PS5 Teardown [video]
Few things I noticed:<p>- That stand is a crazy piece of unnecessary engineering just to make the customer&#x27;s life a wee little bit easier. Very cool.<p>- Removable side-panels. This was strongly theorized from previous leaks, but I think this is the first time we&#x27;ve gotten an official video showing them. The aftermarket for these will be huge, allowing really well integrated customization. It also makes Sony&#x27;s &quot;limited edition consoles&quot; they release for big games far cheaper to build, and maybe even accessible to people who don&#x27;t want to replace their whole console (if Sony releases the plates as a separate&#x2F;pre-order&#x2F;etc purchase).<p>- The NVME and fan are both easily accessible without voiding warranty. They&#x27;ve advertised that NVME slot before; PCIE4 is required, and it has to match or exceed the internal SSD&#x27;s raw read performance in order to be supported, which is 5.5Gbps. Nearly every current-gen NVME SSD is too slow, which may lead to some confusion, but I also expect Sony will have some PS5 branded SSDs right in the Best Buy gaming accessories isle so hopefully too many people don&#x27;t get burned by this. Definitely prefer it to Microsoft&#x27;s proprietary strategy.<p>- Single cooling fan. There&#x27;s a ton of empty space inside the console, so it doesn&#x27;t seem impossible that they could have found room for a second fan, but they must feel confident about this one (massive) fan&#x27;s ability to cool that (massive) heatsink. Judging by the design though, it looks like it has a lot of surface area to collect dust. This (and bad thermal compound) was a huge reason why the PS4P had issues with jet turbine fan noise for some people. Its unprecedented accessibility (no warranty void) seems to signal that they want people to clean it out; very good.<p>- Liquid metal. This is a big TIM change that is likely in direct response to the PS4P problems. LM is significantly more expensive, but also significantly more thermally conductive. However, it has drawbacks: most DIY builders wont (shouldn&#x27;t) use it because the gallium in it chemically destroys aluminum (which, if the bronze color of the heatsink wasn&#x27;t enough evidence, points to the heatsink being copper) [1], and its electrical conductivity means one little spill and you fry your motherboard. Neither are issues for the PS5, but it has also been observed to need reapplication more often than traditional compound. I trust Sony did the due diligence in this area, so it doesn&#x27;t concern me, but its also something to keep an eye on; if we start seeing overheating issues in these consoles ~2022.<p>- In a split-second shot, we can see the aluminum backplane as he flips it over, and it appears to have an integrated copper heatsink&#x2F;heatpipe running between the capacitors at the bottom of the unit to an air intake in the rear. Those capacitors are in the same area as what I think is the power supply he removes at the end (I don&#x27;t know japanese, and that unit didn&#x27;t get an english translation). Just interesting.<p>- There&#x27;s a split second scene where he flips the board over before the camera zooms in, and you can see the thermal material still applied to a BUNCH of chips; afterward it appears that they cleaned it off for the camera. It looks like at least the SSD controller, NAND cells, and maybe even the GDDR6 system memory and a few other assorted chips all have traditional thermal compound smeared on them. Some of these chips are on the rear of the board facing away from the big copper heatsink, and the GDDR6 cells appear to have an airgap between them and the aluminum backplane, so is that actually thermal compound? Its something.<p>[1] Gallium destroying aluminum isn&#x27;t just a &quot;ok it&#x27;ll corrode in a couple years&quot; kind of thing. LockpickingLawyer has an incredible video where he demonstrates this reaction; the aluminum is gone in a matter of hours, not months. DO NOT use liquid metal as a TIM unless you are very confident there is no aluminum anywhere it could touch, and you&#x27;re incredibly careful during the application. Ok, your heat sink isn&#x27;t aluminum; is your CPU lid aluminum? Very likely. Don&#x27;t use liquid metal. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jeghGhVdt9s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jeghGhVdt9s</a>