In Sony’s history, a re-release of a newer, slimmer variant of its PlayStation console also means an improvement in power consumption due to its APU downscale. Now, the upcoming PlayStation 5 Slim, also known as the PS5 Slim, retains most of what the PlayStation 5 originally had when it launched in 2020.
The PS5 Slim isn’t out yet; however, Linus from Linus Tech Tips got his hands on an actual unit, all thanks to dbrand, a company known for its aftermarket PS5 side plates and other products.
Linus’ teardown video of the PS5 Slim showcases the comparison of the standard variant against its slim design, and the results were significant. The PS5 Slim has been scaled down to the most possible size ever without sacrificing its overall cooling performance, which is a good thing. However, Linus discovered during their test of how the console’s power draws their experiment concluded that the PS5 Slim consumes electricity identically with the standard PS5.
“We did some testing, though, and the results surprised us,” said Linus in his video. “The PS5 Slim was identical to the old one. We were expecting it to be different in some way.”
Linus further showed us that the PS5 Slim draws the same power from idle to playing a game — the results were insignificant.
After Linus disassembles the PS5 Slim and finds that the APU of the PS5 Slim has the same size of 6nm as the standard PS5, he concludes that the PS5 Slim is instead a refresh in terms of the overall console size.
When Sony announced the PS4 Slim in 2016, three years after the first PS4 launched in 2013, it significantly changed its APU scale (from 28nm to 16nm). It made the console power efficient without sacrificing the overall performance.
It’s disappointing that Sony has not opted to manufacture a much more efficient variant of the PS5; instead, the company decided to release just another refresh of the PS5 but in a smaller form factor without any significant improvements in its power consumption.
The PS5 Slim is slated to launch later this month in November.