Sony reveals first details on PlayStation 5 hardware specifications

We are still a while off from Sony's next PlayStation launch but it looks like the company is ready to start talking about the hardware far earlier than expected. In an interview this week, PlayStation system architect, Mark Cerny, began talking about the planned upgrades for PS5, confirming some rumours and adding on a few extra details.

Speaking in an interview with Wired this week, Cerny confirmed that the PlayStation 5 will be based on AMD hardware once again. The CPU will be 3rd generation Ryzen, while the GPU will be based on AMD's upcoming Radeon Navi architecture. The new console will apparently support ray tracing, in addition to new 3D audio technology, which is baked into the CPU architecture itself.

Beyond that, Sony appears to be committing to shortening loading times. HDD speeds have become a real issue this generation, with some games taking several minutes to fully load on consoles. With the next-gen PlayStation, consoles will finally make the jump to SSDs, although Cerny did not share any details on capacities. Even now, 1TB SSDs are expensive for PC owners, so it will be interesting to see how this impacts pricing.

The final tidbit worth noting is that the PS5 is confirmed to have backwards compatibility with the PS4, so your games library will carry over without any issues. Unfortunately, that is all the information we have for now as no release windows or timetables were shared. The only thing that Cerny would say for certain is that the new console won't be coming out this year.

KitGuru Says: Many rumours were confirmed today. We've been hearing for a while that PS5 will be Ryzen/Navi based, and that a 2020 release window is targeted. Still, the mention of ray tracing and SSDs is surprising to me. Now, we'll have to wait and see what kind of details Microsoft shares at E3, as we know the next Xbox is also on the way. 

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