“Road to PS5”: Sony reveal more technical specs of the PS5
In a 1h long live stream today that was more aimed at game developers (or people who have a fetish on hardware architecture) than gamers, Sony revealed the technical specs of the PS5 as well as additional details on the console. In particular, they detailed their approach for the console’s SSD, GPU, and 3D Audio. Special note: PS4 backwards compatibility (on a title by title basis) was confirmed in the presentation. The console itself was not shown in the presentation, neither was any demo.
SSD
Mark Cerny did an in-depth explanation of the proprietary SSD of the console, and how Sony expect games to load up to 100 times faster than a default PS4’s HDD. He detailed how all components of the system, both at the hardware and software level, ensure no bottlenecks would reduce the benefits of the SSD. The console will be compatible with a subset of 3rd party SSD drives that follow the PCIe 4.0 specifications. HHDs will also be compatible, for people who want to favor space over speed (e.g. for PS4 games).
Among innovations that will help the PS5 reduce speed bottlenecks, Cerny mentioned the console will use the Kraken format instead of zlib for data compression.
PS4 Backwards compatibility
PS4 backwards compatibility was confirmed, but will be on a title by title basis. Cerny mentioned that “most” of the top 100 PS4 games will work on the PS5. (if I remember correctly, similar claims were done by Sony for the Vita’s PSP backwad compatibility, and that turned out to be a wild exaggeration)
GPU/CPU
Sony’s lead System architect explained how Sony tried to reach a balance between new powerful features on the GPU, and ease-of-use for developers who want to develop games efficiently. Sony worked with AMD to develop a specific GPU for the PS5. Cerny mentioned some of the innovations that resulted from this cooperation could end up in more GPU products from AMD in the future.
The console’s GPU will support some amount of Ray Tracing at the native level. How much will depend on how developers will be able to squeeze performance out of the hardware.
3D Audio
Sony described at length how the PS5 intends to revolutionize Audio output for games, to give a feeling that one is “really” inside the game. The Sony proprietary technology behind this is named Tempest 3D, and currently works at its best when the player is using headphones.
Cerny admitted the technology still needs to be perfected, and implied firmware updates for the PS5 might be bringing those improvements.
Whether developers will leverage all of this new technology will of course be up to them.
The full presentation below:
PS5 Specs
When all is said and done, these are what the PS5 specs look like, compared to the PS4. (XBox X specs below)
| PlayStation 5 | PlayStation 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency) | 8x Jaguar Cores at 1.6GHz |
| GPU | 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency) | 1.84 TFLOPs, 18 CUs at 800MHz |
| GPU Architecture | Custom RDNA 2 | Custom GCN |
| Memory/Interface | 16GB GDDR6/256-bit | 8GB GDDR5/256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 448GB/s | 176GB/s |
| Internal Storage | Custom 825GB SSD | 500GB HDD |
| IO Throughput | 5.5GB/s (Raw), Typical 8-9GB/s (Compressed) | Approx 50-100MB/s (dependent on data location on HDD) |
| Expandable Storage | NVMe SSD Slot | Replaceable internal HDD |
| External Storage | USB HDD Support | USB HDD Support |
| Optical Drive | 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive | Blu-ray Drive |
(source eurogamer)
Xbox X Specs
By comparison, here are the specs of Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox X:
- CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz (3.6GHz with SMT) 7nm
- GPU: 12 TFLOPs, 52 CUs at 1.825GHz, Custom RDNA 2
- Memory: 16GB GDDR6
- Storage: 1TB custom NVMe SSD
- Optical drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray
- 120 fps support
- Potential 8K resolutions
- Ray-tracing technology
- Variable Rate Shading for more stable frame rates
- Compatible with Xbox One accessories
Are you excited about the upcoming Next Gen consoles? Do you have plan to get one of them at launch?
In related news; Xbox Series X wins out the specs race. Sony was bad and should feel bad.
P.S. it should be noted that while officially Vitas’ PSP backwards compatibility was lacking, unofficially it is 100% thanks to people like to TheFlow. This could potentially happen with the PS5 but who knows.
Either way, went out and bought a decent gaming laptop and will enjoy the xbox exclusives.
It looks fast enough to actually run games at 1080p60, finally. Loading times won’t be terrible, as well. Both consoles are just looking to be caught up to a decent gaming PC. I wouldn’t expect 4K60 on the flashiest looking games.
Tell that to youtube comments section where kids think this will do raytracing AND 4k@120 (xbox) for $600 USD or whatever.
why dont’ PS1 and PS2 and PS3 backwards compatibility 🙁
Because it won’t bring any money for sony, they rather still continue “supporting” psnow and just a bunch of retro games. They just don’t give a ***.
because to support PS3 they will have to insert PS3 hardware. they could support ps1 and 2 through emulation though, but why would they do that if they can sell “chosen” games again?
Don’t forget that the Xbox X is a potentially a pricer console and when microsoft anounce the cheeper version (that most of us can affored) it will be the same or even worse than the ps5. What I’m trying to say is dont juge before we hear the prices. In the end the ps5 maybe more officent in terms of price\power. and also specs is not everything.
I think PS5 will be in the middle with Xbox Lockhart being the lower end and Xbox Series X at the top specs wise and also price wise. Most likely Sony will price PS5 for $449 USD and Xbox Series X will probably be $549 USD and Lockhart will be $349 USD. But if MS is aggressive they can price Xbox Series X to be just $499 USD. It’s only great for the consumers. Both are really powerful consoles. With Series X having better raytracing and PS5 having better SSD and 3D Audio.
Wasn’t the compatibility issue related to the boost mode? If I recall correctly most PS4 should just work out the box but to use the boost mode to upscale/get better fps is being tested because not every game was programed to work with certain features.
sooo it can do everything my 3 year old pc can do? 😛
really? your 3 year old pc can play PS5 exclusives?
i will buy a PS5 when PS6 is 1 year old 🙂