Sony has totally revamped the internal design of its latest PS5 models. A revised PS5 model started appearing in Australia last month, and now YouTuber Austin Evans has taken a look at the internals and discovered a lot of changes. Sony is using a new, smaller motherboard for the PS5, different cooling, and has even changed the SSD enclosure.
All of these changes add up to another weight reduction, but no obvious changes to the exterior of the PS5. The real big change is the updated motherboard in the PS5. It has shrunk by around two inches, and the cooling for the PS5 is slightly different thanks to an additional heat pipe at the rear and a smaller heatsink.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a redesigned cooling solution on the PS5. Sony shipped a revised model last year with a smaller heatsink. The new motherboard and heatsink on this 2022 PS5 now weighs around 2.5 pounds according to Evans, that’s a pound lighter than the original design.
Sony has also moved a lot of components around with this new motherboard design, and it means the CMOS battery is now completely hidden away under the heatsink. It was exposed before, making it easy to switch out, but Evans claims you’ll now have to completely disassemble a PS5 to replace the CMOS battery.
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The SSD enclosure has also changed in this new PS5 mode. It no longer has a PCB through the entire length, and instead has exposed metal. It’s not immediately clear why Sony has changed this particular part of the PS5 design, but Evans speculates it could help improve heat dissipation.
All of these changes might add up to some real world benefits for the PS5. Evans claims this new PS5 model pulls around 20-30 watts less during gaming, while still delivering around the same amount of noise and heat output.
“Sony shrank almost everything including motherboard and the internal packaging to make it lighter and almost certainly cheaper (for them),” says Evans on Twitter. The new PS5 model arrives just as Sony has hiked its PS5 prices outside of the US. Sony is increasing its PS5 prices in the UK, Europe, Japan, China, Australia, Mexico, and Canada.