Sony Computer Entertainment has released all technical specifications for Playstation 5. Thanks to a conference presented by Mark Cerny, main architect of the console, we know all the technical aspects of the new console.
Playstation 5 It will consist of an 8-core Zen 2 CPU with 3.5 Ghz (variable frequency) and a Radeon RDNA 2 graphics that promises to offer a performance of 10.28 teraflops and 36 2.23 GHz (variable frequency) computing units. The two custom, AMD-made parts are flanked by 16GB of 448GB / s GDDR6 memory and an 825GB NVMe SSD. Storage can be expanded internally by SSD expansion and externally via hard drive. There is also a 4K UHD Blu-ray.
Both Sony and Microsoft use the same AMD architectures. Xbox Series X will offer a 3.8 GHz processor per core while the graphics part will achieve a performance of 12 teraflops. The amount of GDDR memory is the same on both consoles, but on Xbox Series X it will be faster, at least 10GB of fast memory at 560GB / s. Microsoft's console also gains in internal storage capacity thanks to a 1TB SSD.
Sony's main objective is to launch state-of-the-art but at the same time developer-friendly hardware. With this combination, it is expected that the generation jump will be simple and that you will quickly have access to the features and hardware improvements that PlayStation 5 offers.
The processor and graphics card of PlayStation 5
They will operate with a variable frequency of maximum 3.5 GHz and 2.23 GHz, respectively. This speed is also the standard. To manage this variability, Sony has introduced a technology called boost that despite its name it works differently than what we are used to seeing on mobile phones or some computer components.
"It's a completely different paradigm," explains Mark Cerny to Digital Foundry. "Instead of running at a constant frequency to let the power change based on the load, what we do is basically have a constant power and let the frequency change based on the load."
"Instead of looking at the actual temperature on the chip, what we do is look at the activities that the CPU and GPU are doing to adjust the frequencies based on this, which makes everything deterministic and repeatable," adds Cerny. "Also, we use AMD's SmartShift technology and send the unused CPU power to the GPU to extract a few more pixels."
This is a different approach than the Xbox Series X. PS5 developers should take into account possible spikes in power consumption and analyze the workloads of both the CPU and the GPU. Possibly more laborious, but for Sony if you take advantage of the PS5 system you can get higher speeds than expected. In other words, a GPU with fewer teraflops can also be more agile and cause the PlayStation 5 graphics core to offer performance that exceeds expectations.
