PS4 Pro abuses proprietary hardware to make up for less than Xbox One X

On the PS4 we have half of the frosted plastic shell while the other half has a Black Piano finish that gives more elegance to the console. In the Pro model, Sony changed the design by adopting frosted plastic in virtually the entire structure of the video game.

There are small bright-effect rooms, where the Blu-ray player is, but it's much more discreet than before. Another change concerns the buttons, which used to be capacitive and which are now more common and even have a disturbing fragility. When you press the power button or eject the disc, it is not unusual to hear clicks.

The build quality seems to be slightly inferior to the old. Maybe the company has made cost reductions to reduce the final price. No wonder, since the PS4 Pro arrived for $ 400, the same amount was debited on the PS4 at its launch

On the front we have the Blu-ray player, which, ironically, is not able to play movies in 4K. To watch this resolution, you must use a streaming service, like Netflix. There are two USB 3.1 ports on the right side that charge the control battery and are used for data transfer.

The on / off and eject buttons are on a white stripe with an LED. It turns blue when the console is on and orange when it is idle.

On the back we find another USB port, an HDMI output, an optical audio output, Ethernet, and a cover that gives easy access to the internal HD of the console. Remove it and remove a single screw to swap the 1TB hard drive for an SSD or to invest in an SSD to speed up the loading of the game.

While being twice as powerful as the PS4 standard, the Pro model did not show overheating in our tests – even running in native 4K. The cooler is doing a good job and is not as noisy as its predecessor.

The console can be placed upright, but keep in mind that the air intakes are on the sides. In this way, it will eventually reduce the flow of air through the components and, therefore, increase the temperature.

The PS4 Pro brings to the hardware 2.3 times more power than the old PS4 and Slim. Here we have the same Jaguar processor, but it runs at a faster speed up to 2.1 GHz (compared to 1.6 GHz). The memory is also the same 8GB GDDR5 from the front, which also received a little overclocking and continued to provide 218GB / s of bandwidth.

The biggest breakthrough, however, is in the GPU. It is still manufactured by AMD, but has received features of Polaris architecture. The number of graphic cores has been doubled (from 18 GCN to 36). The speed has also been increased from 800 MHz to 911 MHz. All this combination guarantees a computing power of 4.2 TFLOPS to the PS4 Pro.

Closing the package we have 1GB of DDR3 that has been added to take care of the system and applications, which has finally released more graphics memory for game developers. Connections were also improved by leaving Bluetooth 2.0 and entering 4.0, which extended the life of the control battery.

The wireless card has also been updated, now compatible with the 802.11 ac standard, which allows you to connect the PS4 Pro in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. very fast internet connection, you will get higher download and download speeds with this change.

The control is almost the same as before. Sony has only included a transparent strip on the top of the touchpad, which is lit by the main LED. The color of the back and buttons has changed from black to dark gray. The build quality and ergonomics remain the same as before.

The battery of 1000 mAh of the order (as before) gives yield about 15h of autonomy. It's a decent moment, but the company could have included a more generous battery this time around. At least, the update of the Bluetooth technology allowed to spend a little more time away from the console.

The PS4 Pro is able to deliver native 4K at 60 fps in sports games like FIFA or NBA. In old or independent games, we also have this resolution, but not always at the same frame rate.

For more demanding games, the console uses checkerboard rendering techniques, which provides 4K without heavy weight for console hardware. Here they enter exclusively as God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn and Detroit: Become Human, for example.

God of War offers two modes to players: quality and performance. In the first it renders in high resolution and uses the checkerboard to arrive in 4K. The result is very good and you can only notice problems in the presentation if you pause the game and approach your TV.

The second option reduces the resolution in Full HD, identical to the PS4 base, but unlocks the frame rate. This allows you to enjoy the new adventure of Kratos up to 60 fps. Keep in mind that the processor is the bottleneck of the system and can not handle this performance all the time, but we have something very close to most of the time.

Shadow of the Colossus is a clbadic Sony exclusive that was originally released for the PS2. He underwent a remastering on PS3 to win textures in HD. Now on the PS4 we have a remake made by Bluepoint Games, which has reworked the game from scratch to offer a much better graphic quality than previous generations.

On PS4 we have two options like God of War: resolution and performance. At first, the game is native to 1440p and the console in 4K. In the second we have 1080p at 60 fps. Since the difference in resolution is not great between the two options, it is more appropriate to choose the performance mode and enjoy the game with better fluidity.

Detroit: Become Human is the newest exclusive weight of the PS4. That's from Quantic Dreams, the same as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls that impressed PS3 for their dense stories and their high-quality graphics.

Here, no difference and Detroit shows what the PS4 Pro is capable of. The presentation is amazing, even more when you watch it on a 4K TV with HDR. The game uses the checkerboard technique to provide this resolution at 30 frames per second. Unfortunately, there is no option to reduce to 1080p to achieve greater fluidity.

Horizon Zero Dawn is the most acclaimed exclusivity of 2017. The game shows a beautiful open world inhabited by machines. As in other quotes, here are two options that the player can choose. However, neither offers more than 30 frames per second, unfortunately.

You can give priority to resolution with 4K dynamic or stop the game in Full HD to avoid a drop in frame rate. This second option is not very useful, because even in graphic mode, it is very rare to feel a drop in fluidity.

The PS4 Pro interface is virtually the same as the old PS4 and Slim. All applications and all games are played on the home screen. You can organize them by folders, but Sony does not allow you to delete native apps that you do not use.

The PlayStation Store offers hundreds of themes to customize the console interface. Many are static, but some offer character-based animations or game landscapes.

As clean as the PS4 system is, animations tend to smother. Something very rare to see on the Xbox. The 5400 RPM HD does not help either. Some games take a long time to start or even load a card. Switching from an SSD drive is almost mandatory, but the high price of the storage drive makes the switch impractical.

We tested with a 1 TB SSHD, a hard disk that has an auxiliary SSD memory. We only have 8GB of flash memory, but this speeds up system loading and games. In some cases, the waiting time has halved. For those looking to expand the storage of the PS4, investing in a 2 TB SSHD can be quite feasible.

What's changing in PS4 Pro is that we have the Supersampling function and the Enhancement mode. The first fact that the console makes the game in full resolution, even if you do not have a 4K TV. The image is compressed to fit the screen of your TV, offering a sharper result than the one generated in native Full HD.

The second allows you to use the most powerful hardware of the console to power games that have not been optimized for the PS4 Pro Since the end of 2016, any version is optimized for Sony's most powerful console, but most of the games that preceded it are not.

We notice that Just Cause 3 and Bloodborne are two examples of Enhance mode, dramatically reducing fps and providing a more seamless experience. But keep in mind that if a game has been designed to run locked at 30 fps, it will not go away on PS4 Pro with this mode enabled.

There is still controversy between the native 4K and the dynamic 4K. Microsoft is betting on the first and can deliver 2160p in many games. The Sony console does this even in some titles like The Last of Us and FIFA 2018.

However, the PS4 Pro abuses techniques to offer a better graphic quality than the PS4, often by making them checkered. . The result is very good in most cases and will depend a lot on how each producer benefits.

Of course, the final image is not as rich and detailed as a native 4K, but for those who appreciate Sony's exclusivity. If you do not care about God of War, The Last of Us or even Spider-Man coming out soon, but make sure you get the most out of a 4K TV, the PS4 Pro is the best solution .

play on 4K, Xbox One X would be the most appropriate. But to have the best image and the best performance possible, investing in a powerful PC is always the best choice. Of course, the investment will be much higher than the amount billed by the mentioned consoles.

The PS4 Pro was launched for R $ 3000 officially in Brazil. You can find it for much lower values. If you can not wait for the PS5 and want to enjoy Sony games with better quality and performance, check out the PS4 Pro promotions below.