With the PlayStation 4 Pro

see deal PlayStation 4 Pro - PlayStation 4 $399.00 on Walmart

Physically, the PS4 Pro packs a lot of potential in a relatively efficient space. The additional 1GB of DRAM, the second GPU, and the extra power required to feed it don’t add as much bulk as you’d imagine, or from how it looks in pictures. At 11.6 inches wide, 2.2 inches high, and 12.9 inches long, it can fit into practically all the same spaces your launch PS4 can, unless it was a really snug fit already. It is significantly heavier though, by around 30%.

ps4 pro physical shots 13 IMAGES

In terms of inputs and outputs, the PS4 Pro sports two USB ports close together in the front and one more on the back. That third one in the rear is great for PSVR owners, since it allows them to hook it up to the PS4 Pro without using up a front facing USB. This both prevents you from having an unsightly cord constantly sticking out the front of your entertainment center, and keeps the front USB slots free for hooking up controllers or other peripherals. And unlike the recent slimmed-down PS4 revision, the PS4 Pro thankfully has an optical audio port. Dolby Digital headset users rejoice!

Overall, its weight, curved lines, and glossy-finished PlayStation logo give the PS4 Pro a substantial, premium feel, but the cheap-feeling and comically tiny physical eject and power buttons betray the aesthetic just a bit. They’re also a little tough to find until you get used to their odd placement at either side of the Pro’s middle “blade.”

In terms of UI and software features, this is mostly the same PS4 you know and love, which sadly means there’s no support for 4K blu-ray playback. On the upside though, the PS4 Pro supports the higher-speed 802.11ac wi-fi band (which is also on the revised PS4) and the faster SATA III hard drive interface. The latter will potentially allow you to pull much more performance out of a solid-state drive should you decide to replace the stock 1TB hard drive the PS4 Pro comes with. The swap is just a tiny bit trickier on the PS4 Pro than it is on the launch PS4 though, thanks to the somewhat finicky-to-remove panel that guards the access screw.

The 4K Factor

Of course the big new feature is the ability to output at 2160p - true 4K resolution - but the actual resolution of individual games is up to the developers. Because of this lack of standardization, I saw widely mixed amounts of visual impact when playing on 4K monitors.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Rise of the Tomb Raider, for instance, both look fantastic with the “enhanced resolution” option selected on a 4K screen. Lighting has a wider color range and everything looks significantly cleaner, especially around the edges. Particularly with Mordor, everyone who walked by while I was playing stopped to gawk, and that’s with what is now a three-year-old game. Properly supported, the PS4 Pro can work wonders.

On the other end of the spectrum is something like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which ups the resolution to an unspecified degree and upscales to 4K. Not only is it hard to find any appreciable difference in visual quality, but the higher resolution seemed to cause deeper framerate dips than I remember from when I played Mankind Divided on a standard PS4. And unlike some other games, there is no option to play in a lower resolution without forcing it by manually changing the Pro’s output back to 1080p in the system menu. Clearly, there are going to be cases where developers haven’t quite figured out how to best use the power of the Pro.

Totally Optional

The PS4 Pro’s power isn’t just for people with 4K monitors – again, that is, if the developers choose to take the time to utilize it. When they do, there are some nice visual upgrades for the vast majority of us who don’t own a 4K set. The problem is, there’s no guarantee that developers will make those upgrades, and based on the existing PS4 games that have received their PS4 Pro patch so far, mileage is going to vary greatly. Loading

Shadow of Mordor, Infamous: Second Son, and Rise of the Tomb Raider are good representations of what full-featured PS4 Pro support can look like. Each of them has a list of options in their respective menus, and two of them, Infamous and Tomb Raider, offer a high frame rate option. Especially in the case of Tomb Raider, this mode boosted performance dramatically over the standard PS4 version. Simply put, while the ambiguously named “enhanced visuals” option helps some shaders and reflective surfaces to pop a bit more, the difference was negligible compared to the roughly 50 to 100% increase in performance I witnessed in high frame rate mode. I’d love to see developers provide this option on every game going forward – but again, there are no guarantees.