Sony reveals PS5 specs, promises 3D audio better than Dolby Atmos

Sony reveals further PS5 specs and details
(Image credit: Future)

Sony has revealed a little more information about its next generation PlayStation 5 games console and seems to be shunning Dolby Atmos support.

In lieu of the planned press conference at the cancelled GDC gaming event, PS5 system lead Mark Cerny sketched the next set of PS5 specs and details over the Playstation YouTube channel in his tech-heavy Road to PS5 presentation.

When it came to the section about sound, Cerny left his audience with the distinct feeling that the PS5 would not be supporting Dolby Atmos. The PS5 will output native 3D audio using a newly-designed 'Tempest Engine' with Cerny stating that he wanted to include far more than just the 34 speakers that Atmos can manage. It also means that many more TV sound devices will be able to leverage the PS5's surround virtualisation and not just Atmos-certified ones.

The other big area of Cerny's session was around internal storage. It turns out that an SSD was the most requested feature by game developers and, as expected, that's exactly what the PS5 will deliver. According to Cerny, compared to an HDD, it offers 100x faster load speeds which means no load screens, ultra fast streaming and ultra fast boot speeds too.

Sony reveals GPU & SSD details for the PS5

(Image credit: Sony Playstation)

In real terms, streaming is apparently so fast that a game can load all the graphics and textures behind an online player faster that the player can around.

The capacity of the internal SSD was not mentioned (perhaps because there will be multiple options), but Cerny did confirm that storage will be expandable through the addition of third-party M2 SSDs.

The catch is that they will have to fit the dedicated slot and connections of the PS5 and hit a minimum speed so as not to slow down the new PS5 games. Interestingly, Cerny says that no drives so far tested have hit Sony's minimum spec, but they are expected to do so by the end of the year, and specific recommendations will be offered post-launch.

Sony reveals GPU & SSD details for the PS5

(Image credit: Sony PlayStation)

The good news is that if you just want to add lots of storage for your existing catalogue of PS4 games, a standard external hard drive will do the job.

Cerny also confirmed that the PS5 will use 16GB GDDR6 RAM modules and that it will major on 3D audio without being restrictive in terms of the user's sound system.

In terms of processors, Cerny let on that the PS5 CPU and GPU would run at full power using variable frequencies to manage overheating. The CPU would run at up to 3.5GHz and feature eight Zen 2 cores while the GPU was based on AMD's RDNA 2 tech and go as far as 2.23GHz and 10.28 teraflops. 

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Dan Sung

Dan is a staff writer at What Hi-Fi? and his job is with product reviews as well as news, feature and advice articles too. He works across both the hi-fi and AV parts of the site and magazine and has a particular interest in home cinema. Dan joined What Hi-Fi? in 2019 and has worked in tech journalism for over a decade, writing for Tech Digest, Pocket-lint, MSN Tech and Wareable as well as freelancing for T3, Metro and the Independent. Dan has a keen interest in playing and watching football. He has also written about it for the Observer and FourFourTwo and ghost authored John Toshack's autobiography, Toshack's Way.