GTA 6 hitting 4K 60FPS on PS5 Pro will be 'extremely challenging' due to CPU limitations

Despite the new GPU upgrades and AI upscaling, demanding games like GTA 6 are unlikely to hit 4K 60FPS on Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro.

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Sony's new PS5 Pro looks to be a substantial upgrade that's capable of delivering 4K 60FPS gaming in specific titles, but it lacks the chops to deliver this kind of performance on a universal level. It may not be until the PS6 generation that games hit a more standardized 4K 60FPS target, even with AI upscaling.

Although the PS5 Pro features a beefier RDNA 4 GPU outfitted with 67% more compute units and a supercharged unified RAM combo that can deliver +45% faster rendering, the system still has a big downfall: The CPU. Sony's mid-gen upgrade still features a similar 8-core Zen 2 CPU as the base PlayStation 5 console (the Pro's CPU has been slightly overclocked by +10%). This effectively means that CPU-bound games will deliver similar FPS performance on the Pro as they would on the PS5. And based on what's been revealed so far, GTA 6 is likely to be one such CPU-bound game.

This isn't the first time we've heard these kinds of reports.

Back in April, Digital Foundry made the case that GTA 6 was likely to run at 30FPS on both the PlayStation 5 and its upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro sibling.

Now with Sony's PS5 Pro officially announced, the tech experts are reiterating this point.

"No, [GTA 6 could not realistically run at 60FPS on the PS5 Pro," Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter tells IGN.

"Grand Theft Auto games have always run complex simulations that push the CPU hard, which is why every GTA game has initially launched on their target platforms at 30FPS or lower.

"The PS5 Pro uses the same CPU as the PS5 and it would be extremely challenging to hit 60FPS if the base PS5 version is targeting 30FPS. This isn't a GPU problem, it's a CPU problem."

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It remains to be seen how Rockstar will leverage Sony's new PS5 Pro, especially with the new AI-driven PlayStation Spectral Resolution upscaling technology. But if GTA 6 is targeting 30FPS on the base PS5, which based on past games and the technical demands that are expected from the game, it's likely that GTA 6 will also be 30FPS on the PS5 Pro.

But that doesn't mean the game won't look exceptionally better on Sony's new Pro model.