PlayStation 6 Won’t Be That Much More Powerful Than PlayStation 5 After All

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Speculation surrounds the PlayStation 6 (PS6), with recent attention focused on its potential ray tracing (RT) performance. Initial reports suggested the PS6 would deliver up to 10 times better ray tracing performance than the PlayStation 5 (PS5), but this has been widely misinterpreted. According to hardware analyst KeplerL2, writing on NeoGAF forums, outlets are incorrectly interpreting internal AMD documents. KeplerL2 suggests that a tenfold increase in ray tracing processing does not translate to a tenfold increase in frames per second. Instead, the actual performance gain in games is projected to average around three times the FPS of the base PS5. KeplerL2 used official Ubisoft data regarding Assassin’s Creed Shadows performance to illustrate this calculation. By isolating rendering time (frametime measured in milliseconds) for specific lighting tasks, KeplerL2 compared current console performance to PS6 projections: | Task | Rendering Time on PS5 | Projected Time on PS6 | | :———————- | :——————– | :——————– | | Screen Space Tracing | 0.54ms | 0.18ms | | World Space Tracing | 1.38ms | 0.14ms | | Lighting | 1.17ms | 0.39ms | | Denoising (Noise Reduction) | 1.91ms | 0.64ms | | Total RT Tasks | 5.00ms | 1.35ms |

The data indicates that while ray tracing-focused tasks are significantly faster on the new architecture, ray tracing constitutes only a fraction of the console’s overall processing. For Assassin’s Creed Shadows, non-ray tracing scene processing and physics tasks take approximately 25ms on PS5 to ensure a stable 30 FPS (30ms per frame). Applying the projected PS6 architecture gains, KeplerL2 estimates that this normal processing would drop to 8.33ms. Adding the ray tracing time (1.35ms) to the regular rasterization time (8.33ms), the PS6 would deliver a frame time of 9.68ms, corresponding to approximately 103 FPS—a roughly 3.1x improvement over the PS5’s 30 FPS. KeplerL2 indicates that even in future games utilizing path tracing, the performance difference will likely exceed 3x but will not reach 10x, as the traditional computation and rasterization portion of frame time will remain above 50%.

Other information suggests the PS6 may launch with three different models: a high-end version (codenamed Orion), a “Lite” model (potentially called the PS6 S), and a handheld device called Canis. The Orion is expected to feature 8 Zen 6 CPU cores and 4048 RDNA 5 compute units running at over 3GHz, with rasterization performance about three times stronger than the PS5. The Canis is reportedly under development as part of the PS6 family, utilizing AMD’s RDNA 5 architecture. This handheld may even exceed the PS5 in power while maintaining lower production costs. Sony’s projected cost for the Canis processor is around \$46.80, compared to approximately \$81.50 for the reduced version of the current PS5 chip. AMD is also supposedly developing a power-saving mode for multimedia and video playback on Canis to conserve battery life, and it will reportedly play every game from the PS4 and PS5. Anticipated prices for these consoles are: PS6 Lite (or S): \$349 to \$549 Canis handheld: \$499 to \$699 Full PS6 console: \$699 to \$999

PS6’s AI-Advanced Orion and Canis: 2027 Production and Generational Leap with 3x FPS Boost

Future PS6 technology, such as Project Amethyst’s AI features, could advance both AMD and Sony’s AI and upscaling technologies (FSR and PSSR). The PS6 might feature up to 30GB of unified memory with improved bandwidth for next-generation features. Production for both Orion and Canis is rumored to begin in mid-2027, with a launch window between fall 2027 and early 2028. Given that the PlayStation 6 is still far from an official release, these analyses remain based on projections and initial technical documents. A 3x increase in frames per second would represent a significant generational leap.

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