Is the PS5 Pro worth it?
What the PS5 Pro actually improves, who will see the difference, and who is better off with a standard PS5.
The honest answer is that it depends almost entirely on your television. The PS5 Pro is a real upgrade, but it is an upgrade to image quality — and image quality you cannot display is money you cannot see.
What it actually improves
A more powerful GPU. More graphics performance than a standard PS5, which games use either for higher resolution or steadier frame rates.
Better ray tracing. The Pro handles ray-traced lighting and reflections considerably better, which is where the standard PS5 struggles most.
AI upscaling. Sony''s machine-learning upscaling reconstructs a sharper image from a lower internal resolution — often the most visible improvement in motion.
2TB of storage as standard, against 825GB or 1TB on the Slim.
The practical result in supported games is that the old choice between a Quality mode at 30 FPS and a Performance mode at 60 FPS softens: the Pro can often deliver something close to both at once.
The catch: it depends on the game
The improvements are not automatic. A game benefits most when its developer has released a Pro-specific update. Many major titles have; many have not, and older games often never will.
So before buying, look at what you actually play. If your library is mostly online shooters and sports titles that already ran at 60 FPS, the Pro changes much less than the specification suggests.
Two things it does not include
No disc drive. The Pro ships without one. If you want physical games, the detachable drive is a separate purchase — factor that into the comparison rather than discovering it afterwards.
No performance gain in VR. PSVR2 performance is not meaningfully improved, so VR alone is not a reason to upgrade.
Who should buy it
Buy the Pro if all three of these are true:
- You have a 4K television, ideally one that also does 120Hz and real HDR. On a 1080p screen almost none of the benefit is visible.
- You play visually demanding single-player games, and you notice and care about image quality.
- The difference in price is money you would otherwise spend on something less useful — rather than money that would be better spent on games, a better television, or extra storage.
Who should not
Skip it if you play mostly competitive online games at 60 FPS, if your screen is 1080p, or if you already own a standard PS5 that is working fine. Upgrading a working PS5 to a Pro is one of the least efficient ways to improve your gaming — the same money spent on a better television usually produces a larger visible difference.
And if you are choosing between a Pro on a mediocre television and a standard PS5 with a good one, take the second. The screen is the bottleneck far more often than the console.
See the PS5 page for current models, or read our guide to the best TV for PS5 and Xbox before deciding where the money should go.