Summary
A recent investigation of thePlayStation 5 Proreveals that the new console may have rectified an alleged design flaw in the standard PlayStation 5. This issue can supposedly render a PS5 entirely unusable, and while the console hasn’t really experienced widespread failures, it seems Sony quietly took measures to prevent it from happening on thePS5 Pro.
Since the PS5’s GPU can clock up to a fairly high 2.23GHz, Sony opted to use liquid metal instead of thermal paste on the console’s chip as a means to conduct heat towards the heatsink. The upside to liquid metal is drastically better thermal conductivity than thermal paste, but there’s a major drawback. If the liquid metal leaks out of its enclosure, it’ll immediately short the motherboard and irreparably brick the system. Back in early 2023, reports claimed that thisissue could occur in PS5s stood up verticallyfor an extended period of time, sparking massive concern among owners.
Thankfully, it was later clarified that thePS5’s liquid metal interfaceshould only be a potential problem for used consoles that have been previously disassembled for other repairs. New and unopened PS5s pose very little risk of the issue, but it appearsSony has still engineered the PS5 Pro’s internals to mitigate liquid metal leakagesas much as possible. YouTube channel How-FixIT recently published a teardown comparison of the PS5 Pro and PS5 Slim, where it was found that the newer console’s heatsink block has surface ridges that likely help distribute the liquid metal evenly over the chip.
PS5 Pro Features Optimized Heatsink Design That Can Prevent Potential Liquid Metal Spillage
It’s believed that the heatsink’s surface ridges minimize the risk of the liquid metal pooling at the bottom of the chip and negatively impacting the PS5 Pro’s thermal efficiency. By comparison, the PS5 Slim’s heatsink contact area is flat, effectively proving that Sony has addressed the liquid metal concerns with the PS5 Pro. Interestingly, this isn’t the only implicit change Sony made with the PS5 Pro. Before the console launched, it was discovered that Sony included aneasy-access bay for the PS5 Pro’s CMOS battery, allowing owners to effortlessly replace the component should it malfunction.
Liquid metal leakages haven’t really manifested for PS5 owners en masse so far, with many even disputing the possibility of such problems. Regardless, the design tweaks on the PS5 Pro’s heatsink show that Sony is constantly keeping an eye out for potential causes of hardware failure and nipping them in the bud with revisions. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X are well-engineered systems, and it seems quite unlikely that either of them will facenotorious instances like the Xbox 360’s Red Ring of Death.
PlayStation 5 Pro
With the PlayStation®5 Pro console, the world’s greatest game creators can enhance their games with incredible features like advanced ray tracing, super sharp image clarity for your 4K TV, and high frame rate gameplay. That means you get to play PS5® games with the most impressive visuals ever possible on a PlayStation® console.PS5® Pro is an all-digital console with no disc drive. Sign into your account for PlayStation™Network and go to PlayStation™Store to buy and download games. You can also add a Disc Drive to your PS5® Pro console if you would like to play PS5 or PS4 games on Blu-ray™ Disc, or if you want to watch movies and shows on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray™ Discs, Blu-ray™ Discs, and DVDs.
