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 its 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).
- Thermal Board Power of 160W, indicating that it is anticipated to use less power than the 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, but is clocked 50% faster. It’s worth noting that:
- RDNA5 is expected to be a big improvement in IPC performance, meaning each compute unit performs faster than previous AMD GPUs.
- Recent leaks by Kepler indicate that AMD has resolved a lot of the problems involving dual issue with RDNA5, making it a lot more viable to be used, with the potential to double performance (practically, an increase of around >30% IPC performance).
- As we saw in this generation, and even in how the PS5 Pro performs in some instances, going wider on CUs usually does not scale perfectly linearity with performance. PS5 Pro has 60~70% higher theoretical performance but practically performs 45% faster.
- The memory has lower bus but very fast memory clocks of 32Gbps, that would give it between 640GB/s and 768GB/s of bandwidth.
- Performance estimate was 3x of PS5 in terms of rasterization, which is roughly equivalent to an RTX 4080’s performance, though MLID 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 Microsoft is doing with its console, presumably so AMD can unify production lines and save on manufacturing costs. MLID wasn’t able to confirm whether Sony ended up using said chip.
- Because the specifications are overall conservative, MLID believes Sony can keep the same price of 499 US Dollars for the console, though it’s safe to assume that it will likely be the digital edition.
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 that there’s only one chip being manufactured for the handheld device.
- Has a USB-C port with output capabilities, suggesting that Sony can release a dock for it similarly to the one for the Nintendo Switch 1 and 2.
- Is apparently being developed within roughly the same time frame as the main PS6, suggesting that they may be launched simultaneously.
- 15W chip, which is in line with the power draw of Nintendo Switch consoles, suggesting it can probably keep a reasonable form factor.
- Only 4 Zen 6 CPU cores, which is pretty limiting.
- 12-20 CUs, which is around what was expected.
- Lower memory 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.
- MLID believes that, with these specs, the handheld could be even cheaper than the PS6 and compete directly in Nintendo 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.
