Only a couple of days following Microsoft"s information drop on the upcoming Xbox Series X, Sony has come forth with information on the PlayStation 5 next-generation console. In a deep dive hosted by PlayStation architect Mark Cerny, The PlayStation 5"s hardware specifications, what new technologies are being brought in, and other aspects were revealed today.
See the full specifications sheet, courtesy of DigitalFoundry, that compares the new console with the PlayStation 4 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 |
On paper, the Microsoft and Sony consoles seem to be heralding very similar offerings. Both leverage AMD"s Ryzen and RDNA2 technologies, present ray tracing options, NVMe expandable storage, among other similarities.
While the PlayStation 5 handily beats the Xbox Series X in the SSD speeds department, the Microsoft console edges out on the GPU teraflops and CUs. But, Sony was quick to say that numbers don"t mean everything, and that its GPU is capable of delivering higher than expected performance while being in a nimbler package.
An interesting tidbit was that Sony will allow M.2 NVMe drives from other companies to be used on the PlayStation 5 by consumers. These will have to go through compatibility testing, but still, the company seems to be taking a different approach than following Microsoft"s custom designed units.
The full one-hour long presentation can be seen above, which goes into detail on every aspect of the hardware, as well as many game development programming techniques.
Sony still hasn"t given a look at the PlayStation 5 console itself, which Microsoft has been very forthcoming about for some time now. Both companies are keeping pricing information to themselves at the moment.