Gamers Compare PS5 Pro to PC Performance and Pricing
In the wake of the unveiling of the PlayStation 5 Pro‘s basic specs and, in particular, its relatively high price, which will be set at around 800 euros in Europe, gamers have started to calculate what kind of PC they could get for that amount. Their motivation, of course, is to illustrate that Sony is asking too much money for its revamped console, but the actual state of affairs may be a little different after all.
Comparing GPU Capabilities
Putting aside considerations as to whether some of the 800-euro line-ups on offer could handle 4K gaming and ray tracing, one of the editors of the renowned Digital Foundry magazine, Richard Leadbetter, has taken the debate in a completely different direction. Often mentioned graphics cards of a potential PC at the price of the PS5 Pro are, for example, the Radeon RX 6800 or the GeForce RTX 3060, but according to Leadbetter, the equivalent GPU in the PS5 Pro is more likely to be the RTX 4070, which is priced around 600 euros.
Leadbetter’s Perspective on PC Costs
Richard Leadbetter shared his reasoning with IGN’s editors in an interview, ironically following the magazine above’s article about how anyone can build an equivalent PC to the PS5 Pro for the same price. However, the longtime Digital Foundry editor said he thought such a PC would cost much more and started comparing the GPU to the RTX 4070. This is mainly because the PS5 Pro can advance ray tracing and is helped by an upscaler powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence. Leadbetter pointed out that no graphics card from AMD – which also provides the PlayStation 5 with its APU – can do this, which is why it’s reaching for an equivalent from rival Nvidia.
The Total Cost of Building a Comparable PC
“I was looking on Amazon yesterday, and the cheapest [of the RTX 4070s] is $540. On top of that, you must get a processor, motherboard, memory, power supply, case, and 2TB SSD, so the cost goes up,” Leadbetter explained. However, he added that it’s fair to highlight the free online gaming or cloud storage you have to pay for on PlayStation. That amount could be deducted from the price of an equally powerful PC to account for the number of months or years that PC would be powerful enough to be used by the gamer.
PS5 Pro’s Target Audience
However, he ended his comments by pointing out that, in his opinion, it is more likely the current owners of the base PS5 who are not in a wrong financial position and want to indulge in gaming in a little more comfort who will be interested in the PS5 Pro. “This is very important to me, and I think these people already have a library of PS4 and PS5 titles. For them to move from the PlayStation ecosystem to the PC ecosystem, they would have to leave behind their entire library, which they could have been accumulating for maybe a decade,” Leadbetter concluded, suggesting that merely “building” a PC equivalent on paper is not yet a reflection of the reality or scenarios that gamers would be dealing with.
