Sony continues to reveal new information about the PS5, this time, with a complete teardown of the console. The official teardown shows the ins and outs of the console, and reveals entirely new nuggets of info.
The teardown is presented by Yasuhiro Ootori, VP Mechanical Design Dept, who shows how the base works with the PS5 in both the vertical and horizontal position, and then continues to strip the console apart, bit by bit. Along the way, he revealed new information about the console design and it’s hardware features.
Summary
- PS5 stand works for both vertical and horizontal position, and rotates depending on which orientation you want to use.
- The PS5’s panels are easily removable by the end-user
- M.2 SSD expansion show can be found below the bottom / right panel
- Dust catchers will help keeping the PS5 clean and operating smoothly
- PS5 has a large, double-sided fan to keep the console cool
- UHD Blu-ray drive is double insulated to reduce noise and vibrations
- 8 RAM chips, each with 2GB of DDR6 RAM surrounding the CPU
- 3 SSD chips, each with 275GB of storage beside the custom SSD controller
- Liquid metal cooling system with heatsink
- 350W internal power supply
The Details
Ootori starts by removing the stand from the vertical position, showing how the stand is secured to the PS5. It turns out that the mysterious button on the bottom of the console is actually a cap hiding the screw to secure the stand in place. The video also confirms that the stand can rotate to work with the console horizontally, as we previously speculated.
The teardown also reveals that both the top and bottom panels (or right and left panels) can easily be removed to reveal the M.2 PCIe SSD expansion slot and dust catchers.
The SSD expansion shot is located on the bottom / right part of the console (same side as the Disc drive) and can be accessed by removing the panel and then unscrewing the plate. Unlike the Xbox Series X | S, the expansion slot will not be hot-swappable, which means you will have to power off the console before you can change the drive.
The dust catchers are located below the top / left panel, and will catch dust that can easily be vacuumed to keep the console running smoothly. While the dust catcher won’t guarantee that dust won’t enter the inner parts of the system, this is the first time a PlayStation console has included such a feature.
The PS5’s fan is massive, at 120mm in diameter and 45mm thick. It’s double-sided to allow it to pull in air from both sides of the console (hence the vents at the top of the console), and keep the console cool. First impressions on the console (from Japanese YouTubers) reveal that the fan is pretty quiet.
The UHD Blu-ray drive is covered with a sheet metal case and mounted with two layers of insulation to reduce drive noise and vibrations, which will help is keeping the console quited.
The main components of the PS5 all sit on the motherboard, including the CPU / GPU, 16GB of RAM, the custom SSD. The GPU is surrounded by 8 RAM chips, with with 2GB of DDR6 RAM to make up the total 16GB in the console. The 825GB SSD is made up of 3 chips (each with 275GB), partially surrounding the custom SSD controller.
The PS5 will use liquid metal for the TIM (Thermal Interface Material) to cool the CPU and GPU, that will sit between the chips and the massive heatsink. The heatsink uses aluminium fins and copper heatpipes to help cool the system, which Sony says gives the same cooling performance as the vapour chamber heatsink used in the Xbox Series X, but taking up more space in the console.
Quite a large part of the console is taken up by the heatsink, along with the 350W internal power supply.