Sony's PS5 Slim's Size Difference Comes Into View In First Teardown Videos
The new PS5 hasn't even actually appeared on store shelves yet, but a few YouTubers got a hold of the system early and naturally, did what YouTubers do: took it apart. Doing so reveals the secrets of the new system, including its actual size in comparison to the original model, what the cooling design looks like, how the detachable disc drive works, and whether or not the new model includes a die shrink.
We'll spoil the last question for you: it doesn't. According to all of the testing done by both Dave2D as well as LMG Labs, the new PS5 seems to use the same SoC as the original system. This was confirmed by Dave2D using power consumption and heat metrics, while LMG did those as well as measuring the actual die area of the SoC. It's likely that Sony isn't saying this is a "Slim" because every previous Slim had a die shrink for reduced power consumption and heat output, while both metrics are unchanged here.
Image: Dave2D
As for the other questions, well, you're already looking at the images from Dave2D's video, which we'll embed below. It's interesting; Dave2D doesn't actually think the new model is that much smaller than the original, but Linus Sebastian says he feels that the difference is substantial. Both videos were done using the disc version of the system that includes the now-detachable Blu-ray drive; the discless version would be even smaller.
LMG Labs exhaustively tested the system and found extremely few differences.
Despite the reduction in volume, the new system seems exactly as capable of keeping cool as the original model, and the noise level is about the same too. Power consumption is exactly identical, which is to be expected considering that it uses the same SoC. Arguably the biggest practical change between the two models is the storage upgrade; the new PS5 comes with 1TB of space instead of the 825GB of the older model. External I/O has changed too, but only a bit; the old model had USB Type-A and Type-C ports up front, and the newer system drops the Type-A in favor of a second Type-C port. Rear I/O is re-arranged but unchanged.
Dave2D cringes at the bizarre decision to make only half of the machine glossy.
The most contentious part of the new PS5 appears to be its visual redesign, which keeps the controversial "popped collar" look of the original chassis while adding a split down the middle to accommodate for the optional disc drive. That's not the contentious part, though; the problem is that the top half of each side is glossy, while the bottom half is matte. As a YouTube commenter points out, this really just serves to highlight the negative aspects of each choice, and is an odd decision in any case. Both Dave2D and Linus disapproved.
