While previous reports have given us some idea of what we can expect when it comes to the hardware in Sony’s next-generation home console and handheld system a new report has provided a bit more detail. According to YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, specs for both the PS6 and the handheld PlayStation have been revealed thanks to a leaked AMD presentation from back in 2023.
According to this leak, the PS6 will run on hardware that makes use of a chiplet design, with 8 Zen 6 cores and somewhere between 40 and 48 RDNA 5 compute units. The compute units will have a clock speed of more than 3 GHz, and while the whole chip will take up less power than even a base PS5, the new hardware is still expected to be much faster thanks to efficiency gains in AMD’s newer generation of chips. The hardware is also expected to exceed the performance of the PS5 Pro.
The memory of the PS6 will reportedly have a memory bus of either 160 bit or 192 bit, albeit with a noticeable improvement to RAM speeds since it will be GDDR7, and will be capable of hitting transfer speeds of between 640 GB/s and 768 GB/s, depending if Sony goes with the 160 bit or 192 bit memory bus. For context, the PS5 Pro has a memory bus of 256 bit, and its memory has a transfer bandwidth of 576 GB/s.
When taking all of this hardware into account, the PS6 is expected to be around three times more powerful than a PS5 and twice as powerful as a PS5 Pro when it comes to raster performance. Raytracing will likely involve giving up a fair bit of performance. However, the next-gen console is still expected to outperform its predecessors thanks to AMD’s own efforts at improving the raytracing capabilities of its GPU chips.
When it comes to the handheld system – codenamed Project Canis – the system is expected to use a chip based on a single die that comes in at 3 nm, and will run on 4 Zen 6C cores. The graphics will reportedly have somewhere between 12 and 20 RDNA 5 compute units, with their clock speeds coming in between 1.6 GHz and 2.2 GHz. The memory bus in the system will be 128 bit, and the RAM will be LPDDR5X. For power conservation efforts, the system is expected to be able to run on 15 watts.
Despite the smaller overall hardware, weaker chips and slower memory than the PS6, Project Canis is still expected to offer around the same level of rasterisation performance as the base PS5. This comes largely thanks to the improvements in efficiency and power that AMD has made in its more recent chips.
The video also features a few details about the next-gen Xbox console’s chip, which is expected to run on 11 Zen 6 cores and 68 compute units. When comparing just these numbers, it looks like Microsoft’s next console might fall behind the PS6. However, more details and official announcements will likely make these things clearer.
