Is the new PS5 actually worse than the original?

Sony is releasing a releasing a new PlayStation 5 model with some minor revisions to the hardware. The underlying chip and board appear to be the same. But that’s not what’s gotten the internet all hot and bothered, so to speak.

Austin Evans had a chance to tear down the new unit on his YouTube channel. The revision has a much smaller heatsink than the original, and appears to run hotter too. Evens took a thermal camera to the console’s exhaust, and showed it running about 3-5c hotter than the launch console. Which doesn’t exactly bode well for this new design. Or does it?

Certainly a smaller heatsink is a bit of cause for alarm, as it would seem that Sony is sacrificing thermal performance in order to cut costs. But it would seem that the original heatsink may have been overkill to begin with. Especially when compared to the similarly equipped Xbox Series X. The new model also features a fan with more blades than the original, allowing it to push more air through the system.

While I have nothing against Austin’s channel, he does tend to border a bit on sensationalism. Even more than Linus does. His testing methodology is also flawed here. Higher exhaust temperature doesn’t necessarily mean that the cooling system is performing worse. Quite the opposite in fact. With all else being the same, it means that more heat is being extracted from the chips, making the setup more efficient, not less. What really matters is the die temperature of the APU, not the temperature of the air coming out the back. Something which we currently have no data on.

Evans also didn’t really go any deeper than the RF shield. So we don’t know if the board or chips have received any revisions. There was a rumour a while back that Sony was looking at a potential die shrink for the PS5’s APU. Smaller transistors are more efficient and output less heat. Which would explain why the heat sink was reduced.

Is it worse? Well, we just don’t know. It still needs a proper teardown so we can really see what changes have been made under the hood. In the meantime, if you’re one of the lucky few who manages to snag one of these new units, I probably wouldn’t worry about those temperatures.