD, such as the Kingston NV2.
What is more expensive?
We still don't have the official launch price of the PlayStation 5 Pro in Brazil, however, following a very recurring pattern in several technology products launched in recent years, with the price of US$ 699 abroad, it is plausible to assume a price of R$ 7,000 of the console at launch, or something close to it.
Taking this into account, the PC can be cheaper than the new video game, and should deliver a very similar graphical and performance experience, also with enough performance to use Ray Tracing effects, the high-quality DLSS upscaling to play in high definition and even NVIDIA's frame generation technology.
And for you, what makes more sense? Building a PC for over R$6,000, or buying a PlayStation 5 Pro at launch? Comment on Voxel's social media!