The main details of the PlayStation 5 – an advanced SSD, but less teraflops than the Xbox

On the evening of March 18, PlayStation’s lead engineer, Mark Zerny, introduced the PS5 specifications and spoke more about its architecture. It should be borne in mind that this was not a marketing presentation, but a pre-recorded video for participants and guests of the GDC exhibition, which was canceled due to the coronavirus COVID-2019. Cybersport.ru watched the broadcast and collected all the information about the technical specifications of the PlayStation 5.

PS5 Specifications

Mark Zerny began his presentation with a short account of how he traveled to developer offices around the world and asked them what they want to see in next-generation consoles. Almost all developers expressed a desire to work with SSD-drives. In PS5 this will be.

The total memory capacity will be 825 GB, and the reading speed is 5.5 to 9 GB / s. A console SSD can load 2 GB of data in just 0.27 seconds, while a PS4 hard drive could only load 1 GB in 20 seconds. Thanks to him, games from the console will practically lose boot screens and will turn on instantly.

The same will favorably affect other aspects. For example, patches for games will be installed instantly, and not after some time. The memory can be expanded using external SSDs or HDDs, however, Sony noted that next-gen titles should only be installed on a solid state drive.

Mark Zerny spoke more about the PS5 graphics core. This is a custom AMD solution with RDNA 2 architecture with a total capacity of 10.28 teraflops. It has 36 computing units operating at limited frequencies up to 2.3 GHz. It also has built-in hardware support for ray tracing, which includes realistic reflections, shadows, and other technology features.

The heart of the PS5 will be the eight-core AMD Zen 2 processor with 16 threads. Zerni emphasized that the CPU and GPU will operate at dynamic frequencies – with maximum performance of 3.5 GHz and 2.23 GHz, respectively. Because of this, the power consumption of the console and the heating of the components will be uniform and, according to Zerni, will decrease. Thanks to this approach, the console should become much quieter than the PS4 Pro with God of War running on it.

The PS5 will have backward compatibility, but with nuances. Zerni said that “about 100 of the best games with PS4” already work on the PS5 – they created special patches for them. The engineer did not name specific titles, but noted that for some games “PS5 is too fast.”

Specifically for sound, PS5 engineers developed an engine called Tempest 3D AudioTech. Thanks to him, the user can feel the surround sound on almost any system, from the speakers of the TV to the gaming headphones. Cerny said that he tried the new product on his old headset: “And wow, I felt the difference.”

Separately, Zerny noted that the PS5 architecture will seem very familiar to the developers. Therefore, they do not have to spend a lot of time studying the system and developing skills. The engineer assured that acquaintance with the PS5 will take no more than a month.

Full specifications PS5

Not all players rated the presentation

Although Sony had warned in advance that the presentation would show exclusively the technical features of the PS5, the players were still unhappy. At the time of publication of the material, the video from the PS5 gained 151 thousand likes and 64 thousand dislikes versus 284 thousand likes and 23 thousand dislikes from the Xbox Series X.

At the same time, Microsoft has already managed to show the appearance of the Xbox Series X and one of the first exclusives – Hellblade 2. Because of this, players begin to think that the PS5 does not exist. They feel free to comment on this in the comments below the video.

Gamestop employee: “Want to get a PS5?”
Me: “How can I get something that does not exist.”

Fans: “Show us the PS5!”
Zerni: “So, we will start with the big bang theory and then move on.”

Someone called the presentation boring.

This is more like a meditative video for which you want to sleep.

I listen to this before going to bed.

Full presentation presentation