Is there a difference between a cheaper cooling solution?

The new CFI-1100 series revision for PlayStation 5 is now on the market, and a wave of controversy ensued. First is an interesting news. In addition to the modified WiFi and the new screws of the bracket, the weight of the CFI-1100 model is 300 grams lighter than the original model-this is an interesting problem that can only be solved by hands. The first reporter to do this was Austin Evans. His disassembly and analysis answered many questions, but also raised other questions. Last night, I purchased a device myself, so I can add some preliminary insights based on the first few hours I used the machine.

Evans’s video is very worth watching, because no matter what you think of his views on the thermal performance of the machine, you can see exactly how Sony changed the design—and also importantly, that it hasn’t changed—this is Vital information. Yes, WiFi does look different (the degree of performance change has not been tested), but the 300g weight reduction seems to be mainly due to the new cooler design. There is no if and but about it-this is obviously a cost-reducing job, at this time platform holders can expect to transfer millions of consoles when the holiday is fully started. The huge cooler of the original model-weighing 1639 grams-was replaced with a 1368-gram replacement, so the smaller cooler basically reduced 277 grams of the weight of 300 grams. The radiator has fewer heat pipes (four to six), and the copper content is reduced overall-the thermal conductivity of aluminum is only 60% of copper. There is another interesting change in the design: the fan has been replaced with another fan with more blades, which may be able to push out more air at the same speed.

But what’s more interesting is that according to Evans’ data, there is evidence surrounding what hasn’t changed. Most importantly, in a world where cooling component cost reductions are usually only introduced when the main processor is moved to a smaller, more efficient process technology, the power consumption of the machine looks very similar to the released model PS5. So, on the surface, there are some questions that need to be answered, which ultimately boil down to: If the chip does not have any cooler and the power requirements are the same, then the changes that have taken place justify such a significant reduction in the quality and quality of the cooler. Material? This is a perfectly reasonable question, and I have asked Sony to comment.

Austin Evans and his friends disassembled the new CFI-1100 series PlayStation 5, showing a smaller, more cost-conscious cooling solution.

The crux of the controversy surrounding the Evans video is that he believes that the new PS5 is worse than the old PS5-his view is that a smaller cooler made of less efficient materials will produce a hotter machine. When you look at mass and material reduction, this is not a weird theory anyway, but the question of whether it is hotter cannot be determined only by measuring the heat output of the exhaust gas, even if it does run a few degrees hot, it may still Within the manufacturer's tolerance. In Evans's video, the noise of the new model has a small reduction, which seems to be inconsistent with the concept of a hotter machine. This can be explained in many ways-first of all, if the new machine runs hotter, according to its firmware, this is absolutely fine, no need to worry. After all, if there is an overheating problem, you would think that the fan will speed up to better dissipate heat. Second, the new fan may do a better job of expelling hot air, and it may be quieter than the original one. It is a new part after all. The last theory-which may be a bit unreasonable-is that a smaller heat sink based on a material with a lower overall thermal conductivity has been redesigned to make it more efficient.

There have been calls for testing the internal thermal characteristics of the new PS5 in operation, especially after Gamers Nexus’s Steve Burke’s test of the release model showed people’s concerns about how a memory chip can operate at very high temperatures and dissipate heat. However, the temperature of the main processor and voltage regulator looks good. But in the end, if the central chip runs too hot, you will expect the fan to spin. This didn't seem to happen to Austin Evans' unit, nor did it happen to my unit. I have been running Remedy's Control on my own CFI-1100 device for several hours. In ray tracing mode, the game is locked at 30fps. In standard gameplay, the PS5 consumes about 170W from the wall. However, visiting the now infamous Doomsday Corridor-an infamous area of ​​the game well known to DF audiences-the power utilization increased to 200W. Entering the photo mode will cancel the upper limit of the 30fps frame rate, further increasing the power consumption, with a peak value of 214W.

This is almost the same as the maximum power consumption of the PS5 I released. It strongly indicates that the main processor has not changed, but it is crucial that the acoustics of the new console has not been adjusted to any obvious extent during the several hours of live broadcast. The processor is running. Whether the machine is hotter remains to be tested, but logic suggests that if the new cooling components are not up to the task, the fan will increase the speed and volume to dissipate the accumulated heat. This didn't seem to happen-after a few hours, the power consumption was still consistent.

So if the PlayStation 5 can be used with a cheaper and more streamlined cooler, why not include it in the first place? We can’t be sure without Sony’s news, but as far as the production process is concerned, it’s important to realize that when the console first hit the market, the independent components of the machine were created at the same time-in parallel, not in series. As silicon wafers roll off the production line, heat sinks are also being manufactured. No one wants another red ring or yellow death light, so it makes sense to include redundancy in the design. There is a documented example in Microsoft's original Xbox One-hardware architects saw that their cooling solutions had enough room, so they increased the core clock of the processor itself. The GPU rose from 800MHz to 854MHz, and the CPU rose from 1.6GHz to 1.75GHz. Will it make the machine hotter? perhaps. does it matter? Obviously not. Perhaps thanks to greater access to production chips and all telemetry data from millions of devices, Sony is confident enough to shrink coolers and reduce machine manufacturing costs.

There are some theories about the possibility of overheating, and I think these problems need to be solved. The PlayStation 5 runs under a set power limit, and the CPU and GPU core clocks move up and down according to their power requirements-as revealed by Mark Cerny on the PlayStation 5 road last year. There are concerns that the hotter PlayStation 5 will prevent the machine from reaching the boost clock that can be reached in the nominally colder startup model. Yes, the performance of the new model should be tested, but I found that the performance of the new PS5 is extremely unlikely to be any different, even if it is hotter than the old model. The clock is adjusted according to an algorithm based on a single "model" processor. Sony described how the single chip works under a variety of different workloads and applied the algorithm to every PlayStation 5 in production to ensure that even if the clock changes, they will be the same on every system run. In short, Boost is not controlled by the temperature of any given PlayStation 5, so the performance of this system should be the same as any other system.

According to sources, the newly purchased machines in retail are a mixture of CFI-1000 and CFI-1100 machines. Although unless you go the scalper route, the chance of choosing which machine to get is very slim, but there is a potential opportunity to get the original machine or the new machine. At present, it seems that the actual experience of the new machine is almost the same as that of the old one. Sony is certainly confident to support the new design-we can assume that CFI-1000 is about to be phased out. Millions of PlayStation 5 units sold on and after Christmas Eve In, they will all be based on the new design. We will spend more time on the new machine and will conduct a full review in due course.

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Digital Foundry Technical Editor | Digital Foundry

Rich has been a game reporter since the 16-bit era, specializing in technical analysis. He is generally called the blacksmith of the future in Eurogamer.

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