Playstation 5 [PS5] [Release November 12 2020]

[Unknown Soldier]

- Somehow I just can't believe that the position of the fan is optimal for the heatsink position. Looks like some fins will get very little fresh air, and I mean some of the fins around heat pipes.
- Liquid metal is only 3-5C cooler compared to a good thermal paste and usualy not worth the trouble considering how badly it can stain copper over time

Well heat doesn't seem to be a problem if you believe the Japanese influencers that had their hands on the console on the weekend.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

EDIT:

Thanks for the closer images. I was hopeful when he first unscrewed the plate covering the NVME slot that there might be a heat sink on the other side even if you'd have to install the NVME drive in upside down. Unfortunately your gifs show that there's no heat sink for the NVME drive, it's just empty space there. The NVME is on the opposite side of the heat sink (other side of he fan) in the gif. /sigh.

The angle wasn't good enough to be able to see if there are opening to allow airflow through the chamber (I'm assuming there is), if there is, it looks like there's enough space for a user to put a smallish heatsink on the NVME.

Also, the drive is up to 5.5 GB/s raw, so not 5.5 GB/s sustained. It is likely then that developers know they won't always get the 5.5 GB/s transfer rate. I do wonder what the sustained speeds of the drive will be like. That means that a user installed NVME drive isn't expected to sustain it's rated speed either.

That's good news if Sony suggested 7 GB/s drives knowing that the user added drives would likely throttle down to 5 GB/s or possibly lower. Hence, throttling isn't a problem if they are already taking that into account. The only downside then is cheaper budget NVMEs cutting tolerances close may see faster degradation over time depending on how heavily the drives are used.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

- No dust filters? Those whitish grills might block too much air, but they won't stop much dust imo.

Dust filters need to be replaced... frequently which is why almost no consumer devices have dust filters. But this design, where the two fan vents/exhausts are behind the white plates mean it is easy to buy swatches of filters, tape them in space, put the plates back and replace them as needed.

- Liquid metal is only 3-5C cooler compared to a good thermal paste and usualy not worth the trouble considering how badly it can stain copper over time, but it doesn't touch the alimunium parts at least (because it would eat into those very quickly). I can only think of one reason to use it, and that's longevity.

Paste degrades faster than liquid metal and is was trickier to apply effectively on a production line than liquid metal.

 

[mpg1]

I mean with this small/fast chip approach Sony has shifted costs towards cooling solution. So theoretically moving to a 5nm chip would probably cut out a lot of the cooling expenses even if the chip cost was the same.

Now if they already losing a bunch of money on these a slim version might still end up costing the same and might come with the same 825GB. But it would still make it somewhat feasible.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

They even put some thought into manual servicing of the console. At 2m42 he's pointing at the holes where we should point our vacuum cleaner at, to gather the collected dust.


The plates surpass the middle black plastic "core", and the plates probably aren't strong enough to hold the console.


The enclosure has a curve that directs the airflow coming from the radial fan into the M.2's heatsink, if there is one.

It looks like the ideal setup for the usual M.2 heatsinks, which have their creases aligned with the long side of the M.2.

Wish I'd seen this prior to posting but like I was assuming there is an opening to allow for airflow from the fan.

Unfortunately the bay itself is too shallow to use that particular heatsink you linked., you'll need one about 1/3 the height (or shallower) of that heatsink it appears. You can see the M.2 standoff in the picture. Then account for the thickness of the NVME and NAND chips and that doesn't leave much room for a finned heatsink.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Is he saying that the heatsink is as good as a vapor chamber heatsink?

If it's large enough, and it is, then you can make any heatsink with heatpipes about as efficient as a vapor chamber. A vapor chamber allows for similar cooling in a smaller footprint.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think they disassembled one that hasn't been liquid metal applied it seems, obviously to show us the APU unit, and then switched over to another board that has it applied.

The liquid metal is there in the video. You can see it flow and deform as he tilts the MB in a close-up. The liquid metal is fairly viscous but still flows from one side to the other.

I'm surprised but impressed that they used it.

[edit] - to be clear I'm talking about the close up shots of the socket with liquid metal and not the medium shots of him holding the MB.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rootax]

I'm impressed, they didn't cheap out with the cooling. I understand why it's so big now...

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the 825GB SSD. People have initially talked about 12 chips for the SSD because The Road to PS5 had 12 interface channels.

The SSD now was shown to consist of three modules.

I was trying to look for the twelve number breakdown used a while ago but am having difficulty finding the post. I wonder what the numbers will be for the three modules.

825GB / 3 = 275 (There aren't 275GB modules are there?) Actually now that I think about it, I think the numbers were around that 275GB per module.

 

[BRiT]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the 825GB SSD. People have initially talked about 12 chips for the SSD because The Road to PS5 had 12 interface channels.

The SSD now was shown to consist of three modules.

I was trying to look for the twelve number breakdown used a while ago but am having difficulty finding the post. I wonder what the numbers will be for the three modules.

825GB / 3 = 275 (There aren't 275GB modules are there?) Actually now that I think about it, I think the numbers were around that 275GB per module.

You need to account for over-provisioning of Flash cells, so while it may show as 825 GB, it's larger than that. It's how erase is handled as well as wear-level evening.

 

[t0mb3rt]

You need to account for over-provisioning of Flash cells, so while it may show as 825 GB, it's larger than that. It's how erase is handled as well as wear-level evening.

The math works out perfectly with x3 256 GiB chips.

256x3 = 768 GiB and converted to GB is 825.

Then each channel has access to 64 GiB.

 

[iroboto]

There appear to be two dedicated grooves for air to flow through that won't be blocked by the metal top plate.

View attachment 4732

I'd also guess that there will be some air flow between the PCIe slot and the case around it, so some air should move over the top part of the SSD too.

So probably not masses of air flow, but they've definitely made provision for some.

there's air flow from the corner as well.. I just didn't have the effort to draw it. BUt if you move that curved arrow to point from fan to the corner of that slot, that is probably the largest opening that I saw.

 

[chris1515]

Thanks for the closer images. I was hopeful when he first unscrewed the plate covering the NVME slot that there might be a heat sink on the other side even if you'd have to install the NVME drive in upside down. Unfortunately your gifs show that there's no heat sink for the NVME drive, it's just empty space there. The NVME is on the opposite side of the heat sink (other side of he fan) in the gif. /sigh.

The angle wasn't good enough to be able to see if there are opening to allow airflow through the chamber (I'm assuming there is), if there is, it looks like there's enough space for a user to put a smallish heatsink on the NVME.

Also, the drive is up to 5.5 GB/s raw, so not 5.5 GB/s sustained. It is likely then that developers know they won't always get the 5.5 GB/s transfer rate. I do wonder what the sustained speeds of the drive will be like. That means that a user installed NVME drive isn't expected to sustain it's rated speed either.

That's good news if Sony suggested 7 GB/s drives knowing that the user added drives would likely throttle down to 5 GB/s or possibly lower. Hence, throttling isn't a problem if they are already taking that into account. The only downside then is cheaper budget NVMEs cutting tolerances close may see faster degradation over time depending on how heavily the drives are used.

Regards,
SB

This is not because it is 5.5 GB/s raw speed that it is not sustained. They never said this.

 

[Strange]

really shows the contrasting design

I also like how they purposefully made the huge heatsink deal with the APU/SSD while the GDDR6 is cooled on the other side of the board.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The math works out perfectly with x3 256 GiB chips.

256x3 = 768 GiB and converted to GB is 825.

Then each channel has access to 64 GiB.

Yeah, that's it. I was looking for the post where this was initially discussed.

 

[iroboto]

The NVME is on the opposite side of the heat sink (other side of he fan) in the gif. /sigh.

The nvme chips and controller is on the same side as the CPU. It's definitely contacting that massive heatsink. The GDDR6 is on the other side of the mobo.

 

[Strange]

The liquid metal is there in the video. You can see it flow and deform as he tilts the MB in a close-up. The liquid metal is fairly viscous but still flows from one side to the other.

I'm surprised but impressed that they used it.

[edit] - to be clear I'm talking about the close up shots of the socket with liquid metal and not the medium shots of him holding the MB.

Regards,
SB

What I meant was that these are obviously two different boards as the one he freshly tore down didn't even have thermal paste on the SSD and the SSD controllers.

Edit: didn't have the battery either lol.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

This is not because it is 5.5 GB/s raw speed that it is not sustained. They never said this.

Don't blame me if you don't agree, blame the person doing the teardown. From the video at 5:30.

With the custom SSD controller, read speeds are as fast as 5.5GB per second at raw transfer rates.

Read speeds aren't 5.5 GB/s but they are "as fast as" 5.5 GB/s. Or as I stated, up to 5.5 GB/s.

Perhaps there was an error in translation but for the English language, "as fast as" is the same as "up to".

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The nvme chips and controller is on the same side as the CPU. It's definitely contacting that massive heatsink. The GDDR6 is on the other side of the mobo.

The user added NVME, not the one that is on the MB. Sorry, I should have been more clear.

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

Don't blame me if you don't agree, blame the person doing the teardown. From the video at 5:30.



Read speeds aren't 5.5 GB/s but they are "as fast as" 5.5 GB/s. Or as I stated, up to 5.5 GB/s.

Perhaps there was an error in translation but for the English language, "as fast as" is the same as "up to".

Regards,
SB

Oh didn't even bother with subtitles.