- This is the new PS5 Slim.
Not only am I unboxing it,
but I'm also taking it through an X-ray,
as well as full teardown to see what's inside.
And honestly, it is not what I expected.
This, my friends, is the brand new PS5 Slim.
I say Slim, but it's like, you know, lowercase S Slim,
because it's still a little bit chunky.
But it's really nice of them to include
the latest Xbox exclusive with our PS5.
(blade rings)
What the hell is...?
- [Ken] That's your plastic stand.
- I bet a lot of people are gonna accidentally
throw these things away 'cause they're so small.
This would be a great time to remind you to subscribe
and ring-a-ling the ding-a-ling button,
so you never miss when I give you a free code
to Modern Warfare.
All right, let's take a look at the PS5 itself.
This is definitely a lot lighter weight.
In fact, (cardboard thumps)
I like how the cardboard weighs almost as much as PS5.
So, I've been very curious because I've seen,
like, the photos and stuff of what this looks like
and they have a couple of like side-by-sides,
but actually seeing it in person,
well it's smaller and it's glossier so...
- [Ken] Oh, it's half glossy, half matte?
- It is half glossy and half matte.
- [Matt] Hi. - I will say though,
that disc drive is quite bulbous.
I mean, not to say that you should get the digital version
just so you have a slimmer profile, but that's chungus-y.
We also do have a neat little PlayStation
Easter egg on the bottom here.
So you can see here that it is smaller,
I would say, in every dimension.
It's a sort of similar shape,
although it loses this kinda like these wings,
which I'll admit when I first saw the PS5,
I thought it was really ugly, but it's kind of grown on me.
This looks a lot more slim line.
Something else you can tell here
is that with the original PS5,
they have these like little grills
over like the fans and stuff.
Here I can literally just stick my finger
all the way inside,
which shouldn't make really a difference,
but it does look maybe a little cheaper.
I mean it's not that much, sort of, shorter,
but it is like significantly less thick.
One of the main advantages of the PS5 Slim
is that this disc drive is optional.
So this obviously has it already pre-installed.
Theoretically you can buy a digital version
and add it later.
A couple other things I'm noticing here.
So we do have slightly different USB ports.
So on the original we have one USB-C and one USB-A.
That has been replaced with two USB-Cs,
one of which shows that it is a 10 gigabit port.
I assume that's probably more so for like PlayStation VR.
If you watched our previous video,
last year when we took a look at the PS5 1200,
which you'll probably know
is that that was actually a significant upgrade.
So this PS5 1200,
even though it looks the same as every other PS5,
has a way smaller motherboard, a six nanometer processor.
And I said it in the video,
in fact we can cut to the tape right now.
You're trying to tell me
that they couldn't make PS5 Slim today
by just dropping it in there?
Which makes me curious as far as,
is this just the same on the inside?
Did they literally take the exact same motherboard
and just shrink the chassis down
to what they could have already done?
I don't know, but there's only one way to find out.
So for context, this is a launch PS5 disc version,
which comes in at a hefty 4.4 kilos.
Now we contrast that with the 2022 version of the PS5,
aka the 1200 disc, we're gonna see is that comes in
at a significantly lighter 3.8 kilos.
Now, theoretically the PS5 Slim should be pretty similar
if it's got the same motherboard
and similar cooling inside.
So we've got with this one, it is 3.1 kilos.
This is actually a pretty substantial difference in weight,
which really leaves you with a question
of where did all that weight go?
Lemme actually take a look at the disc drive
because the disc drive with this PS5
is definitely something unique.
(PS5 clicks)
Ah, okay, it's on these little tabs.
- [Matt] That's straight up sounds like it's breaking.
- It actually, I think it's fine.
I think that's actually the way you're supposed to do it.
So it pops off.
As you can see here, we have access to the fan,
as well as a large empty...
Wait, what? It's hollow.
You see this? Why is it...?
- [Ken] Stop fingering the PS5.
- Okay. (electronic beep)
There's a little arrow. What's the arrow?
How do you...?
Oh my God. What?
Is that really that easy to just take off the disc drive?
Hold on a second. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You know what? Sony, I gotta give you guys props.
That is legitimately cool.
It's a weird sort of hybrid connector.
It looks a little bit like SATA.
Certainly this is proprietary
so you're not gonna be able to use this with anything else.
But that is really, really simple.
We can see now a little bit more
of the actual size of the PS5
if you've got the digital version.
(PS5 clicks)
I usually, oh god, that does not feel good.
Usually you just pull 'em. Yikes.
I understand why they did glossy.
'cause everyone's gonna wanna buy the third party plates
or really the Sony first party plates to replace this
with like Matte Black and everything.
That's why they did the glossy,
so they want to sell you more shells.
- [Matt] On the good side of that,
we can get some really cool combinations
of like four color bespoke.
- True, well, I'll tell you,
I don't think there's a lot in here.
This feels... (plastic taps)
I mean, it even sounds hollow.
If you wanna put the feet on it, it looks like that,
which, to be fair, they do click in okay.
And then you've got your PS5 which sits like this.
So I guess the feet aren't quite as dumb as I thought.
I don't like the fact that you've got these huge seams
and the big holes for the actual feet though.
I mean it's like the build quality on a Cybertruck.
You're definitely not supposed
to do any of this while it's on
and it's probably a little bit dangerous.
But what happens when you plug in the disc drive
when the PS5 is already on?
Someone's gonna do it, right?
Should go without saying, don't try this at home.
But I am because I wanna know what happens.
Okay, ready
and
activate.
Oh interesting. Your disc drive wasn't connected properly.
When connecting your disc drive,
make sure to turn off the PS5 and unplug the power.
So it just tells me to restart.
Okay, so actually, that seems fine.
So the set up right now is that the PS5
has been powered up as a digital version,
but this is the first time
it is going to be booting with a disk drive.
Oh hey, your disc drive is connected to your PS5.
To use your disc drive, register it to your PS5.
Should we try to do this without internet connection
to see what happens?
Yeah, can't use your disc drive.
You need to connect your PS5 to the network
to register your disc drive to your PS5.
So if you do upgrade slash add a disc drive to your PS5,
you do need it to at least be connected
to the internet the first time.
I think that is a one time thing.
So one thing I wanna actually check to see
is how much capacity each of these PS5s have.
So as a reminder, the original PS5
only shipped with one option for SSD, which is 825 gigs,
whereas the PS5 Slim has one terabyte out of the box.
So with our PS5 Slim we have 830 gigs of free space
and with this one we have 647.
Wow, that's actually a pretty big difference.
Now let's put the PS5 head-to-head with the PS5 Slim.
So we're gonna do some very basic power testing.
So first we're gonna just start out
by just literally sitting on the menu.
And you can see there is actually a small difference
but this is kind of margin of error.
So we're getting about 49 to 50 watts on the PS5 Slim
versus about 53 on our PS5 1200.
I will say that that is not a substantial difference.
I've done testing of several PS5s in the past.
They're all a little different.
So some require a little bit more voltage or whatever.
A few watts is margin of error stuff.
And keep in mind that this PS5 1200
that I'm comparing it to is the 2022 model.
This is the version that was updated last year.
This does have the six nanometer chip.
So if I had the original PS5,
we would see different results.
But I actually wanna give the PS5 Slim
the most fair shot going up against the 2022 model.
That sounds cool if I do two at once.
(controllers buzz)
Now this is certainly a little bit of a crude test
but all we're looking for is a major difference.
If this was a significantly updated chip or something,
we would see 20, 30 watts difference.
But what we're actually seeing is about five.
So our PS5 1200 is in the 217, 218 watt range.
Our PS5 Slim is bouncing between 212 and 214 or so.
I will say that's 100% within margin of error
as far as I'm concerned, which isn't a huge surprise.
So we're now here with our friends at Creative Electron
where I will be X-raying the PS5 Slim.
So a couple things I wanna know, but the main thing is,
what the actual layout of the motherboard is
and a little bit of an idea of what's in the inside
before we do the full teardown.
You can see we've already taken
the side panels off of this one
and we're gonna do the same with the Slim,
mostly because when it comes to putting it
in the X-ray machines,
the more stuff we can get out of the way,
the clearer image we're gonna have.
Okay, so we've started out
by putting both PS5s in a larger X-ray machine
to get an overall image of what is on the inside
and then we're gonna put it in these other machines
to get a little bit more of that fine detail.
So right here on the right,
you'll see that this is the last year's PS5
and you've got things like the SSD,
we've got the heat pipes.
But on this model,
while the heat pipes are in basically the same spot,
it looks like the motherboard has actually been,
potentially, like, rotated around.
The main downside with this PS5 image,
is that you can see it's a little bit darker on the bottom.
That's because the disc drive is not removable
on the original PS5, which means that we've got
a little bit more clarity with the Slim.
Now one thing I can say immediately though,
is that the PS5s do have different cooling assemblies.
Looking at the outside of these PS5s,
I would not have guessed
that there was this level of difference.
The heat pipes, look at the difference here, right?
So heat pipes are just vertical, vertical, vertical,
vertical, horizontal, simple.
On the new one,
look at how much more complex the shapes are.
See, it's like sort of weaving in and out and up and down
and it's much more sort of a complex design,
which does make sense if you're basically
cooling the same processor,
and again we've just done the power testing,
they are basically pulling the same wattage.
If you've got that same 220 ish watts
that you need to dissipate,
a smaller overall form factor, you do need,
unless you want to, you know, sacrifice either temperatures
or fan, like, sort of noise,
you do need a more complicated design
to keep everything in check.
And it looks like they actually
have done the engineering to certainly
do something which looks a lot more complex on the outside.
So our friends at Creative Electron
have very graciously let me take the controls
with the PS5 Slim in the machine.
So what we're looking at here is the actual SoC,
so that's our CPU, GPU, everything.
And obviously it's very dense
because what we're looking at is our heat pipes on top.
Look at the detail you can see on this.
I'm not even zoomed all the way in, like, that is wild.
So I'm curious here, so you can actually see,
so where I am in the image,
is this is where the SSD would be mounted
and you can see the SSD mounting points
are directly behind these heat pipes.
Because you've got the heat pipes
where pretty much all of the heat
is being sort of exhausted out,
because you've got airflow running through,
from sort of this direction.
I'm curious if the SSD cooling is gonna be any better
or potentially worse on this PS5 Slim,
'cause this is quite a dense area.
So I think that's everything we need with the X-ray.
So let's take this back to the studio
and teardown the PS5 Slim.
It is time for the PS5 Slim
to reveal its dark, dirty secrets.
So we actually discovered a slight issue.
The third time we took off one of these shells,
we bent it back a little bit,
but these little plastic little hooks
started to bend back and it wouldn't go in.
So we had to actually take some pliers
and shove it back together.
They're definitely ready to sell you
some spare shells when you break yours.
(PS5 clicks)
Ugh. (Ken laughs)
Boy, I don't like that noise at all.
If it's anything like the previous PS5,
these four screws will pull the entire fan out
without having to go any farther.
Hey look, how many screws do you really need?
The answer, not that many.
And so now we should be able to just pull the fan out
and it does come out nice and neat.
So for context, the old PS5 fan is 120 millimeters.
The new one is 115 millimeters?
That's a really bizarre change. Interesting.
So, you know what, there's also a difference in thickness.
So, the PS5 1200 fan is 50 mils thick,
whereas the new 40 millimeter thick.
So what we're looking at here
is a fan which is smaller than pretty much every dimension,
has the ability for air to flow all the way through,
and has slightly more blades.
You know what, we're finding
all kinds of neat little things.
Like, it's clear that Sony have not done a lazy job
by designing the PS5 Slim.
Like, this is a properly unique thing
even though it looks quite similar on the outside.
Everything I'm seeing so far on the inside
has been, at the very least, tweaked,
maybe not in a huge way.
They've definitely learned stuff from the PS5
and decided to put that into the Slim.
So yeah, this is definitely the warranty void sticker.
So as I peel it up,
it's got the little PlayStation logos on it.
I honestly might be ready to start pulling the shell apart.
I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 screws
and oh yeah, look at that.
Wow, nine screws and we're just loose.
Now, next step is we gotta remove it from the other side.
I don't wanna jinx this right now,
but this looks like it might be the easiest PS5
to open up and work on I have ever seen.
- [Ken] What is the Austin Evans
repairability score?
- So far? Very good.
All right, so this cable should connect to,
I believe, our front USB-C ports.
Yeah, there we go.
- [Ken] Hell yeah, look at that. Oh wow.
- And that, oh.
I mean, I guess I'm not like hugely surprised
because I just looked at it on the X-ray,
but that looks really nice.
Okay. All right.
We're gonna put this off to the side for one second.
The only other thing we have installed here
is our power supply, which is just held in.
Man, that is so simple.
So for context, this is the power supply
on a PS5 1200 compared to the Slim.
They are, yes, they're the exact same
12 volt, 31 amp power supply
and all that you have on this are your USB ports,
your power button, as well as your LEDs.
Other than that, super simple.
And of course you've got your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas,
which I assume are just now run to the front of the chassis
instead of on the bottom with the power supply.
So also, theoretically, you may see
slightly better Wi-Fi and Bluetooth performance
and so it'll be a little higher up in the PS5
and not attached to the bottom of your power supply.
So there's a pretty substantial difference
between the PS5 Slim motherboard and the PS5 1200.
So not only is this just narrower,
but the heat sinks are entirely different.
It is a smaller overall heat sink.
I think it's part of where our weight difference
is coming from.
So as you can see with the 1200, we have a small heat sink,
which is directly over our heat pipes,
which is sitting on the top of the CPU.
So the CPU is right underneath this here.
Then we have a medium sized heat sink and a larger tower.
Well, we still have the larger tower here,
which actually looks to be maybe even slightly bigger,
but instead of having four heat pipes inside of it,
it only has three,
and we're completely losing this middle heat sink.
So instead, they've rotated around.
But also, it's a much more complicated layout.
So you can see here that we have six heat pipes
that go straight across and up.
So with this we have five heat pipes
and you can see they actually start here
and they wrap down around and across.
So some of them end, so two of them end here,
but a few of them start here
and go all the way up to the top.
So in the back we have a somewhat similar layout.
So we have a heat pipe which starts here, wraps up, around,
and then through our actual heat sink,
which is in a different orientation compared to this one,
but it's broadly the same thing.
So it comes across here, runs up through here,
and then the heat can sort of run out on this side.
Even though our SSD is going to be right behind
the actual heat pipe, there's no heat transfer.
So, you might be able to see,
I couldn't tell this on the X-ray,
but now that I have it out front.
So there's literally a little shim
to keep them from touching.
So basically your SSD is being cooled
completely separately to your actual PS5.
So all the airflow, all the heat,
everything from this should, theoretically,
not really attach over to this side.
Although I guess if people are having SSD problems,
that would be the number one spot that I would expect
because it is close to, what I'm assuming,
is a very hot heat sink and and heat pipe.
Okay, so the Slim motherboard and heat sink assembly
weighs just under one kilos, so it's 0.97.
Whereas the older PS5
1.1.
So they did remove a couple hundred grams of mass,
from not only this metal shield,
the smaller motherboard, but realistically,
the cooler, I think, is gonna be a lot of that.
This is the fourth PS5 in a row
that has had a physically smaller heat sink assembly.
Time to start pulling out
the very, very, very many tiny screws
holding these motherboards together.
Ay-oh, there we go.
So that is the back.
And now look at all the little bits
of thermal pads or thermal paste.
So we're gonna undo the retention bracket,
which I definitely didn't forget about at all.
Ay-oh.
What do they say when they, like, strike oil?
Not timber, but like, you know.
- [Ken] There she blows.
- There she blows. Oh no, that's a--
- [Matt] Thar she blows, and that's a whale.
- [Austin] Inside, we have the PS5.
Wow, that is real chunky.
So this is the second generation
of the chip inside of the PS5.
So both the PS5 1000 and 1100,
which came out in 2020 and 2021 respectively,
had the original seven nanometer chip.
In 2022, when the 1200 came out,
they shrank it to a six nanometer chip,
which is slightly smaller, slightly more power efficient.
And clearly that chip, we'll open this up to confirm.
But that chip should be exactly the same
between the two of these.
Comparing the motherboard of the PS5 Slim
to last year's 1200 model,
there are some interesting things to note.
So, broadly speaking, they're actually very similar,
but they're totally different at the same time.
So the main thing is, is that the size
is almost the exact same.
They're a little different if I put them
kinda like on top of each other.
But the main difference is that they rearranged
literally everything on these boards.
The ports are in a different spot,
the CMOS battery's in a different spot, Wi-Fi card.
The only thing that's almost the same
is going to be where you connect your power supply.
But that just makes sense
because that's on the bottom of the PS5.
Probably the biggest difference I see, is with the SSD.
So this newer PS5 has a one terabyte SSD,
but it actually only has four total NAND modules,
whereas the older model actually had six.
Now it's a smaller SSD
and, theoretically, that would hurt performance,
although in practical terms, they probably can have,
like, it will probably have the same throughput.
So when it comes to the teardown.
What we're getting here is a more compact design.
So, everything is smaller and that largely seems to be okay.
I mean, with previous models with the PS5 1100,
they just took the PS5, chopped half the heat sink out
and called it a day, which I was not a huge fan of.
This time around, while yes, the fan is smaller,
yes, the heat sink is a little bit more
of an optimized layout
with a little bit less sort of volume and mass.
It does seem like they compensated for that
with a more complex layout with better airflow.
Now, when you consider the fact
that this is essentially a complete replacement,
so you will no longer be able to buy the older fat PS5s.
These Slims are gonna entirely replace them.
And that's kind of happened at a bit of a price increase,
is a bit concerning.
I mean, I love the fact that the disc drive is removable,
for repairability, for future upgrades,
but I don't necessarily know if that's worth paying more.
And honestly, everything I'm seeing here,
while they've done a lot of nice engineering work
to make it a little bit smaller,
a little bit more compact, yada, yada, yada,
but also it's made it cheaper across the board.
You know, it's got a smaller fan,
it's got less of a weighty heat sink.
They've trimmed and tweaked.
They've removed those little vents
that used to be on the top side.
So, I don't think, necessarily,
that I could say that the PS5 Slim is better.
It feels like it's a side grade.
There's nothing really wrong with it,
but the fact that it is more expensive
definitely makes me a little hesitant
to give it, like, a huge thumbs up,
especially because there's almost certainly
a PS5 Pro on the horizon next year,
which should be a legitimate actual upgrade
over what we're looking at here.
But if you wanna know more about that,
make sure to subscribe to the channel
and ring-a-ling that ding-a-ling button
because the PlayStation shenanigans,
well, you arm me with a screwdriver and I can't help myself.