Sony revealed the PlayStation 5 specs in a dry yet informative talk that was originally meant for GDC before its cancellation.
After months of relative radio silence, Sony finally detailed the specs we've all been waiting for. Though some of its previous rumors did not pan out — like the 9.2 TFLOP GPU some people had speculated (it's actually 10.28) — it is still less powerful on that front compared to the Xbox Series X, just not by much. And it's over twice as powerful as its predecessor, the PS4 Pro.
It's no surprise that Microsoft has aiming for more power and bigger numbers with the Xbox Series X after it was skewered last generation for being less powerful than Sony's machine. Still, with increased power comes diminishing returns, and what's clear is that even if the PS5 has a weaker CPU and GPU, it'll still be an incredible console. System architect Mark Cerny detailed the advantages of using an SSD and how players would encounter near-instant load times in games.
| Category | PlayStation 5 | Xbox Series X |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | 8x Cores @ 3.5GHz Custom Zen 2 CPU | 8x Cores @ 3.8 GHz Custom Zen 2 CPU |
| Graphics | 10.28 TFLOPS, 36 CUs @ 2.23 GHz Custom RDNA 2 | 12.155 TFLOPS, 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2 |
| Memory | 16 GB GDDR6, 256-bit | 16 GB GDDR6, 320mb bus |
| Memory Bandwidth | 448GB/s | 10 GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s |
| Internal Storage | 825GB Custom NVME SSD | 1 TB Custom NVME SSD |
| I/O Throughput | 5.5GB/s (Raw), 8-9GB/s (Compressed) | 2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed) |
| Expandable Storage | NVMe SSD slot | 1 TB Custom SSD expansion card |
| External Storage | USB external HDD support | USB external HDD support |
| Optical Drive | 4K UHD Blu-Ray drive | 4K UHD Blu-Ray drive |
| Size | 390mm x 104mm x 260mm | 301mm x 151mm x 151mm |
| Release date | November 12 | November 10 |
You notice that the SSD is oddly less than 1TB. Here's what and Mark Cerny have to say about why this is:
Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are expected to hit store shelves in November 2020.