The PS5 Is a Wildly Powerful Console With Backwards Compatibility. Here's Everything We Know About It.
Now things are starting to get interesting. In December, Microsoft announced a ton of details for its Smart Car-sized console, the Xbox Series X, which is one X away from sounding like an adult video service. The machine is a beast—and it could be the most advanced console we've ever seen on the market. Then, this week, Sony finally gave us a deep-dive on its new console. The PS5 is coming, baby. And it might just give the new Xbox a run for its money.
Mark Cerny, lead system architect for the PS5, held a conference via livestream on Wednesday revealing all the guts of Sony's successor to the PS4. We still don't know what it'll look like, but we learned about the CPU, the GPU, the memory interface, the backwards compatibility details, the storage size—if that sort of stuff means anything to you, then I bet you're pretty damn excited right now. The console is fully stacked. With both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 coming this holiday season (there's no official price tag or release date for either of them), gaming is set to blast off into the next generation in 2020. Here's everything we know about the new PlayStation console.
It’s a powerhouse under the hood.
A lightning-fast solid state drive. 8K graphics. 3D audio. Like the Xbox Series X, the biggest draw of this new console is the stupefying tech specs. The PS5 will be replacing the hard drive of the PS4 with a solid state drive, which means faster—or even nonexistent—load times. And Sony will finally be going 8K, with the PS5 capable of outputting 8K-size video. That's double the size of the 4K screens we're used to. In terms of its 4K output, it'll support a 120Hz refresh rate, which is also twice the scale of what the top current-gen consoles are offering. So whether you have an 8K-compatible TV or not (you probably don't), you can be sure the PS5 is going to look good as hell. Like, better than anything you've ever seen in gaming before.
Another detail worth getting excited for is the graphics chip. A new model from Radeon's Navi family, this chip support ray tracing, which means richer and more complex lighting in 3D. Also, it means fully 3D audio, which is another element developers really haven't had a chance to experiment with before.
Here's the full list of tech specs listed on the PlayStation blog, if you really feel like diving in.
CPU
x86-64-AMD Ryzen™ “Zen 2”
8 Cores / 16 Threads
Variable frequency, up to 3.5 GHz
GPU
AMD Radeon™ RDNA 2-based graphics engine
Ray Tracing Acceleration
Variable frequency, up to 2.23 GHz (10.3 TFLOPS)
System Memory
GDDR6 16GB
448GB/s Bandwidth
SSD
825GB
5.5GB/s Read Bandwidth (Raw)
PS5 Game Disc
Ultra HD Blu-ray™, up to 100GB/disc
Video Out
Support of 4K 120Hz TVs, 8K TVs, VRR (specified by HDMI ver.2.1)
Audio
“Tempest” 3D AudioTech
Backwards compatibility is key here.
We don't really know what games will be coming to the PS5, but we do know that there are a lot—a lot—of great titles for the PS4 (and PS3, PS2, and PS1, of course). That's why the question of backwards compatibility is a big deal for the new console. Many PS4 titles are by no means irrelevant right now and we need to know if (and how) we can continue enjoying them.
According to Cerny, the PS5 will allow players to load up the "Top 100 PS4 games" at launch. The PlayStation blog says, "With more than 4,000 games published on PS4, we will continue the testing process and expand backwards compatibility coverage over time." Four thousand is a big number, but people want their games. Let's hope Sony really is planning on carrying out this push to make older titles available. With PS5 console costs rumored to be hovering in the $500 range (though we have no way of confirming that number), you can bet that a lot of us are going to be selling our PS4s to afford the new box.
The PS5 UI is getting a neat overhaul.
It sounds like the PS5 is going to be changing how we get into online video games, making for a much quicker, more efficient way to hop right on and start playing. Mark Cerny revealed in a Wired interview that you’ll be able to join games right off the home screen of the PS5. No more loading up Fortnite, jumping through a bunch of hoops to get into the Squad Battle Royale mode, waiting for the matchmaking to situate you into a game—according to Cerny, that’ll all happen in the background (somehow). He said there will be a “joinable activities in real time.”
A PS4 controller.
This story originally appeared on Esquire.com.
* Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
