Is this next-gen? Sony PlayStation 6 handheld and console specifications leak
PlayStation 6 leak suggests HUGE memory capacity upgrade, but not much more bandwidth
Thanks to KeplerL2, new PlayStation 6 specifications have leaked online, revealing the memory capacities of the system’s handheld and home console versions. The PS6 handheld will reportedly feature 24GB of LPDDR5X memory, while the PS6 console will feature 30GB of GDDR7 memory.
These specifications will give both the PS6 handheld and console much more memory than Sony’s PlayStation 5, which has 16GB of GDDR6. This extra memory will allow developers to create more complex games and utilise higher-resolution textures and more detailed assets.
More memory, but not much more bandwidth
Using a “clamshell 3GB” GDDR7 memory configuration over a 160-bit memory bus, Sony’s PS6 will deliver more memory bandwidth than Sony’s PS5 and PS5 Pro consoles. That said, AMD’s PS6 won’t deliver much more memory bandwidth. While the console has much more memory, its smaller memory bus gives its a small overall bandwidth boost despite the move from GDDR6 to GDDR7.
Sony’s PS5 and PS5 Pro have 448 GB/s and 576 GB/s of memory bandwidth, respectively. With 32 Gbps GDDR7 memory, the PS6 (console) will have 640 Gbps of memory bandwidth. This is a relatively small upgrade for Sony’s new console, with the PS6 having just 11.1% more bandwidth than a PS5 Pro. In fact, the bandwidth gap between PS5 and PS5 Pro is larger than the gap between PS5 Pro and PS6, assuming this leak is correct.
AMD/Sony’s Project Amethyst should make memory bandwidth a non-issue
Though Project Amethyst, AMD and Sony have already unveiled “Universal Compression” technology. According to AMD/Sony, this tech “evaluates and compresses all available data within the GPU to dramatically reduce memory bandwidth usage”. This tech enabled higher levels of hardware efficiency, allowing the AMD silicon within PlayStation 6 to deliver much more effective memory bandwidth than the system’s specifications suggest. In other words, the PS6’s meagre memory bandwidth upgrade is countered by the system’s hardware-level advancements.
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