Yesterday, Sony unveiled the PlayStation 5 Pro, and during the presentation, Mark Cerny outlined the major hardware changes and what they mean for the software. Essentially, the PlayStation 5 Pro is targeting fidelity or graphics mode on supported titles with 60fps performance. Instead of players choosing between better graphics at 30fps or better performance at 60fps, the PlayStation 5 Pro will ideally support 4K fidelity at 60fps. Whether or not that can happen remains to be seen, but until Digital Foundry gets its hands on the console and does its comprehensive testing, all we can do is speculate.
The biggest discussion surrounding the PlayStation 5 Pro is its price tag: $699.99 USD, which doesn’t include a disc drive or a vertical stand. If you want to play your physical PlayStation 5 games, the disc drive costs an additional $79.99. After taxes, you’ll be spending over $800 on the PlayStation 5 Pro. For fun, we wanted to be like everyone else and try to figure out what’s the best gaming PC we could build for $700. We also thought about just doing an entertaining post of completely random things you could buy for $700, like 650 boxes of Mike and Ike candy. Instead, we decided to actually do something helpful… maybe.
Several PlayStation games are now available on PC, and with them come system requirements to achieve 4K at 60fps performance. While this won’t be exactly identical to what the PlayStation 5 Pro will deliver, this is what Sony is trying to claim in its presentation. Let’s take a look at the PC requirements for various PlayStation titles available on PC, aiming for 4K at 60fps average performance.
Horizon Forbidden West
- Preset: Very High
- Average Performance: 4K @ 60 FPS
- Processor: Intel Core i7-11700 or AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
- Memory: 16GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
- Storage: 150GB SSD
- Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1909 or higher)
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut
- Preset: Very High
- Average Performance: 4K @ 60 FPS
- Processor: Intel Core i5-11400 or AMD Ryzen 5 5600
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Storage: 75 GB SSD
- Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
God of War Ragnarök
- Preset: Performance
- Graphic Settings: 4K @ 60 FPS AVG (High Settings)
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti or AMD RX 6900 XT
- CPU: Intel i7-7700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
- RAM: 16 GB
- Storage: 190 GB SSD
- Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- Average Performance: 4K @ 60 FPS
- Graphics Preset: Ray Tracing Very High
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080
- CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K or AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
- RAM: 32 GB
- Storage: 75 GB SSD
- Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1909 or higher)
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection
- Performance Goals: 60 FPS @ 4K Ultra Settings
- CPU: Intel i9-9900k or AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3080 (10 GB) or AMD RX 6800 (16 GB)
- RAM: 16 GB
- Storage: 126 GB SSD
- Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
- Average Performance: 4K @ 60 FPS
- Graphics Preset: High (Ray Tracing Very High)
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
- CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K or AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
- RAM: 32 GB
- Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
- Storage: 75 GB SSD
So, at the bare minimum, you’re looking at needing an RTX 3080 in order to run any of these PlayStation titles on PC at 4K and 60fps. A quick search on Newegg shows you’ll be spending at least $559 for a brand-new RTX 3080 graphics card. That’s already 80 percent of the PlayStation 5 Pro’s price, and you only have a GPU. Even if you want to avoid the NVIDIA tax and opt for an RX 6800, you’re looking at $429.99 at the lowest current price—although that does get you an RX 6800 XT. Still, you’re not going to get a motherboard, processor, RAM, SSD, power supply, case, and fans to complete the build.
Now, there are decent gaming PCs you can get for the same price as a PlayStation 5 Pro, but you are not going to get anywhere near that 4K at 60fps mark that the console is claiming to be able to deliver. Again, that remains to be seen, but the idea of paying $700 for a console without a disc drive still seems a bit crazy to me. Sure, there are people already comparing console launch prices adjusted for inflation, which makes the PlayStation 5 Pro price seem not so extreme, but the number is still a bit of a shock.
This is exactly why we need Xbox to stay competitive in the hardware space.
