Is PS4 Pro Worth Buying Over PS4 Slim ?
The answer to that will be, maybe. Normally this question would be a little bit more open and shut, but the thing keeping PS4 Pro so competitive is it's ridiculously affordable price point of $400, only a $100 more than a brand new PS4 Slim. The PS4 Pro is obviously bigger than the slim in every direction, which means that it will end up taking more of your shelf space, especially how deep it runs.
On top of that, while the aesthetics are similar here and of course personal taste will vary, I gotta say that according to me the Slim just looks way better than the Pro. The triple stacking was just not a great call.
However, there are some functional upgrades that PS4 Pro offer. While both systems have a pair of USB ports on the front, the Pro offers an additional USB port at the back along with an Optical Port. One minor thing that I like about the Slim over PS4 Pro is the placement of it's power and eject buttons. They're easy to reach, but make it really difficult to accidentally press, whereas the Pro's are front facing on a little flap, and while they are still better than the touch button, but still they are the kind of thing that could get hit by accident pretty easily.
Now of course, physical appearance is not the only important factor to decide whether PS4 Pro is worth over PS4 Slim or not, what most of us are really wondering is how much more powerful the Pro is in practice. While specifications wise PS4 Pro is clearly more powerful, Sony had made it so that unless a game receives a specific Pro support pack, the PS4 Pro will intentionally limit itself to run those games at the same level as a regular PS4 would. So for the games that don't offer support Pro patches, for instance, Bloodborne and Witcher3, the Pro's offering you nothing over the Slim, but there are a lot of games especially recent Sony Exclusives and AAA titles that are offering Pro support, and what exactly this means ranges wildly from game to game.
For instance, the Uncharted 4 runs at a native resolution of 1440p and then gets upscaled to 4K, while The Last Of Us, running in 30 FPS mode, is actual native 4K. There are also games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Mass Effect Andromeda that uses what's known as checker boarding, which while not as good as native 4K, but does come much much closer than traditional upscaling.
So yes, certain games will look better on PS4 Pro if you own a 4K TV, but what about if your TV's only 1080P ? Well, once again, this varies by game, but the coverage for the most part so far is pretty minor. Some games offer graphical improvements like anti-aliasing or higher or more stable framerates. A common benefits for Playstation Exclusives, including VR games, is using super sampling, in which Pro will run a game at a higher native resolution and then downscale it to 1080 displays, which is an improvement, but the game is more minute. It's also worth nothing that while most games look prettier, some unpatched games and even some Pro supported games are actually getting worst performance on the Pro compared to the slim. For instance, World of Final Fantasy has noticeably lower visual quality with blurry backgrounds and some Pro-supported games have less consistent frame rates .
One other question I've seen pop up is whether or not the Pro's SATA3 interface for hard drives allows for faster loading times, and the answer is yes, but not really enough to matter. After trying a number of different titles, the PS4 Pro either loaded up at the same speed as PS4 Slim or beat it by a matter of a few seconds. I haven't tested it with a switched in SSD, but other reports seem to confirm the same thing. Better but by such a small margin it really doesn't matter. Now, aside from gaming, the other big performance feature that the Pro has to offer is of course 4K media, which in it's case only applies to streaming services.
You can stream 4K videos on YouTube or Netflix, which the Slim can't, but if you're looking for UHD Blu-ray support, both systems are gonna fail you on that front.
PS4 Slim Vs Ps4 Pro Specs Comparison
Playstation Slim Playstation Pro
| CPU | AMD Jaguar 8-core 1.6 GHz | AMD Jaguar 8-core 2.1 GHz | |
| GPU | AMD Radeon 1.84 TFLOP | AMD Radeon 4.2 TFLOP | |
| Storage | 500 GB/1 TB | 1 TB | |
| Connectivity | 1x HDMI 1.4 2x USB 3.1 | 1x HDMI 2.0 1x Optical Audio Out 3x USB 3.1 | |
| Power consumption | 165W | 310W | |
| Weight | 2.1 kg (4.6lbs) | 3.3 kg (7.3lbs) |
Conclusion
So, if you don't own a 4K TV, there really aren't many benefits to grabbing a Pro over Slim. If you're a first time buyer, I'd say that the Pro is worth paying the $100 extra for the bigger hard drive and visual improvements for handful of games, but if you already own a Slim or Launch PS4, there really is no reason to upgrade your system unless you own a 4K TV or you just enjoy burning money.
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