Sony's New PS5 Console Uses a Different Internal Design
Last month a new PS5 model appeared that is 300 grams lighter, and it turns out Sony performed a major internal redesign of the console in order to achieve that weight reduction.
Technology YouTuber Austin Evans managed to get his hands on the new 1200-series PS5, and immediately set about doing a teardown. With the previous 1100-series model revision, Sony significantly reduced the size of the heatsink, but this latest model goes a lot further than that.
As Evans points out, "almost every part of this PS5 has been touched," meaning Sony's engineers have taken the time to tweak the design wherever possible to cut costs, weight, and power usage. The SSD housing is different, the main cooling fan uses a different fan blade attachment, and the motherboard is significantly smaller.
In fact, Sony has moved components around on the motherboard, placed them underneath a smaller heatsink, and added a new heatpipe. The biggest downside to this redesign is the fact the CMOS battery is now inaccessible without first removing the heatsink, which would be a task many PS5 owners wouldn't feel comfortable performing.
CMOS battery problems aside, this redesign does come with one other bit of good news besides the weight reduction. Austin's testing showed that the 1200-series model consumes less power. The launch model uses 218 watts, the 1100-series increased that to 229 watts, but this latest model drops down to just 201 watts. Noise and heat levels remain roughly the same, but the heat dissipation of the new model is more evenly spread across the entire console.
It seems likely the PS5 1200 models (digital and disc editions) will soon become the only models available to buy. They are clearly going to be cheaper for Sony to
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