PlayStation’s Mark Cerny took a deep dive on the PS5 Pro and Sony’s new partnership with AMD

PlayStation’s lead architect, Mark Cerny, is back to explain the exact details of how get its various graphical improvements. Cerny first in September and in goes into how the Pro’s improved GPU uses AMD technology and announces a “deeper collaboration” between Sony and the chip maker.

The PS5 uses AMD’s RDNA 2 GPU architecture initially released in 2020, while the PS5 Pro uses what Cerny refers to in the video as RDNA 2.X. The new GPU is a mix of what was already offered on the with some cherry-picked features from the most advanced AMD introduced it in 2022. It is paired with ray tracing techniques that Cerny says are from AMD’s future RDNA technology, and custom machine learning features created for the PS5 Pro. Those machine learning components are also apparently a key part of AMD and Sony’s future work.

“AMD has been a fantastic partner for SIE for many years,” says Cerny. “And I’m honored to announce that we’re starting a deeper collaboration with a focus on machine learning-based technology for graphics and gaming.”

“Amethyst”, the name that the companies chose for their new joint project, is focused on creating “a more ideal architecture for machine learning”, according to Cerny. The new hardware architectures that the companies are developing could benefit future consoles and AMD GPUs, but they are only part of the plan. Sony and AMD are also working towards the “democratization of machine learning,” which sounds like possible software tools to make it easier for developers to implement AI in gameplay and graphics.

The entire video is full of information about the thought and engineering that went into the PS5 Pro and is worth a look if you’re looking for more details on what “Pro” means in this case. It might not convince you to upgrade to the new $700 console, but it certainly makes the case that Sony didn’t take design lightly.