AfterDawn: News

We now know the final specs of what's under the hood of Sony's PlayStation 5 (PS5) console, which will launch later this year.

Sony wants the specs of the PlayStation 5 to enable a step up worthy of being called next-generation, though it stresses that something like the total TFLOPs figure won't necessarily tell the full story in terms of performance. However, it is still worth taking a look at the raw hardware specs to see what they are packing into this new system.



Mark Cerny is demonstrating PS5 system architecture as I type, but the raw details of the hardware are already online thanks to Digital Foundry. In a nutshell, here is what the PS5 will pack under the hood:

• CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)
• GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)
• GPU Architecture: Custom RDNA 2
• Memory/Interface: 16GB GDDR6/256-bit
• Memory Bandwidth: 448GB/s
• Internal Storage: Custom 825GB SSD
• IO Throughput: 5.5GB/s (Raw), Typical 8-9GB/s (Compressed)
• Expandable Storage: NVMe SSD Slot
• External Storage: USB HDD Support
• Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive

PlayStation 5, like Xbox Series X, will support ray-tracing which makes the propogation of light and its interaction with objects in-game more realistic. For example, water becomes transparent and light sources will be distorted under way. Also, light passing through a colored semi-transparent object will cast a colored shadow.

The 16GB of GDDR6 memory is welcome, and the transition from mechanical spinning internal HDDs to a custom-made 825GB SSD will kick up loading and performance noticeably. Both an NVMe SSD Slot and support USB external storage provides plenty of space for a game library.

PS5 will also have a new controller that swaps the DualShock rumble for haptic feedback, which will provide a wider range of feedback than the familiar rumble which can feel the same for almost any kind of game.

More details on the PS5 will be along shortly.

Written by: James Delahunty @ 18 Mar 2020 12:56