PS5 Teardown [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
This is the kind of industrial design that needs to happen more.
You can also notice the difference in cooling design. Sony has 2 heatsinks, a large and complex heatsink on the top with many heatpipes for cooling the APU and a small heatsink on the back for cooling just the VRMs stuck to the backplate with its own heatpipe(holy cow!) while XBOX is just a large copper plate with aluminum fins saving Microsoft tons in materials and build cost but they had better done their math right to make sure that it will be enough.
Sony had balls to go this route, I'll give them that. Respect.
I suspect Sony didn't penny pinch since they plan to make most of their money back from sales of games and services(ala Apple) while Microsoft probably wants to make more from the hardware itself(ala Android devices).
I have no dog in this fight, but my favorite part is the PS5 consumer friendly expandable storage via M.2 PciE drives(Yeeey!) vs the XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges(Booo!).
That's all well and good but I fear it won't fit inside a lot of media centers. The PS5 is big but it fits inside the envelope of an A/V Receiver.
Early indications are not great[0]. Granted, the most noticeably hot part of a system should be the exhaust.
[0]: https://www.pcmag.com/news/multiple-reports-suggest-xbox-ser...
In that sense, maybe the PS5 will have an advantage here by being large, because there's more surface area to work with so it won't feel like a little furnace, even if both consoles end up having no thermal problems (in terms of the chips overheating, etc)
Claims that the console is toasty even while idle are suspicious, though. It really shouldn't be drawing that much power while idle, so I hope that's not true at launch. So much hardware has this problem though... my macbook's USB C dock is almost a fire hazard with how warm it gets even when it's not in use.
I actually like the simplicity of their design. The white one has a bit of Dieter Rams in it. The black tower is just that.
Form must follow function and the console itself has few simple functions: to house and properly cool the computer inside, and to make it easily accessible for repair and upgrades. It's hardly surprising it has few simple lines.
OTOH, the PS5 has a lot of lines to disguise a huge heat exchanger. It's not obvious how to even power it on.
Thought the exact same thing. I am a huge fan of the Xbox designs. The white one specifically reminds me of an upright Dieter Rams designed Braun turntable [1].
...and as I finish typing the section above I find this [2]. Looks like someone else already had the idea.
[1] https://musicologistblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/braun-p... [2] https://au.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2020/september...
I think the power and eject buttons are the two lines on the bottom when its standing up
The ps5 is designed to be eye catching which I think is a mistake because most people probably don't want a game console to be the centre of attention in the room.
It'll be hard to hate a box you'll never even notice.
I can imagine this being snuck into workplaces and when the PHB asks what it is the reply is it’s a router or NAS box.
I’ve also heard some speculation that the curvy shape is specifically designed to keep people from impeding cooling by stacking things on top of it.
On the other hand I agree that looks won’t be the deciding factor for any potential buyer - casual or not.
Not really a planet, but a stage in life called marriage.
There are certain part of the world where Playstation has to be disguised as a new super fast WiFi Router called Plash Speed ( PS ).
I recall a very funny PS3 barbeque meme floating around, back in the day. To say nothing of them using the Spider-Man font
... yeah I don't even have last generation consoles but I'm considering this new generation.
From purely aesthetics I do think the new Xbox is the better looking and more modern looking machine, although the gigantic PS5 heatsink is going to help a lot with noise.
This is pretty much the opposite of their stated strategy, which is to make money off services like Game Pass by ensuring that the consoles are accessible and all of their first-party games work across multiple generations / levels of consoles [0].
The PS5 was reportedly "considerably" more expensive before xbox announced their price [1], and Sony has been clear that game prices will go up for next gen and they're not focusing on cross-generation compatibility, so I do believe you're right that Sony at least expects to get it back on the games.
[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/xbox-vs-playstation-microsof... [1]: https://bgr.com/2020/09/11/ps5-price-and-release-date-vs-xbo...
It would be far faster to move a game from external HDD back to the Velocity SSD before playing than to download the entire game again from the internet.
Feels like a money grab tbh.
They did: "A USB 3.1 drive can also carry Xbox Series games as storage, which can be transferred to Series X or S's internal SSD or Storage Expansion Card to then be played."
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/xbox-series-ssd-expansion...
Nowadays that bay is very useful for booting games off any HDD. SATA is also supported by using a IDE->SATA board.
[1] https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/which-ssd-drives-will-be-c...
Maybe Sony expected MS to aim higher again, and this time it was MS who undercut.
I’m sure their internal strategy is to make money on the hardware, software and services. Basically everything. As Apple has shown, it’s not necessarily the worst plan.
Which is incredibly ironic given how long it took Sony to adopt standard storage devices in the past. I think they were literally the last camera manufacturer to support CF and SD cards.
You sure about that number? That would be close to 2X faster SSD than Apple uses in new MBPs and they are already insanely fast compared to most SSDs. Would love a source if you have it.
2) it doesn’t matter anyway, the SSDs actual read speed is 5.5GB/sec (aka 44Gbps) raw performance. About the only mass market consumer targeted drive I know of (could be others of course) that’s faster is the one I mentioned in a sibling comment (Sabrent M2 Gen4 tops out at 5GB/sec for example) Further, without having heard officially myself, I believe this confirms its PCIe 4.0 bus internally (which wouldn’t be surprising given other specs I know), as if memory serves PCIe 3.0 can’t get that high.
But more importantly the big goal of building in the SSD is so that games can be designed with no load times, which beats any loading time number you can hit.
Oh how the turntables.
Ignoring the fact that the 360 isn’t the original Xbox... which is what I literally said.
Microsoft spends a lot more time on engineering their hardware than that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiQ2nAQG7Mk
Also, the blower fan is interesting. Though, like you said, there is a lot of stuff in there to push air through, plus dust filters (yay!), so it probably made sense to go with static pressure over pure volume of airflow.
This is a pattern, the PS3 and PS4 both had end-user accessible bays which contain a 2.5" HDD. Any drive can be formatted even from blank using the console's safe mode.
> the XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges
This is also a pattern. The original Xbox and Xbox One had internal hard drives that were not end-user serviceable. The Xbox 360 used 2.5" HDDs in cases. The original 360 drives had a special port on the cases, for whatever reason. The 360 S/E drives used regular SATA connections, it's plainly obvious looking at one that the connector is just the edge of a 2.5" HDD.
I thought Apple seems to do the opposite: they constantly raise iPhone prices while cutting features that increase manufacturing cost (eg. replacing the headphone jack with an empty hole large enough to fit a lightning→3.5mm dongle), and I’ve heard Apple fans argue here, I think more than once, that Apple is able to offer less profiteering (more privacy friendly) software because they make so much on hardware.
When I saw how nice everything looked my first thought was that they’re going to release an updated “slim” console in, like, a year after launch that cuts a lot more corners. They get lots of hype to encourage sales up front by packing a ton of value in the launch model. That encourages more people to buy into the ecosystem and then they launch a future one that designed with higher margins in mind.
"Microsoft has no taste": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KdlJlHAAbQ
as true now as it was in the early 90's.
I only hope Microsoft has tested their cooling solution better than the 360 era. I don't want another RRoD situation.
Looks at the Surface hinges
And both company are not making much if anything from Hardware. The profits are all in games. That is part of the reason why Games is getting more expensive with every gen.
We need some real innovation to help driving Game development cost down, especially with respect to Graphics.
Jokes aside, it's very impressive.
I mostly agree with you, but Dell has an 8K monitor (albeit fugly in comparison) for around $3500 including stand (if memory serves).
Simple is always better, and in this case, something that PC case manufacturers have been doing for some time now are screws that never fully detach even after being unscrewed. It does the exact same job without having all these extra steps and complicated UX.
I wish MS would also poke fun at Sony's "We believe that PS5 games should take advantage of the new capabilities and features we're bringing to the platform" statement attempting to justify why PS4 controllers won't work with PS5 games, meanwhile most launch titles are cross-gen or might come to PC.
Completely. It's cute and all. But the better engineering design is to make a console that can stand without a... stand. No parts to lose, no assembly/disassembly process. Just turn the device on its side. Now where have I seen that lately?
Edit: When he pulls up on that one side of the white cover and then the whole thing pops off, I thought, "Sony would be good at designing serviceable androids."
Japanese thought process of a machinery is it is made of machined metal and infinite numbers of 3mm screws. Look at a Casio watch. There should be four Phillips screws on the backplate. Two extra on sides and four more, if it's rubber exterior ones. A Rolex, has zero. Just like that. First choice of fasteners to join any two arbitrary parts is a pair of 3mm screws. If a joint has to articulate, there should be a pin on one side, hole on the other, and a 3mm screw to seal off the end. If it has to slide, tapped hole on a bar and a half threaded screw.
It's cultural thing. I'm from Japan so an "eerie" lack of screws still confuse me sometime when disassembling non-Japanese things.
Turns out there's a tool for that!
https://toolguyd.com/pb-swiss-tools-coin-driver-theres-a-scr...
In Japan the standard variety of "coin drivers" are the local equivalent of $4.99 so they can compete with the humble $5 coin.
Why not use a captive screw so it can't fall out, and design a console with a flat bottom so no rotation/moving parts are needed?
This is a custom screw that 99.9% of users will never see (guessing at that number of course) but they put it in anyway. That must have been a lot of work.
My sense is that it’s all just a way to help make the price tag feel like you’re getting something premium.
I am assuming that the radial layout of the SSDs (which are hard soldered btw, so not user replaceable/upgradable like past models) and the RAM, must be for cooling purposes as well.
Overall the PCB is not very condense. Everything is quite spread out on it... again I assume for cooling. It looks like cooling is either a major concern for this device, or that Sony over-engineered its cooling in order to prevent problems.
(Edit: oh in my off the cuff estimation, I am also attributing the empty space in the case to cooling as well, since that is an intentional design choice by Sony and contributes to its airflow capability and cooling capability).
EDIT: cooling (fan) noise also is something they seem to have tackled with this design
In classic Google fashion I found several threads saying the same thing
I want to guess that the end of life graphics pushed the system that hard, but its probably just bad coding somewhere.
It actually is bad enough that I will limit gaming sessions out of concern for the hardware. Which is also probably better for me and my personal life.
Guess I will wait a while before getting PS5, means I also have to wait on Cyberpunk 2077. I heard they’ll CD Projekt will upgrade ps4 version purchasers for free but I dont trust their ability to do that in an uncomplicated way.
I have an original PS4 (bought it at launch, haven't needed to replace it) and that thing runs fans at full tilt with any modern PS4 game and it gets loud enough to really ruin the experience.
My PC also makes a lot of fan noise, but since I play with a headset at the PC, I don't hear it. But with the PS4, I am playing in the living room with speakers, so it matters a lot more.
FWIW, one of the old 17" MacBook Pros had this. I think it was a G4. Didn't help once you fired up Virtual PC.
"No big whoop. I bet you do it all the time."
(Strictly speaking, the access pattern that matters most for games will probably be something like 128kB random reads, so the attained throughput when a game is streaming in chunks of partially-resident textures on the fly is likely to be somewhat lower than purely sequential reads.)
I'm guessing the NVME will be for storing some game assets it can swap out for less frequently played games; but that data would still need to be transferred back to the onboard SSD when the game is loaded back up?
I really like how easy it is to take the fan out. I bet we can get special fans soon after release.
I'm confident we'll see a revision in a few years that takes off at least a third of the size, probably more. This will mainly depend on whether the chips used become more thermally efficient though.
I'd guess simply not much effort went into making the PCB small and cheap.
I would guess there will be a follow-up revision of the PS5 with all hardware much cheaper. That model will be the mass market one, and the profit maker for Sony.
It's heatsink, and PSU would've still pushed the outline past the PCB dimensions, so why not to go for a bigger, lower layer count, easier to route, and cheaper PCB?
Some interesting room to conjecture.
EDIT: 315w for xbox vs 350w for PS4 isn't that big of a difference. In any case, massive graphics cards like the GTX480 or those old AMD dual 4xxx/5xxx cooled more than 350w with a much smaller heatsink (though in a larger case with better airflow -- though not all of that power goes just to the CPU/GPU in the consoles).
Those suckers were deafening though.
So if this over engineering ends up causing a quiet game system then this is a win in my book.
My only other really big complaint about the PS4 is how terrible the battery life is on the DS4 controllers. I really hope that's also resolved with PS5 and it's new controller.
The only thing that worked is liquid metal. I suspect it’s because it’s not susceptible to the pump out effect from repeated heating and cooling (and expansion contraction of the cooler). Since the cooler has a copper plate, liquid metal works on it (it melts aluminum so wouldn’t work on the normal PS4)
If you haven’t already, you should try applying liquid metal to the APU die. It’s night and day for me, keeps the console whisper quiet.
But good tip for anyone that may be waiting! I took my original PS4 launch day console apart and cleaned it all up and noticed an improvement, but I just used arctic silver.
I’m going to be gaming a lot more on mine, I’m not planning to get a new console for another 18–24 months when prices have come down and there are plenty of used games for sale.
Be very careful because it’s electrically conductive. Or use conformal coating/nail polish around the die of you don’t trust yourself.
Take a look: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-compariso... Difference between good paste and liquid metal is couple degrees. Between good paste and cheap paste much more.
I don't like the idea of liquid metal. Conductive liquid is the last substance I want in my electronic devices. Also, some metal alloys have rather unexpected properties: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mExi4NuLn9Y
It's a lot easier to optimize a system when you have roughly fixed inputs, and from what the Japanese YouTubers at the hands-on event said, it basically doesn't make enough noise to be distracting unless you're using it as a pillow.
The big gamers will keep it in a nice place with lots of ventilation. But the average box will end up stuffed between two other hot pieces of electronics, or on a carpet, or in a cabinet, or covered in thick layers of dust and cigarette smoke, or all of the above. If you've ever opened up a used console from Goodwill, all the evidence is there.
The people who do these things to their machines are also the first, and the loudest, on social media saying it's an unreliable piece of crap.
* The motherboard, not the whole console.
Hey, that's a really good way to get an idea of how your product is actually used! All the wear and tear is there, and for little money to study. Thats a really great idea.
This things run for hours and hours, it's hard to understand if you just use your computer to do cloud things or maybe compile something every once in a while. I'm into photography and I've been learning Ableton and my Mac wasn't doing it anymore, after an hour the fans go super loud and the CPU underclocks and Lightroom or Photoshop become super slow and Ableton starts clicking. I got a Thinkpad T where like 50% of my laptop is now cooling and I can work on it for hours and everything runs fine.
During the PS3 generation, I went through five or six consoles and those were a mix of the different sub types (original, slim, etc.) due to overheating issues that would cause hardware failure.
I've had my basically launch PS4 almost since it came out now and no heat issues whatsoever.
If the PS5 evolves even further past that, at the cost of more components/design tradeoffs then I'll take it.
PS4: Noted for being very loud
PS5: Perhaps with sufficient cooling
Really hoping they put all that into a case that actually looks like it belongs in a grown adult's living room for the next revision.
The exterior case looks like it was designed by some random small ultra-low-cost Chinese company.
I understand what you say but even bricks have more taste than this.
Dell has them at least for their "pro" lineup (e.g. [0]), same for Lenovo [1] or HP [2]. Said "pro" lineup is meant to be serviceable.
It is however the first time that I see a first-party console tear-down.
[0] https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_lapto...
[1] https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/t470s_ug_en.p... page 109 onwards
This way Sony gets to control the messaging. The person doing the work has disassembled a ps5 dozens of times, doesn't question any design decisions, or share any information that could be learned from the PCB that Sony doesn't want to publicize.
I'm guessing Sony wants to get ahead of iFixit's snarky (but entertaining) teardowns, and the like.
Being first matters a lot for unboxings, teardowns, etc. (assuming you can also get a wide audience in that first post).
https://web.archive.org/web/20201007230301if_/https://www.yo...
It sure is way more interesting than going through the handbook.
Liquid metal is surprising. I think the only other consumer product that uses it is some Asus gaming laptops. They made a video [0] talking about the difficulty of application in a production environment.
That cooler is impressive. So many heatpipes, complex geometries, lots of copper. Squirrel-cage (blower) fans are usually a bad sign but that thing is so huge it probably doesn't have to spin very fast. That was pretty much the only way they could fit a big quiet-er fan in a traditional console rectangle. Microsoft took the other approach of changing the case to fit a traditional 135mm PC fan.
The dust catchers are a nice attention to detail. Nice to be able to clean the thing without voiding the warranty (in some countries). Wonder how well they work, there's no mesh or anything so I suppose they just designed the airflow to slow down and leave dust behind?
I wouldn't be surprised if they're selling these at a loss at $499.
Perhaps it's primarily for validating signatures from discs in an offline scenario.
If they had something fancy they wanted to do on battery power, they would stick in a Li-ion battery, which they didn't.
I was thinking about the issue with key expiration dates and validation. It's not a good user experience to force users to enter the current date every time they boot their offline system.
Inventing software solutions to already solved problems (and ones that don't pass all use-cases) isn't really a path worth going down unless the savings are actually significant.
Guessing: Perhaps, after Fukushima, Japan, like Germany has become very conscious about allowing people to completely shut off their devices when they are not using them?
I do remember German computer mags being very concerned with standby/operating power usage already like 15-20 years ago for things like home routers.
Isn’t a cmos battery pretty standard on PCs?
Isn't that how the economics of consoles actually are?
The user has to pay for network connectivity (PSN or Gold), publishers have to get their games approved (which was introduced by Nintendo [0]), and then there's a single market for the console (included game store with cut or through authorized discs only).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System (not as precise a source as I would like) (This was needed to avoid "low-quality" games from ever reaching the consumer, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(vi...
Could one build an equivalent PC (including noise levels, 8 cores, etc.) for even $1000? I'm on the fence; bonus points for a build link. I guess we'll need to see what AMD's midrange next-gen (6000 series) GPUs will cost?
a) a machine that is typically sold at a loss and made up for with licensing/subscriptions
and b) a general purpose computer made of off-the-shelf parts versus a more specialized computer made from high volumes of specific components that provide a single standard to optimize all software.
Sounds like the answer is "no".
(and if not, please provide an example build instead of simply downvoting. I'd love to build a dedicated gaming PC, but it has to be worth it)
I mainly stopped buying consoles because I already need a fairly powerful computer for a lot of other productive and entertainment uses, so for me, the price difference between the computer I "need" and the computer that also plays games really well is mostly the price difference between a decent GPU and a nicer GPU.
If you already have all the computer you need for other tasks and it's cheaper to buy an Xbox or Playstation than it is to make the computer more capable of playing games, then it makes more sense to buy a game console.
I'm willing to pay twice as much for a single PC with similar gaming performance, but I'm not sure it can be done (no concrete suggestions, just downvotes...) I've been building PCs since before plug 'n play existed, and would love to be proven wrong.
I suspect it will be possible with something like the RTX 3060 (whenever that comes out). That'll be about the right price for a GPU in a $1k PC build and it should outperform the PS5.
GPU is important for sure, but I think storage performance is as important, since load times and stuttering take me out of the game in a way slightly worse graphics wouldn't (purely my opinion). From what I can tell, equivalent I/O for the price is still a ways off on the PC side. One also has to be careful to factor in time spent purchasing and building; I do not value my time at $0.
Trying to look at this all objectively... appreciate the input so far!
The RTX 3060 is right around the corner (like a couple of months). The PS5 isn't quite available yet either. So this is a valid comparison for systems you could have in hand by end of this year, but couldn't yet have in hand right now.
> but I think storage performance is as important, since load times and stuttering take me out of the game in a way slightly worse graphics wouldn't (purely my opinion). From what I can tell, equivalent I/O for the price is still a ways off on the PC side.
I think you're over-estimating the impact of storage speed on the gaming use case here. You can easily fit a 1 TB 3 Gbps NVMe SSD into a $1k PC budget, and you aren't going to notice the delta between that and the 5.5 claimed Gbps on the PS5 for gaming. Neither of these SSDs is gonna be a bottleneck for any kind of stuttering in games. An underpowered CPU/GPU/slow memory would be much more likely culprits once you've got the NVMe SSD part nailed down.
> One also has to be careful to factor in time spent purchasing and building; I do not value my time at $0.
Well then you should only be buying pre-builts if you don't derive enjoyment from assembling computers and thus need to pay yourself a wage to do so. Personally I love the whole process of researching and assembling computers; it's a hobby (an infrequently practiced one though, by the nature of it).
This is probably true for most current games, but is very much up for debate for future games[0]. If the storage speed really made no difference I doubt Sony would have bothered with the additional cost.
> Well then you should only be buying pre-builts if you don't derive enjoyment from assembling computers and thus need to pay yourself a wage to do so.
It's not mutually exclusive; I both enjoy building PCs and have limited time, thus the time has value that should be factored into the equation. The goal is to game, not build a PC.
[0]: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/ps5-ssd-is-so-fast-developers...
I think Sony may have chosen these specs partially so they could get away with having less RAM. Also, some of this speed isn't that the SSD components are necessarily that much faster, but rather that they're soldered directly onto the main board and located closely to the components that will use them. Modular, detachable storage located farther from the CPU is just gonna be slower, period.
So I'm not so optimistic that this alone will prove to be a significant differentiator. And it could easily be the case that by the time it does, PC components have pulled ahead again. It takes several years before developers have gotten really good at using a given console to its full potential.
You're right though, PCs will get brute-force faster, while devs will squeeze more out of consoles. I just find it hard to make the case for building something right now given the apparent bang-for-the-buck of these consoles. That said, I do kinda need a new Plex server... :)
Completely wrong. They're using PCIe 4.0 for the onboard SSD, and PCIe 4.0 for the aftermarket SSD slot. There's no performance penalty for going with removable storage here. We're not talking about a high-speed DRAM interface where shorter traces without the insertion loss of a connector really does help reach higher clock speeds (other things being equal).
Bearing in mind here, that it’s memory+storage architecture has a theoretical top of 22 Gb/ps, and they demonstrated recently, when assets are compressed using the “Octo” (naming?) lib, they were getting throughput of 12-18 Gb/ps. That’s written by the storage controller directly into memory the GPU can access (without the CPU being involved) so the normal latency to load data into a GPU is effectively gone.
That speed is significantly above what drives can do on a normal consumer computer (to the best of my knowledge)
Edit: nevermind, it’s too late, my poorly formatted units are staying.
In the long run a PC is usually going to cost you less than a console even if it costs much more up front.
It might be to keep the SSD storage alive if the unit is disconnected from power, correct me on this if I'm wrong but I think SSD's can lose data when they lose power for a long period.
Consider yourself corrected :) SSDs will not lose data if left unpowered.
But I'd assume the coin cell in question here is a conventional RTC battery.
That being said.. I am gaming on wifi regularly and have no in-game issues related to it (low ping, stable connection, same room as the router, 5Ghz band only used by the machine on which I game + work machine, but those don't happen at the same time).
I've used Steam Link on a computer in my living room running Wifi to the internal router that runs a wire to the receiving TV. My wifi is one of those dedicated mesh router things that is as solid as you can buy. And it mostly works... but still has occasional jank and even more occasional bad days where it never stops working but noticeably drops resolution a lot.
It's just too easy for an otherwise functional home Wiki connection on its own to eat all the latency budget or more for that style of gaming. And the companies really want you locked into more subscriptions, not owning your games, and streaming everything if at all possible, so I'm sure they'll continue building the hardware for it. Ethernet is cheap; not so cheap you can't save a lot of money over several million consoles, but so cheap that it's a no-brainer for this purpose; retaining one marginal customer on the cloud service that works on ethernet but not on their wifi pays for hundreds of ethernet ports, if not thousands.
For downloading games though, heck. 25GB is like a minimum now, and some go north of 100GB.
If you live somewhere with a crowded Wi-Fi spectrum you'll have connectivity issues daily.
...unless you live in a rural area. I’d hate to download a 50GB day 1 patch on 5mb/s DSL
Games don't need bandwidth when playing multiplayer, they need stable jitter and no packet loss.
Unless you live in a rural area.
Or literally anywhere in Australia.
> If you live somewhere with a crowded Wi-Fi spectrum you'll have connectivity issues daily.
Like everyone who lives in a city does.
Maybe so for competitive, realtime games; certainly wired will generally be lower latency, all other things being equal.
Regarding Nintendo, while they've never shipped a console with an Ethernet port built-in, they have supported it since the GameCube (Broadband Adapter); the Wii, Wii U, and Switch all accept standard USB Ethernet dongles. Use of these adapters is somewhat widespread on the Switch, particularly for Mario Maker and Smash (although this is more due to Nintendo's incompetency with netcode than inherent latency in Wi-Fi).
I expect mainline consoles will have a hardwire option (ethernet or otherwise) forever. There are game genres (like fighting games) that are latency sensitive and it would kill the competitive scene for that console if Wifi was the only option available.
There's a subreddit for that: https://www.reddit.com/r/knolling/
[0] and I assume later models after that bundle came out, are quieter too;
[1] too lazy to find out what is the exact model designation number;
Things got better after opening it up, cleaning, and replacing the thermal goo, but it is still intolerable.
If you disagree, then refute that... but an anecdote about how playing RDR2 causes the console to get hot isn't a response to anything they said. You could have a very early PS4 Pro without the improved cooling system.
(To be clear, I don't know whether the PS4 Pro's cooling system was revised in a later edition, I'm just explaining why your response doesn't fit with the comment you're replying to.)
The CUH-7215B was included in a bundle with Red Dead Redemption 2 and in a bundle with Kingdom Hearts III, the one I got — there are probably other bundles with this model too.
I am not trying to shit on Sony, I have been buying Playstations since the first one, it is just a known fact that the PS4 suffers from noise issues, and I added my personal experience to the mix. Not sure why I got down voted for that.
EDIT: Just to add to what I said, I am not trying to be a dick or offend anyone. If my comment was wrong or offended anyone, just let me know what I did wrong and I will keep it in mind for the next time.
Thank you for the polite answer, by the way.
NMS is good at making it run at full volume
So bad I had considered building a sound dampining enclosure for it.
Instead I bought an aftermarket fan (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075R3W8V7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...) and using Ifixit, replaced it.
Now it's much quieter.
I don't know if my unit was slightly faulty or it was standard behavior. Why not just let the disc run at full speed instead of constantly changing its speed and annoying the user with those sounds?
I don't care about fan noise, because it's constant, but noise coming from a disc reader constantly stopping and accelerating is annoying.
That is correct - all that power has to be dissipated somehow.
When it comes to cooling considerations, the limitations are: fast, quiet, compact - pick two.
Xbox Series X may have beaten this dilemma. The recent talk about it running "hot" misses the point; the heat has to go somewhere. A MacBook running hot (and boy, does it) matters to the person whose lap it is on, but not so much for a console sitting at the other end of the room, as long as you leave enough room for air flow.
The fact that the Xbox Series X previews universally report that the console runs quietly is promising. (Yes, they all tested with X1/360/original Xbox games, as opposed to Xbox Series native games. But they are all getting upscaling and HDR added, so the console still has to do work.) This may change in seven years when the new GTA8 pushes it to the limit just before the next Xbox comes out.
> but not so much for a console sitting at the other end of the room, as long as you leave enough room for air flow.
Manufacturer won't expect all gamers put the console on large living room. Possibly the console is put on asian small one room.
To extend your thought, cloud gaming would be the answer. Heat, noise, and size is on datacenter.
Microsoft is going all in on Game Pass as the future. I'd be surprised if the company doesn't do some combination of the following:
* Xcloud client for Xbox One (maybe even 360) * Xcloud client for PC/Mac * Official Xcloud client for Android TV/Amazon Fire * Ultra-cheap Xcloud-only Xbox Series GP
Why aren't consoles designed to be hung on the wall behind the tv as well?
Same can be said for Apple TV. Most of my tvs, all they have is an Apple TV - it's always a process of zip-tieing it to the back of the tv or tv mount or buy a mount for it on Amazon.
We used to be able to hang modems on the wall also. Looking at my Xfinity router, no way it can be hung on a wall, so it's on random shelf / window sill out of the way.
[edit] Why the down votes? Perfectly legit question isn't it? Those of us that live in apartments and sq ft is limited, why wouldn't you hang a tv on the wall and it's accessories behind it?
Unless we're talking a tv > 60 inches, I don't recall anyone I know or talk to not hanging their tv.
As the gamer demographic skews younger and the homeowner demographic is skewing increasingly older - I can see why it isn't a major priority.
My TV is wall-mounted, but my consoles are either on a shelf above or a cabinet below it.
I mount my TVs, but I think it could be a bit of the chicken/egg problem. TV mounts generally aren't designed to fit anything behind them, and many devices aren't designed to be mounted. I suspect this leads to many people saying "why bother with mounting if I'm going to need a cabinet to sit all my devices on, I'll just sit my TV on there too."
I think your idea is valid BTW.
Besides I want everything plugged into a receiver, not the TV. So I dont see wall mounting devices makes sense for higher-end setups.
- That stand is a crazy piece of unnecessary engineering just to make the customer's life a wee little bit easier. Very cool.
- Removable side-panels. This was strongly theorized from previous leaks, but I think this is the first time we've gotten an official video showing them. The aftermarket for these will be huge, allowing really well integrated customization. It also makes Sony's "limited edition consoles" they release for big games far cheaper to build, and maybe even accessible to people who don't want to replace their whole console (if Sony releases the plates as a separate/pre-order/etc purchase).
- The NVME and fan are both easily accessible without voiding warranty. They've advertised that NVME slot before; PCIE4 is required, and it has to match or exceed the internal SSD's raw read performance in order to be supported, which is 5.5Gbps. Nearly every current-gen NVME SSD is too slow, which may lead to some confusion, but I also expect Sony will have some PS5 branded SSDs right in the Best Buy gaming accessories isle so hopefully too many people don't get burned by this. Definitely prefer it to Microsoft's proprietary strategy.
- Single cooling fan. There's a ton of empty space inside the console, so it doesn't seem impossible that they could have found room for a second fan, but they must feel confident about this one (massive) fan's ability to cool that (massive) heatsink. Judging by the design though, it looks like it has a lot of surface area to collect dust. This (and bad thermal compound) was a huge reason why the PS4P had issues with jet turbine fan noise for some people. Its unprecedented accessibility (no warranty void) seems to signal that they want people to clean it out; very good.
- Liquid metal. This is a big TIM change that is likely in direct response to the PS4P problems. LM is significantly more expensive, but also significantly more thermally conductive. However, it has drawbacks: most DIY builders wont (shouldn't) use it because the gallium in it chemically destroys aluminum (which, if the bronze color of the heatsink wasn't enough evidence, points to the heatsink being copper) [1], and its electrical conductivity means one little spill and you fry your motherboard. Neither are issues for the PS5, but it has also been observed to need reapplication more often than traditional compound. I trust Sony did the due diligence in this area, so it doesn't concern me, but its also something to keep an eye on; if we start seeing overheating issues in these consoles ~2022.
- In a split-second shot, we can see the aluminum backplane as he flips it over, and it appears to have an integrated copper heatsink/heatpipe running between the capacitors at the bottom of the unit to an air intake in the rear. Those capacitors are in the same area as what I think is the power supply he removes at the end (I don't know japanese, and that unit didn't get an english translation). Just interesting.
- There's a split second scene where he flips the board over before the camera zooms in, and you can see the thermal material still applied to a BUNCH of chips; afterward it appears that they cleaned it off for the camera. It looks like at least the SSD controller, NAND cells, and maybe even the GDDR6 system memory and a few other assorted chips all have traditional thermal compound smeared on them. Some of these chips are on the rear of the board facing away from the big copper heatsink, and the GDDR6 cells appear to have an airgap between them and the aluminum backplane, so is that actually thermal compound? Its something.
[1] Gallium destroying aluminum isn't just a "ok it'll corrode in a couple years" kind of thing. LockpickingLawyer has an incredible video where he demonstrates this reaction; the aluminum is gone in a matter of hours, not months. DO NOT use liquid metal as a TIM unless you are very confident there is no aluminum anywhere it could touch, and you're incredibly careful during the application. Ok, your heat sink isn't aluminum; is your CPU lid aluminum? Very likely. Don't use liquid metal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeghGhVdt9s
I loved this little detail as well. Now that I know about this I'll probably pull it out of the box and look at it in more detail, where I probably wouldn't have bothered before.
> but I also expect Sony will have some PS5 branded SSDs right in the Best Buy gaming accessories isle so hopefully too many people don't get burned by this. Definitely prefer it to Microsoft's proprietary strategy.
I expect that this generation, due to price increases in games, that I do a lot less buying of random games because I happen to be in the store. Which will force me to finish the games I have before moving on, waiting for games to go on sale. I don't know if I'll have much concern about storage space this time around. I'll keep a couple of online games on for good and some arcade games I can pickup and putdown easily. But otherwise, it'll probably be buy game, install game, finish game, uninstall game.
We'll see how this is impacted by how large the installs get I guess.
I know it's not terribly exciting but I do wish console makers would give a little more thought to this kind of thing when designing their devices. Weird and wonderful shapes - not to mention form factors biasing toward the vertical - are all very well but, for me at least, something that's about the same size and shape as a typical hi-fi separate is a lot easier to slot in to my media centre.
Also, options on colour (which I imagine will come in this case) would be appreciated.
I imagine the size is to disperse heat, manage dust, and keep noise down. I don't think it's popular in recent years, but people often put equipment like this in an enclosed cabinet under their TV or directly on the carpet (where most dust comes from). This also has the power supply built in, which increases the size (I hate those in-line power bricks).
You hear complaints about most gaming console's size, but you also hear lots of noise and dust complaints as well as failures due to heat. On forums you often hear about people replacing the thermal paste and diligently cleaning the inside of their consoles to get the noise down.
My media unit is (very deliberately) open at the front to allow for maximum airflow, although this does make it something of a pain to dust.
Still, it is possible to design components - even those that generate significant heat - to be stackable. My hi-fi amp generates quite a bit of heat but uses a massive heatsink along with vents all around the case to manage it. I do wonder, if the PS5 were simply a cuboid with a couple of larger (and quieter) fans, the kind of heavy duty heatsink it already has, plus plenty of vents around the case, whether that would work.
But, as you say, it comes back to dust, and those air vents would be the perfect route for that dust to enter the device, particularly if it's sat on the carpet (which its form factor pretty much guarantees it will be in many homes).
I think they are cognizant of this going into this generation of consoles.
Possibly over compensating but personally prefer a larger console for a more quiet experience.
Biggest complaint with the PS4 Pro was noise with certain games. Think this is to address that.
The GPU looks perhaps about on par with something like the RTX 2060 which is $350 on its own. Looking briefly online, a mid-tier pre built PCs with similar specs (this GPU, 8-core CPU, 16GB RAM, fast NVME drive) like this Dell XPS costs $1350 [0]. Granted the CPU on the PS5 is probably worse than on that machine, but it's still pretty solid at a 3.5Ghz Zen2.
Not to mention if you you wanted a Mac with similar specs, you really can't compare directly because they don't sell a consumer desktop machine, but you could easily pay $3000 for an iMac with similar specs (plus the screen obviously).
[0] https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/desktop-computers/xps-deskto...
It doesn't take selling very many games to the customer to turn a profit.
Especially since there's no filter anywhere, so all the dust is going to get sucked straight and will be clogging up those heatsinks pretty fast.
by the way, if you've seen console repairs - haven't done any myself since many years - you'll remember the huge amount of dust they suck in. Being able to vacuum that is a big big win for the longevity of the device
EDIT: just noticed at the end the disclaimer about the dust catcher :) I mean, they still need to be covered from a legal point of view
Though as with all first gen new consoles, they do tend to sit on the edge needing large cooling systems and then a couple of years later a revised (die shrink) update comes along and is now cooler, less power hungry, cheaper to make....same old story. I also expect by then the need and use of liquid metal will be removed as that won't be cheap cost wise either over conventional pastes/pads.
Still, makes you wonder if the blue-ray drive with that shielding is more additional heat-sink and be interesting in seeing the temperature of a disc before and after playing for an hour. But then, you just don't get those kinda things done in testing
They have two dust traps with dedicated holes to vacuum out - covered in the video.
I guess it's probably gallium?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galinstan
Worth noting that it reacts chemically with other metals, including copper. It etches into the heatsink and processor heat spreader, so you might need to sand them down after prolonged use.
Still, it's the most effective thermal interface material so far.
I bought some gallium to play with after seeing this video of it on a lock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeghGhVdt9s
Worry gone, it's made for an interesting toy since :)
The AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), formerly known as Fusion, is the marketing term for a series of 64-bit microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), designed to act as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) on a single die. APUs are general purpose processors that feature integrated graphics processors (IGPs).[0]
The memory modules on the PS5 are not built in, which seems to be a key factor to the definition of SoC:
A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit (also known as a "chip") that integrates all or most components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory, input/output ports and secondary storage – all on a single substrate or microchip, the size of a coin.[1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Accelerated_Processing_Uni...
For example, the raspberry pi uses a broadcom SoC, the DDR memory is external, that doesn't stop them from still calling it one even though they might offload certain features (like how the PS5 has offloaded the disk controller).
I wondered what all the space in the case was for and you don’t find out until the very end.
My goodness, is it a sight to behold.
Had a couple PCBs for the buttons or lights on the front.
That's kinda genius.
If you're rubbing your oily fingers all over chip surfaces and connectors, that's on you :D