When Sony released its PlayStation 5 in 2020, the video game console had big shoes to fill. The previous generation PlayStation 4 sold over 117 million units, making it one of the best-selling consoles of all time, and it’s still worth buying in 2026. Like its predecessor, the PS5 was built using a custom AMD GPU that is not an individual copy of a retail GPU available in stores. However, when comparing the performance of a PS5 with Nvidia’s GPUs, it most closely matches an Nvidia RTX 3070.
Nvidia’s RTX 3070 is a mid-range GPU, similar to AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 in terms of frame rates and other performance specifications at 1440p. These cards are also roughly equivalent to the RTX 3060 Ti, which is the closest Nvidia card has to the Xbox Series X.
One of the selling points of the PS5 is 4K gaming. Its GPU is built with 36 compute units running at a variable clock peaking at 2.23 GHz, which equates to approximately 10.29 teraflops of raw compute. The PS5 GPU shares 16GB of GDDR6 memory with its CPU and relies on a fast SSD to stream resources quickly. On paper, these numbers lag those of the Xbox Series But as with any console, raw specs don’t tell the whole story. The PS5 has a variable clock and strict hardware tuning, allowing it to exceed its weight and teraflop count when gaming. As a result, real-world experience shows that Xbox Series X and PS5 are equally powerful.
The RTX 3070 is the closest match
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The Nvidia RTX 3070 and AMD Radeon RX 6700 may be the most similar GPUs to the PS5 across the board, but they do have differences. On Nvidia’s side, the RTX 3070 has less memory, but can deliver faster performance, about the same comparison to AMD’s Radeon RX 6700. People also often compare to Nvidia’s RTX 3060 Ti, which is close in some scenarios, but it’s not quite the match.
Another way to compare GPUs against each other is to check the recommended specs for games running on all platforms. Sony’s “God of War Ragnarök,” for example, lists an Nvidia RTX 2060 Super or an AMD RX 5700 as its recommended GPU, with an Intel Arc A770 as an alternative. These cards are less powerful than the PS5 specs.
The design of the PS5 is what helped it remain competitive despite its mid-range specs. Sony built the PS5 with a set of parts selected and assembled by the company’s engineers. This meant Sony developers could spend more time improving software performance, rather than typical PC hardware challenges, such as ensuring compatibility with different types of chips, memory or storage. That extra polish shows, especially with additional features to help you get the most out of a PS5.
All this optimization is part of what makes Sony’s console still compelling. Of course, there are downsides to buying a PS5 too, including its weak first-party release and disappointing PlayStation VR2 headset. Sony has also increased the price of the PS5 since its launch, rather than lowering it, which is one of the reasons why you should buy a used one.
