What is the PS5’s graphics card? The GPU equivalent

If you’re here to work out what the PS5’s graphics card is then you’re in the right place. We’re taking you through a deep dive on the latest Sony console’s internal hardware and the computing components it’s essentially comparable to.

We can roughly pin point the PS5’s graphics card by considerings its release date. Sony’s latest console debuted around three years ago and is based upon AMD’s RDNA 2 microarchitecture. The home console supports ray tracing and is capable of outputting in a maximum of 4K at 120Hz or 8K60 through HDMI 2.1. We recommend one of the best gaming TVs or best gaming monitors to push the absolute best out of the system.

We’ve already had a look at what the graphics card equivalents to the Xbox Series S and PS4 Pro are, but the PS5 might be a slightly trickier question. That’s due to its vastly increased graphical fidelity and performance capabilities, but don’t worry. You asked, and we’re answering without any more pre-amble.

The PS5’s graphics card

The AMD Oberon is the GPU responsible for the PS5’s incredible visual performance, and is based on the RDNA 2 architecture. It’s developed with a 7nm process size and contains 2304 shader units. Running at a 2233 MHz clock speed, the AMD Oberon has a power draw of 180W. Interestingly, the Xbox Series X has a graphics card as the PS5, with a few minor differences.

Most crucially of all, the PS5’s custom AMD Oberon features a staggering 16GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit memory bus which gives the system significant overhead for running demanding software. Taking into account the clock speed, VRAM, and the memory bus, we’re able to nail down things on the component side of things.

What is a graphics card equivalent to the PS5?

As mentioned above, the PS5’s graphics card is AMD Oberon which is running on a 256-bit memory bus with 16GB GDDR6 VRAM and built on RDNA 2 microarchitecture. As the console was released in 2020, that rules out some of the best graphics cards that have debuted after its release date such as the more recent AMD RDNA 3 graphics cards, the RX 7000 series, and Nvidia’s RTX 40 series Ada cards.

That means we can really narrow down the search. Based on everything we know, that would roughly place the PS5’s equivalent graphics card to the AMD Radeon RX 6800. This GPU was released around the same time as the console and features the same 16GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit memory bus on the RDNA 2 microarchitecture. It’s also built on TSMC’s 7nm process. With this in mind, we’re confident in saying that this is the graphics card you want to go for to build an equivalent to the PS5’s graphics card.

Despite its age, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 is an incredibly capable GPU for gaming even towards the end of 2023. In fact, it’s even one of the best GPUs for World of Warcraft. What’s more, while it was on the pricier end of things and incredibly difficult to find for the majority of its lifespan, it’s now not only easily found from trusted retailers, but also heavily discounted, too. According to the benchmarks as posted by FPS test on YouTube, this graphics card is able to provide playable framerates of around 4K60 in titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla which is no sweat. The RX 6800 and the RX 6800 XT can now be found around the $500 mark at retailers such as Amazon which is a similar price to the PS5 console.

With that said, you may be better served turning your attention to a more recently released graphics card instead. From AMD, there’s the RX 7700 XT with 12GB GDDR6 VRAM that can be found for around $440 at Amazon or the Nvidia RTX 4070 which starts around the $500 mark. We can see from detailed comparison benchmarks posted by Jegs TV on YouTube that all these GPUs have incredibly similar performance. However, for the best overhead, we recommend the older GPU with 16GB VRAM just to avoid any bottlenecking, and you’ll want to pair the video card with one of the best CPUs, too.

With the PS5 Slim now being available, the hardware has stayed the same. Though, an eventual PS5 Pro might change things as console revisions tend to do. If it’s anything like what we saw in the previous generation, this could mean a higher base clock speed for faster and more consistent performance but that remains to be seen.