Sony PS5 is Here - Price, Specs and More

It has been a long wait for the gamers to change their coming console. Finally, the time has come - Sony shows the design of its latest console, the PlayStation 5. Sony hosted a one-hour live stream on the 11th of June which was more focused on the upcoming PS5 games. Meanwhile, Sony also unveiled the look of the two variants of the upcoming gaming console. They announced the sequels to bestselling PS4 releases - Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Horizon: Forbidden West.

Sony PS5: Everything We Know

In a remarkable blog post, Sony earlier confirmed the launch of a new gaming console along with the name of it, the release date, and other details. It has been clear that Sony will launch its new gaming console on the market with the name PlayStation 5 (PS5).

PS5 Design

During its June 11 reveal event, Sony finally revealed the accurate look of PS5. The new console sports a two-tone white-and-black design, with glowing lights installed between the two which is similar to the DualSense controller.

There will be two versions of the PS5 - HD Blu-Ray disc drive and the digital one. The version above in the picture supports an HD Blu-Ray disc drive, but you’ll also see a digital-only version of the console, which ditches the Blu-Ray and is slim as compared to the other. The console can stand either vertically or on its side, in both cases using the black base stand seen in the photo.

Details about the Sony PS5

As part of a live stream event, Sony provided a look at the technical side of the PS5. System architect Mark Cerny gave the following facts about the new PlayStation in his presentation.

The PS5’s SSD should reach at least the speed 5.5 Gbps. That would be 100 times faster than the PS4. So loading times would be almost eliminated, and long installs would be a thing of the past. Compared to the PS4’s HDD, the overall leap in performance is said to be enormous.
There will be 16 GB of RAM. The computing power should be 10.3 teraflops and the raytracing technology is also confirmed which enables extremely realistic graphics.
Users can also install m 2.0 SSDs in the PS5 to expand the internal storage. However, not all SSDs will be ideal by far, Sony is still testing individual models here and will provide a compatibility list for the launch and beyond. Mark Cerny explicitly says that you shouldn’t buy storage right now.
The backward compatibility of the PS4 and PS4 Pro was the core goal of the chip design and firmly integrated into the PS5. Almost all of the 100 most played PS4 titles should start for the launch of the PS5.
The PS5 is said to work significantly quieter than its predecessors. Sony has also revised the ventilation system - this should now work much more efficiently and thus make better performance possible.
The audio quality is said to have been significantly improved and result in a 3D sound. In the meantime, Dolby has also spoken out and corrected statements by Sony. Cerny had claimed that Dolby would only be able to simulate 32 sound sources, which is why they chose their system. Dolby emphasized that hundreds of sources can be simulated with Dolby Atmos. 32 sources would only be a recommendation for developers.

The PS5 Dev Kits

PS5 dev kits have been in circulation for some time. These are used by developers of upcoming games as a platform to develop their games before the console is launched. The exterior of the console has already been photographed by those who do not care about the confidentiality agreement that Sony has linked with the use of the console with absolute certainty.

PS5 Devkit UI 4chan leak from r/PS5

In the meantime, there is even a picture of the user interface that a user has shared via Reddit / 4chan. It is very similar to the PS4 interface. That leaves a little doubt about the supposed leak. In the upper corner, you can also see that the system runs with 1TB memory. Even with this space, it is still questionable whether Sony will install such a size as standard in the retail PS5 or offer several variants. The leak should be viewed with caution until confirmed.

PlayStation 5: Sony boss gives new hardware details

Sony has been working for this next-gen PlayStation for more than four years. The leading system architect Mark Cerny in an interview with Wired reveals the first official details about the hardware. Among other things, he explained that the new console will not be a mere upgrade, comparable to the PlayStation 4 Pro. Cerny spoke of “fundamental changes to what a game can be”.

Mark Cerny previously spoke of an 8K resolution, which also enables ray tracing. According to the console architect, a model from AMD’s Radeon Navi series is to be used as the graphics card. He also explained that the processor is based on the third generation of the AMD Ryzen line, in which eight cores of the new 7nm Zen-2 microarchitecture are installed. The AMD sound chip is said to include a custom unit for 3D audio that console architect Mark Cerny believes will redefine sound output for video games. With headphones, he promises a new “gold standard” here.

CPU performance of the PS5 in detail

At EGX 2019, the Digital Foundry team spoke about the PS5 while talking about the performance of the next-gen console. The processor of the PS5 will probably have a performance of 3.2 GHz. With eight cores and 16 threads, the computing power of the console would be far ahead of the current PS4 and PS4 Pro. This would also support the previous information on the other credit points of the PS5. Combined with a powerful GPU, the console could become a true next-gen flagship.

PlayStation 5: Transfer scores of the PS4 & Crossplay

Whether the controllers of the PS4 on the new PS5 are working are not yet known. To make it easier for owners of a PlayStation 4 to switch to the new console, Sony enables backward compatibility. This means that PS4 games will also work on the PS5 and existing game saves will be transferable. Also, it will be possible to play across consoles. So if you get a PS5 early on, you will still be able to play with your friends who play on the PS4.

PS5 Specifications

CPU: AMD Zen 2-based CPU with 8 cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)
GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)
GPU architecture: Custom RDNA 2
Memory interface: 16GB GDDR6 / 256-bit
Memory bandwidth: 448GB/s
Internal storage: Custom 825GB SSD
IO throughput: 5.5GB/s (raw), typical 8-9GB/s (compressed)
Expandable storage: NVMe SSD slot
External storage: USB HDD support (PS4 games only)
Optical drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray drive

PlayStation 5: The first video demonstrates significantly shorter loading times

Thanks to the powerful hardware, the loading times of the PS5 should be significantly shorter. This should be possible due to the much faster SSD. For the comparison, the loading time for the most liked game - “Spider-Man”: takes about 15 seconds on the PS4, while it takes only 0.8 seconds on the PS5. The built-in SSD is said to be even faster than all current models that are built into PCs.

Sony's official video comparing performance of PS4 Pro vs next-gen PlayStation pic.twitter.com/2eUROxKFLq
— Takashi Mochizuki (@6d6f636869) May 21, 2019

As part of an internal company event, Sony has demonstrated how fast the next-gen console will be. On average, the loading times should be ten times shorter than with the PS4 Pro.

PS5 Launch and Price in Nepal

Sony has marked the release date within the Christmas season of 2020. The console is likely to land under the Christmas tree for some gamers next year. The whole thing has now been underpinned by an official PS5 website. This allows interested fans to sign up for a newsletter. Information about the PlayStation 5 will be sent directly to the mailbox via this site as soon as Sony releases it.

Sony did not mention the price of the upcoming gaming console yet, so we still don’t know how much will it cost, but the company has said the PS5’s price will be winning to gamers. “I believe that we will be able to release it at an SRP [suggested retail price] that will be appealing to gamers in light of its advanced feature set,” said Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PS4 who’s currently working on its successor. While it comes to Nepal, the price of Sony Playstation PS4 Slim (500GB) in Nepal is Rs. 42,700 and the price of Sony Playstation PS4 Slim (1TB) is Rs. NPR 45,500. Similarly, PS4 Pro costs Rs. 81,100 for the 1TB version in Nepal. We can expect the price of PS5 to be at around 1 lakhs when it arrives in Nepal.