PlayStation 6 and the next Xbox target massive ray tracing gains

PlayStation 6 and the next Xbox are on track for a major leap in ray tracing performance, driven by technologies built into AMD’s future architecture. According to insiders, the systems will add fast matrix operations, improved intersection testing, optimized stack management, and stronger hardware for geometry processing. Taken together, these changes should lift visual quality and make ray tracing more accessible and reliable.

Experts, however, point out that truly uncompromised ray tracing is still a distant goal—achieving it could take another two decades. Even the new consoles will lean on balanced techniques to manage the trade-off between image quality and performance, which in practice is the only sensible route right now.

Rumor has it Sony plans to prioritize ray tracing. PlayStation 6 could deliver roughly fivefold—and in some scenarios tenfold—gains in ray tracing power over PS5. Rasterization performance is expected to improve by about two to three times, which should be enough to keep 4K at 120 FPS steady. Microsoft, for its part, is preparing a next-generation Xbox with broadly comparable targets.

Final specs and prices remain under wraps, but both consoles look set to compete for the crown of the “ray tracing era,” even if the path to true photorealism still has limits. In the end, consistency and smart trade-offs are likely to matter more to players than chasing perfection at the cost of smooth gameplay.