PS5 Pro worth it just for GTA 6? Or stick with the base model?

by MapNerdJul 21, 2026, 07:41 PM3 views0 replies
M
MapNerd
Jul 21, 2026, 07:41 PM

My launch PS5 finally gave up the ghost last week, so I'm in the market for a new one. Timing could be worse, I guess, with GTA 6 on the horizon. But now I'm stuck in that classic console buyer's dilemma: do I go for the standard PS5 or drop the extra cash on a Pro?

I'll be real, I'm mostly a PC guy. My rig handles most things fine, but Rockstar's track record with PC ports means I'm not waiting an extra year or two for GTA 6. I want to be in Leonida day one. Same goes for The Witcher 4, whenever that lands.

Here's the thing: I'm a bit of a graphics snob. I notice frame drops, I obsess over draw distance, all that. The Pro's specs are tempting, but the price gap here in Germany is brutal. A standard PS5 runs about €480-500, while the Pro starts at over €820. That's a whole extra console's worth of cash for what, a smoother framerate and some ray tracing bells and whistles?

GTA 6 is going to look incredible on either machine, I'm sure. Rockstar squeezed miracles out of the base PS4 with RDR2. But I keep thinking about those swampy Grassrivers environments, the neon-soaked Vice City nights, the chaos of a Port Gellhorn traffic jam. If the Pro can hold a locked 60fps in those scenes while the base model chugs along at 30, that might actually matter to me. We still don't know what performance modes Rockstar is targeting, though. Could be both are capped at 30 with different resolution targets, and then the Pro's advantage is just a sharper image.

I'm not a huge console gamer otherwise, so the Pro's benefits for other titles don't sway me much. This is purely a GTA 6 tax. Part of me says just grab the standard edition and use the savings for the Ultimate Edition pre-order, but the other part knows I'll be kicking myself if the Pro version ends up being the definitive way to play. Anyone else wrestling with this? I'm leaning Pro but that price tag makes me wince every time I look at it.

Source: r/GTA6 · Curated content.