PS5 Pro: AMD’s new graphics architecture will handle ray tracing

With the promise of 4K at 60 FPS and increased use of ray tracing, Sony and AMD have been working on significant improvements to the PS5 Pro’s hardware. PlayStation hardware chief Mark Cerny told CNET that the AMD’s next graphics architecture will be responsible for ray tracing processing.

Effects using this technology are already seen in games on the PS5 and also on the Xbox Series X, but now with the PlayStation 5 Pro, Sony guarantees that this factor will go further and one example is Gran Turismo 7 itself running in 4K with ray tracing.

PS5 Pro uses the new advanced feature sets [ray tracing] that AMD created as the next step in its architecture roadmap.

Mark Cerny, PlayStation

In the official announcement, Sony did not mention which AMD graphics architecture the new console will use. The last rumor that came out before the reveal said that the hardware uses a mix of RDNA 3 and RDNA 4, the latter being for ray tracing processing.

According to leaker Kepler, in games using rasterization techniques, the PS5 Pro would deliver performance similar to the Radeon RX 7700 XT. However, when it comes to ray tracing, the console’s hardware would have an advantage over the mid-range graphics card.

PS5 Pro games and PC ports

To CNET, Mark Cerny said that there are still no AMD graphics cards with this new graphics architecture, and that it only exists thanks to the “motivation” that Sony gave:

“But if you look around, there are no other AMD GPUs that use the architecture yet. We pushed the development and I’m really glad we did: the response from developers has been extraordinarily good.”

Developing games for the PS5 Pro, which will now benefit from higher graphical quality, including greater implementation of ray tracing, is something that helps with ports to the PC, as these games run on high-end configurations that are much higher than the console’s hardware.

“This is specifically helping us with the PS5 Pro because the games are on high-end PCs, so they can look at what they’ve done for the multi-thousand dollar PCs and choose what they want to bring to the PS5 Pro.“, disse Cerny.

The PS5 Pro arrives in November with the main first-party games of this generation, as well as other third-party games, updated to run on the new hardware, with higher resolutions and frame rates, in addition to ray tracing.

Source: CNET