This Wednesday, March 18th, all eyes were on Sony and its PS5. Indeed, the manufacturer’s next machine was in the spotlight at a presentation that was actually planned for the GDC 2020.
Thus, the PlayStation 5 presented itself to the players in a very (too?) technical way.
The PS5 Features
The Xbox Series X stood out this week by unveiling its many features. Of course, everyone was waiting to hear from Sony to compare the two machines.
With the Teraflop War having been launched several weeks ago on social networks, fans on both sides were ready to battle it out.
However, there is not much concrete to draw from this video conference presented by Mark Cerny, the “lead system architect” of the PS5.
For starters, Eurogamer got a sneak preview of the PS5. This is the ideal opportunity to discover the technical specifications of the Sony console.
Alas, let’s make it clear that no game was presented this Wednesday.
- CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5 GHz (variable frequency)
- GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23 GHz (variable frequency)
- GPU architecture: Custom RDNA 2
- RAM: 16 GB GDDR6 / 256-bit
- Memory bandwidth: 448 GB / s
- Internal storage: 825 GB SSD
- Input and output operations per second: 5.5 GB / s (Direct), Typical 8-9 GB / s (compressed)
- Additional storage: NVMe SSD Slot
- External storage: USB HDD Support
- Optical drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive
In addition, gamers will probably remember that the PS5’s graphics chip can deliver 10.28 TFLOPS compared to 12 for the Xbox Series X.
Of course, this figure does not reflect the graphics quality of the games we will have on each machine.
The Power of the SSD and Partial Backwards Compatibility
Sony also put a lot of pressure on the addition of an SSD.
The PS5’s SSD will have an interface capable of supporting a bandwidth of 5 Gb/s (minimum) on a model with a storage capacity of 825 GB.
Mark Cerny also promised that the games would launch in one second, with no loading time.
Another advantage of the SSD is that players will no longer have to wait several minutes during the installation of an update. The memory will be expandable and external hard drives will also be compatible.
A feature that is eagerly awaited by players, backwards compatibility has also been discussed at length by Mark Cerny.
Initial feedback has been disappointing, as Sony plans to offer only the 100 most played titles on PS4 in its backwards compatibility programme at the launch of the PS5.
For the time being, PS3, PS2 and even less PS1 titles are therefore not affected.
Last but not least, the Japanese brand has also supported the 3D audio function of the PS5.
When it launches, the console will offer five settings to adapt the sound to the user’s listening mode (headphones, stereo…).
Audio immersion should clearly be there.
Finally, remember that Sony is still planning to release the PS5 at the end of the year.
