Leaked AMD slides have revealed the proposed hardware specs for both the PS6 and Sony’s rumored portable game console.
Content creator Moore’s Law Is Dead (MLID) has shared details from alleged AMD presentations held in 2023, showing internal discussions between the chip maker and Sony Interactive Entertainment regarding hardware specs for the PS6 (codenamed Orion) and its portable companion (codenamed Canis). While the information is a few years old, it is implied that the console maker typically sticks to early design goals.
PS6 Proposed Specs
The proposed specs for the PS6 based on the alleged AMD presentation can be seen below (specs summary via Reset Era member modiz).
- 160W TBP means it is anticipated to use less power than a Base PS5
- CPU is the same amount of cores but 4 generations ahead of the Base PS5
- GPU uses less Compute Units than a PS5 Pro clocked at 50% faster, also note for this:
- RDNA5 is expected to be a big improvement in IPC performance, meaning each compute unit performs faster than previous AMD GPUs
- More specifically, recent leaks by Kepler indicate that AMD have solved a lot of the issues regarding dual issue with RDNA5, making it a lot more viable to be used than currently when it has practically 0 use in gaming, dual issue in concept can double up the performance, but practically you can expect an >30% performance increase from that, alongside any other improvements to IPC. MLID specifically said he expects a 50% IPC increase which I assume includes that.
- As we saw in this generation, and even in how the PS5 Pro performs in some instances, going wider on the CU usually does not scale perfectly linearity with performance. PS5 Pro has 60~70% higher theoretical performance but performs officially at 45% faster (seems around right from benchmarks)
- The memory has lower but bus but very fast memory clocks of 32Gbps, that would give it between 640GB/s and 768GB/s of bandwidth, also not on slide but seems Sony/AMD were considering putting quite a bit of cache on the console.
- Performance estimate was 3x of PS5 in rasterization, which is around a RTX 4080 in performance, but he anticipates much higher uplift in RT performance.
- Sony is using a chiplett design, meaning the CPU and GPU are manufactured on separate chipletts and connected via a special bridge. AMD tried to convince Sony to use a mostly off the shelf desktop GPU for the console chiplett, which seems to be what MS are doing with their console, presumably so AMD can unify production lines and save on manufacturing costs. He wasn’t able to confirm so far whether Sony really are using said chip or not.
- Because the specifications are overall conservative, he believes Sony can keep the same price of $499 for this console (though safe to assume that will be the digital model)
PlayStation Handheld Specs
As per the leaked presentation, the specs for Sony’s rumored PlayStation handheld can be seen below.
- Monolithic, unlike the PS6 meaning there’s only one chip being manufactured here.
- Has a USB-C port with out capabilities, meaning they can release a dock for it similarly to a switch
- Seems to operate on roughly the same timeframe as the main PS6 so they may be launched simultaneously
- 15W chip means it uses power inline with switch consoles and can probably keep a reasonable size
- Only 4 zen 6 cores, which is pretty limiting
- 12-20CU is around what was expected (most were expecting a 16CU handheld)
- Low bandwidth than expectations
- Expected performance is half of the PS5, which aligns quite closely with what’s expected of the upcoming low power mode on the PS5
- Expected to perform better than the Xbox Ally X, but it is not some massively performant handheld, say GPD stuffing a strix halo into a handheld kind of performance
- MLID thinks with these specs it could be even cheaper than the PS6 and compete directly on switch 2’s pricing territory at higher performance.
The aforementioned specs may evolve, but they give a rough indication of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s goal for its next-gen hardware. The PS6 portable hardware specs are allegedly tailored with the PS5’s low power mode compatibility in mind, with the aim of having broad software compatibility.
