The PS5 Professional Is Now the Greatest, Most Piecemeal Console You Can Purchase

Because of a single software update, the PlayStation 5 Pro is now a significantly better console than it was at launch in 2024. How significantly better will rely on the video games you’re enjoying, whether or not these video games assist the most recent software program, and in case you can spot infinitesimal variations in visible high quality.

Since 2020, we’ve been hoping to discover a current-generation console that makes good on Sony and Xbox’s authentic promise of enjoying video games at 4K and 60 fps with ray tracing enabled. The glory of real-time lighting simulations at all times appeared simply out of our grasp. The PS5 Professional promised extra horsepower to attain high-fidelity graphics and clean responsiveness. It simply wasn’t the massive graphics uplift that made it price spending much more cash. After Sony hiked the price in 2025, the PS5 Professional now prices $750. That’s with out the extra $80 disc drive.

The aging PS5 hardware was by no means going to be sufficient by itself. Sony’s rejuvenated PlayStation Spectral Tremendous Decision (PSSR), which we’ll check with as PSSR 2, manages to boost visible high quality for a choose few of the prettiest video games accessible on the console. On the similar time, the upscaler gained’t provide such a radical enchancment in picture high quality outdoors of a modicum of premiere titles.

Resident Evil Requiem is the star of the present

Left, Resident Evil Requiem on PS5 Professional with ray tracing enabled ; proper, the sport on a base PS5. © Capcom; Screenshots by Gizmodo

Because the PS5’s launch, Sony has labored hand-in-hand with AMD to craft novel upscaling know-how. Whereas AMD has pushed its personal FidelityFX Tremendous Decision 4 (FSR 4), now FSR Redstone, particularly for its newest Radeon RX 90-series GPUs, PlayStation has been working to update its own PSSR upscaler. This software program takes video games working at a decrease decision and makes use of AI to fill within the pixels to make a picture seem prefer it’s working at the next decision.

Upscalers additionally often run video games at the next body price, although it additionally introduces some graphical points. The unique PS5 ran on AMD’s older hardware-agnostic FSR. A hardware-specific upscaler has proved significantly better for providing cleaner visuals. The PS5 Professional was already working an earlier model of PSSR, however the new version brings in some FSR 4 capabilities to boost the prevailing software program.

Left, Resident Evil Requiem on PS5 Professional with out ray tracing; proper, the sport working with ray tracing. © Capcom; screenshot by Gizmodo

The primary title to advertise the brand new PSSR capabilities is Resident Evil Requiem. Whereas the common PS5 model doesn’t assist ray tracing, the PS5 Professional model does. Within the sport’s moody opening sequence, the place protagonist Grace Ashcroft walks down rain-slicked streets, you possibly can see headlights dancing off the moist sidewalk and pedestrians’ soaked umbrellas. With the sport’s ray tracing setting turned off, you lose most of the shadows and reflections that assist set the sport’s temper.

Resident Evil Requiem doesn’t look horrible on a daily PS5. It simply seems many instances higher on the PS5 Professional.

Some video games have been revitalized for PSSR 2

PlayStation promoted a number of different video games that actively included the improved PSSR 2 into the expertise. Titles like Alan Wake 2, Last Fantasy VII Rebirth, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. These titles should not including any new graphics settings or including ray tracing the place it wasn’t accessible earlier than. As a substitute, they’re enhancing body price stability, enhancing refined particle results, and making the sport look higher when characters are in movement.

And that’s for the video games which have been reconfigured with PSSR 2 in thoughts. Sony already lists many different titles which might be “Enhanced” for PS5 Professional. These video games already assist additional “Professional”-level graphics settings. Some video games, like Horizon: Forbidden West, could have three separate PS5 Professional-specific graphics presets. One other title like Star Wars: Jedi Survivor could have the identical “Constancy” and “Efficiency” graphics settings because the common PS5.

You’ll be able to brute drive PSSR 2 into these PS5 Professional Enhanced video games. The most recent system replace does. Customers who dive into the console settings menu after which scroll all the way down to Display and Video, after which Video Output, will discover the choice for “Improve PSSR Picture High quality.“

Some video games look marginally higher with PSSR 2

I examined these settings in a variety of video games on each an 86-inch IPS LCD TV and a high-end 32-inch QD-OLED monitor. Relying on the display screen’s PPI (pixels per inch), you might not see practically as a lot of an impression in sport visuals with this setting turned on.

Left, Ghost of Yōtei working with out the PSSR setting; proper, the sport working with enhanced PSSR enabled. © Sony Interactive Leisure / Screenshots by Gizmodo

Let’s run by way of just a few examples. Ghost of Yōtei with the PSSR 2 setting enabled didn’t a lot change the standard of characters within the foreground even when working on the sport’s “Ray Tracing Professional” graphics mode. An important distinction is that far-off timber don’t have practically as a lot of a blurred, hazing impact as with PSSR 2 mode turned off. The identical goes for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Wonderful particulars within the distance appear barely sharper working on “Constancy Professional” mode.

And nonetheless, you may run by way of some video games with a fine-toothed comb and never spot any variations in lighting or visible high quality. Star Wars Jedi Survivor working on “Constancy Mode” doesn’t change the visible expertise to any diploma I might see. So far as efficiency, the PSSR replace could not change a lot for many video games. Different video games could not see any impression in any respect. Guerrilla Video games’ Horizon Forbidden West makes use of its personal type of upscaling outdoors of PSSR to boost sport visuals.

Left, Spider-Man 2 working with out the up to date PSSR; proper, the sport working with the up to date PSSR. © Sony Interactive Leisure; Screenshots by Gizmodo

There are definitely titles I haven’t examined that will characteristic extra of a graphical increase with the PSSR replace. Nevertheless, it’s clear that solely these video games reconfigured with PSSR 2 in thoughts will obtain the lion’s share of advantages. There are just a few future titles, like Crimson Desert, that ought to assist the brand new upscaler. Different present video games, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Murderer’s Creed Shadows, may even obtain future patches. We may even see extra video games combine these options sooner or later.

The PS5 Professional is the most effective, most piecemeal console

Avid gamers who demand the most effective visible expertise ought to really feel secure leaving the “Improve PSSR Picture High quality” setting turned on. It is a extra piecemeal gaming expertise than what you possibly can usually discover on consoles. If fine-tuning graphics modes isn’t your cup of tea, you possibly can really feel secure sticking to a less expensive PS5.

Not solely are PlayStation titles cut up between these constructed with PS5 Professional in thoughts and people who aren’t, however there are much more video games that don’t take full benefit of the most recent upscaling know-how. With the rumored PlayStation 6 doubtless not coming till 2028 on the earliest, partly because of the ongoing RAM scarcity, the PS5 Professional could now be your greatest guess for high-fidelity gaming with out paying out the nose for a gaming-ready PC.