One thing we seem to love the most on the hacking scene are “forbidden” hardware versions of our consoles. We have an unhealthy attraction for “devkits” and prototypes that give us collective hope we’ll get to understand the retail version of our gaming machines better. And, sometimes, in the the right hands, that can turn out to be true. While these devices are generally useless to the end user, hackers are sometimes able to extract alpha or beta versions of firmwares, which can lead to significant discoveries for hacks of the retail versions.

SYRUP-11: Oldest PS4 Prototype?

Today, Zecoxao revealed pictures of “SYRUP-11”, a device that is apparently an early prototype of a PS4 motherboard. He claims this is the “earliest PS4 prototype board in existence”. (But the numbering could imply it also has at least 10 siblings?)

The trained eye will recognize most of the required parts for a “functional” PS4, from its external-facing ports (HDMI, DVI, Optical Audio, Ethernet, USB,…) to its RAM, Southbridge, and Syscon chip. The PS4 Dev Wiki currently doesn’t have much information on this prototype at the moment, let alone how it was acquired. That part, we’ll probably never know.

From the PS4 Dev wiki:

• Early PS4 Proto
• Serial 0-000-000-11
• 88EC120-BNS2 – Southbridge
• 2x K4B4G0846B – Samsung DDR3 RAM 4Gb
• R5F100PLA – Syscon
• Some MXIC chip – probably NOR sflash

It’s worth noting that the physical appearance of this motherboard is significantly different from other “esoteric” PS4 devices such as devkits, which for all intents and purposes are much closer to the official retail devices, as we’ve seen in teardowns in the past (here and here).

Zecoxao has not shared if the prototype is functional in any way, or physically damaged, etc…

Source: PS4 Dev wiki, via Zecoxao