Today we finally got to learn a bit more about the upcoming PlayStation 5. For quite awhile now Sony has been announcing bits and pieces of information, but now we've finally got a bit more of an inside look at what the console will actually be. It's still kinda odd to see how this thing's announcement has been handled, but we'll take it.
For the full one hour video, scroll to the bottom of this post and check out the embedded video. However if you only care about the core features, then here's a quick summary of some of the things that were covered:
Backwards Compatibility -
First of all what a lot of people want to hear. The PlayStation 5 is in fact backwards compatible, but not everything will work right away. Due to the new hardware every single game needs to be tested and possibly updated to run correctly without issues. Sony hopes to have roughly 100 of the most popular games ready at launch, but this number could be lower based on the time it takes to get things sorted out.
Storage -
The console is launching with a 825 GB SSD, but will also have a second space so you can install your own SSD to go along with the internal 825. This means we can now expand our console's memory without having to install the OS and starting from scratch like during the PS3 and PS4 days. On top of this external drives are still supported as well, so you can continue to upgrade your storage with multiple drives.
On another note the SSD allows the console to load things roughly 100 times faster than on the PS4. Of course this is something most SSD users will already be used to, but there's a bit more going on with the PS5 than just this hard drive change.
Ray Tracing and 3D Audio -
This has been mentioned multiple times now, but the PS5 will in fact support ray tracing. With ray tracing quite a bit can actually be done. Everything from shadows to reflections can be simulated, but so can full on 3D audio. This is a big step up for both graphics and audio
Graphical Power -
This one is a lot more in depth, and I strongly recommend watching the video if you want to know all of the details and specs. To sum it up however, it's using a custom built AMD RDNA 2 that is much more powerful than the PS4. (But we already knew this.) For those of you who enjoy specs, the GPU is 10.28 TFLOPs 36 CUs at 2.23GHz. This is similar to the Xbox Series X's RDNA 2 which is 12.155 TFLOPS, 52 CUs at 1.825 GHz. The console also has 16 GB worth of RAM and has a 8x Cores at 3.5GHz Custom Zen 2 CPU. (Again, check out the video for more detail on what this GPU and CPU can do, but it is mostly more technical information.)
And really that about covers it. Most of the video is review for what we already knew, but it's nice to see it all being fully detailed.
For the full one hour video, scroll to the bottom of this post and check out the embedded video. However if you only care about the core features, then here's a quick summary of some of the things that were covered:
Backwards Compatibility -
First of all what a lot of people want to hear. The PlayStation 5 is in fact backwards compatible, but not everything will work right away. Due to the new hardware every single game needs to be tested and possibly updated to run correctly without issues. Sony hopes to have roughly 100 of the most popular games ready at launch, but this number could be lower based on the time it takes to get things sorted out.
Storage -
The console is launching with a 825 GB SSD, but will also have a second space so you can install your own SSD to go along with the internal 825. This means we can now expand our console's memory without having to install the OS and starting from scratch like during the PS3 and PS4 days. On top of this external drives are still supported as well, so you can continue to upgrade your storage with multiple drives.
On another note the SSD allows the console to load things roughly 100 times faster than on the PS4. Of course this is something most SSD users will already be used to, but there's a bit more going on with the PS5 than just this hard drive change.
Ray Tracing and 3D Audio -
This has been mentioned multiple times now, but the PS5 will in fact support ray tracing. With ray tracing quite a bit can actually be done. Everything from shadows to reflections can be simulated, but so can full on 3D audio. This is a big step up for both graphics and audio
Graphical Power -
This one is a lot more in depth, and I strongly recommend watching the video if you want to know all of the details and specs. To sum it up however, it's using a custom built AMD RDNA 2 that is much more powerful than the PS4. (But we already knew this.) For those of you who enjoy specs, the GPU is 10.28 TFLOPs 36 CUs at 2.23GHz. This is similar to the Xbox Series X's RDNA 2 which is 12.155 TFLOPS, 52 CUs at 1.825 GHz. The console also has 16 GB worth of RAM and has a 8x Cores at 3.5GHz Custom Zen 2 CPU. (Again, check out the video for more detail on what this GPU and CPU can do, but it is mostly more technical information.)
And really that about covers it. Most of the video is review for what we already knew, but it's nice to see it all being fully detailed.