Sony’s PS5 teardown video reveals Removable sides, Liquid metal for cooling, and more

Sony’s PS5 teardown

A seven-minute PS5 teardown video was released by Sony. This PS5 teardown provides us the best look at the PS5 so far, including all its internal components and how the sides are removable. The teardown is led by Yasuhiro Ootori, head of Sony’s mechanical design for the PS5, noting that the entire rear of the PS5 is designed to exhaust air from the console.

Sony uses a base on PS5 that is held in place with a screw when it’s oriented vertically and clipped to the side of the console if you’re planning to use it horizontally. By lifting them and sliding them off, the white panels on either side of the console can be easily removed. This exposes the main cooling fan at the top of PS5 which can draw air from either side. Two dust catchers are also used by the Sony that can be vacuumed out through two holes.

The teardown also provides us with a first look at expandable storage through an M.2 slot that is accessible once the side panels are removed. In order to upgrade the storage PS5 owners will be able to buy their own PCIe 4.0 compatible drives in the next-gen console.

The rest of the teardown video from Sony also shows how serviceable this console is going to be. It is apparent that Sony has thoughtfully designed this to make it simple for reparability and serviceability. You can easily remove the Blu-ray drive and even the processor, memory, and SSD parts are easy to access. You can quickly detach the 350-watt power supply as well.

A wide 120 mm diameter, 45 mm thick, double-sided air intake cooling fan is used by Sony in PS5. Sony also uses a heatsink to assist with cooling, with airflow that Sony claims can “achieve the same performance as a vapour chamber.” For cooling performance, the PS5 also uses liquid metal, which should also help minimize the normal fan noise on the PS4.

Liquid Metal For Cooling

Sony says it’s been working on this liquid metal cooling for two years, with different testing to ensure it’s a reliable long-term solution. It is a thermal conductor that sits between the SoC and the heat sink and should improve the cooling efficiency significantly.

Sony says it has spent five years designing and creating the PS5 and has concentrated on reducing noise levels and improving its methods of cooling. It is encouraging to learn that the previous PS4 Pro suffered from noise issues that Sony quietly resolved with updated versions.

“We’ve also highlighted the mechanism in the video that we’ve incorporated into the PS5 console to make the operating sounds even quieter,” explains Masayasu Ito, head of hardware engineering and operation at Sony Interactive Entertainment. “After an extensive and complex trial and error process, we were pleased with the end result and I can not wait for our fans to get their hands on the PS5 console and ‘hear’ it for themselves.”

Sony’s PlayStation 5 console will go on sale in the US on November 12th for $499 ($399 for the Digital Edition) and on 19th November in India for Rs.49,000-Rs.50,000 (Rs.35,000-Rs.40,000 for Digital Edition) along with other parts of the world.