To better familiarize ourselves with Sony’s next-gen entry, let’s take a spin around the proverbial block and see what the experts are saying.
To better familiarize ourselves with Sony’s next-gen entry, let’s take a spin around the proverbial block and see what the experts are saying. Much like the Xbox Series X| S, the PlayStation 5 features an outward design that’s unlike anything we’ve seen to date. It’s probably going to lead to the creation of two factions: those that love it and those that hate it. IGN’s Luke Reilly seems to slide closer to the latter: It’s obviously not the first white games console but, in concert with its sheer size and shape, it’s surprisingly ostentatious for something destined to sit beneath or beside black televisions, black sound bars, black subwoofers, and generations of black AV equipment and gaming hardware. It’s a bit showy and in a world of generally sleek and simple tech it looks a bit out of place, like 2006’s vision of 2046. Sammy Barker with Push Square was a bit more receptive to the design: Despite its unorthodox aesthetics and overall enormity, we’ve actually grown to appreciate the look of the PS5. There’s no doubt it’s going to appear more at home in a contemporary, whitewashed apartment, with mood lighting and a sleek television cabinet. However, we enjoy how bold it is; this is a console that wants to be noticed, and with its unusual curves and shape, it’s successful. Either way, all agree that the PS5 is very large, as Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar notes: The PlayStation 5 is so large that it dwarfs every other console under my TV. It towers over the Xbox Series X, which is a big boy in its own right. The PS5 measures 15.4 inches tall and 10.2 inches deep, and it weighs a hefty 10.2 pounds with its required stand. But the PS5’s extreme scale mostly comes down to its unique design: The center of the console houses all of its internals, but it’s flanked by two large sets of fins. The entire system looks like Sony exploded a vintage PlayStation 3. The size has its perks, as Chelsea Stark with Polygon highlights: But the size has its perks: It gives space for adequate cooling. One of the highest compliments I can give the PlayStation 5 is that I rarely noticed it once I was playing. The PlayStation 4’s fans could reach distractingly loud volumes, especially with demanding games like Red Dead Redemption 2. Although this certainly could change as more developers put this thing’s hardware to the test, the fans have rarely made any noise in my time with it, including during all the PS4’s trouble spots: startup, switching games, cutscenes, and loading. (Image courtesy Henry Hargreaves, Polygon) Andrew E. Freedman with Tom’s Hardware talks hardware specifications: The PS5 is powered by tech from AMD. The 8-core/16-thread processor is based on the 7nm Zen 2 architecture, while the GPU is based on the RDNA 2 graphics architecture with 36 compute units. Sony hasn’t been as forthcoming as Microsoft with information about the chip, but we know that the CPU will clock up to 3.5 GHz, while the GPU goes up to 2.23 GHz, capping out at 10.3 teraflops. On paper, that’s slower than the Xbox Series X, which goes up to 3.8 GHz on the CPU and has 52 CUs at 1.825 GHz, or 12 teraflops. One way that Sony is differentiating itself is by using liquid metal as the thermal interface material (TIM) between the CPU and the heatsink. These specs should, Sony claims, support 4K,120 Hz output, though that does require the right kind of monitor, as well as games that can hit those performance numbers on the hardware. Additionally, Sony is moving to an SSD this generation. The custom storage solution is just 825GB, with a 5.5GBps read bandwidth, which is smaller than what Microsoft offers at 1TB. And remember, that’s the capacity without the operating system. Ours was 667.2 GB with everything else, before games. In the future, you’ll be able to add a secondary M.2 SSD or use USB storage to add more space. Like the new Xbox, Sony’s SSD is the real star of the show in the PS5 as GameSpot’s Mat Paget highlights: This is fast storage, outmatching most NVMe SSDs you can currently buy on the market.
