Yesterday, PlayStation released a video featuring Mark Cerny, where he took center stage at the Sony Interactive Entertainment HQ to present a seminar on the PS5 Pro’s technical specifications. As the system architect behind the console, Mark offered a detailed explanation of the new hardware and tackled some swirling rumors head-on. One of the first topics he addressed was the concern over “FLOPflation,” with misinformation circulating due to an incorrect figure of 33.5 TFLOPs being leaked. This mix-up came about when a leaker misunderstood the hardware complexities, incorrectly assuming a deeper integration of RDNA 3-inspired design.
In reality, the PS5 Pro delivers 16.7 TFLOPs, a noticeable improvement over the PS5’s 10 TFLOPs. Cerny also confirmed one accurate pre-release leak that suggested the PS5 Pro could hit 300 TOPS during 8-bit calculations, with 16-bit calculations reaching an impressive 67 TFLOPS. He elaborated that the PS5 Pro operates on the RDNA 2.X, Sony’s tailored version of AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture, which incorporates several RDNA 3 features while maintaining enough of the original system to keep developers from having to rewrite code for the new console.
Mark Cerny highlighted that the most significant enhancements in the PS5 Pro lie in its Ray Acceleration structure, which is now equipped with BVH8 (Bounding Volume Hierarchy) and improved “Stack management in hardware.” This translates to more streamlined, efficient, and powerful graphics shader code performance on the updated system.
The concept of BVH refers to the organization of bounding boxes—essential for 3D rendering—which helps speed up complex graphical calculations, such as those required for reflections. The PS5 utilized BVH4 with groups of four bounding boxes for RT calculations. However, the PS5 Pro elevates this to BVH8, doubling the bounding boxes to eight. Moreover, the Ray Intersection Engine now evaluates rays against eight boxes and two triangles, whereas the PS5 managed four boxes and one triangle.
These ray tracing upgrades in the PlayStation 5 Pro, achieved through a highly bespoke version of the RDNA 2 GPU architecture found in the PS5, offer substantial improvements in light reflection for curved and uneven surfaces, though only moderate enhancements for shadows and flat reflections.
For those eager for a deeper technical dive, the entire 37-minute video is well worth a watch. It provides fascinating insights into both the console market and the technology landscape necessary to stay competitive today.
