Sony reveal full PS5 specs, PS4 comparison and SSD speed

PlayStation fans have finally been given more details about the upcoming PS5. There had been much anticipation about Sony’s new console and the March 18 presentation while technical, did reveal just how powerful it will be.

Following a surprise drop of information for the Xbox Series X on March 16, Sony announced a livestream where PS5 lead system architect, Mark Cerny, would provide a “deep dive” into the PS5 system.

In the build-up to the livestream, renowned gaming journalist, Jason Schreier, revealed one person, someone who appeared to be in the know, said it was the “the most exciting hardware in 20 years”. Now we can certainly see why.

I don't know how many teraflops (lol) the PS5 has, but this is the sentiment I've heard from several technical-minded folks. One told me it was "the most exciting hardware in 20 years." Will be fascinating to see how it stacks up to the impressive Xbox Series X specs https://t.co/q7i0ET95Yq

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) March 17, 2020

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PS5 vs PS4 specs

The full PlayStation 5 specs have been revealed (via Eurogamer) and, unsurprisingly, they blow the PS4 away.

PS5 vs Xbox specs

What fans really want to know though, is how does the PS5 stack up to their biggest competitor, Xbox Series X. Well, on paper, the Xbox is more powerful but often the decision isn’t as simple as ‘which is more powerful’.

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Interestingly, Mark Cerny spent some of the presentation to make it clear that more teraflops and CUs doesn’t necessarily mean more power. Whether this was a result of the Xbox Series X specs or just a natural part of the presentation, we’ll perhaps never know.

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SSD speeds on PlayStation 5

The presentation started with discussion about adding an SSD to the PS5. Cerny revealed that the previous HDD in the PS4 – along with the CPU of course – was a bottleneck for game development.

The increasingly expansive worlds just couldn’t be loaded quick enough on the older technology which has brought us to the point of an SSD being necessity.

For example, the bandwidth of the PS4 HDD was 50-100MB/s. In comparison, the PS5 SSD target is at least 5 GB/s – a minimum of 100 times faster!

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In other words the difference between load times is reportedly 1GB in 20 seconds for the PS4, and 2GB in 0.27 seconds for the PS5. That is nearly 150 times quicker!

PS4 backwards compatible on PS5?

There had been rumors over the last several months that the PS5 would be fully backwards compatible with the PS4, PS3, PS2, and PS1. We are getting backwards compatibility but perhaps not to the extent that was hoped.

It has been confirmed that Sony are working on determining the top 100 PS4 games. It will be these that are backwards compatible.

There was no mention of whether this would be expanded upon and how this would relate to the PS3, PS2, and PS1.

PS5 release date

Another bit of good of news that came from the reveal was the fact that no announcement regarding a delay to the 2020 release date. The current global health situation has put its release date into question.

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Hopefully in this case we can assume no news is good news. Elsewhere, we don’t know whether this news will impact the same rumors about the Xbox Series X, though. Microsoft haven’t commented amid the rumors.

With the specs and technical details out in the open, fans will now look to news of games and perhaps even some video showing off the next-generation capabilities.

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