The new CFI-1100 series revision of PlayStation 5 is now making its way to market, bringing with it a wave of controversy. It began with the intriguing news that beyond revised WiFi and a new screw for the stand, the CFI-1100 model weighs 300g less than the original – an interesting puzzle that could only be solved by going hands-on. The first journalist to do that was Austin Evans, whose teardown and analysis answers a lot of questions, but raises others. Last night, I procured a unit myself, so I can add some initial insights based on my first few hours with the machine.
Evans’ video is well worth a watch because regardless of how you view his take on the machine’s thermal performance, you get to see exactly how Sony has changed the design – and just as importantly, where it has not – and this is crucial information. Yes, WiFi does look different (the extent to which performance changes isn’t tested) but the 300g weight loss seemingly comes down mostly to a new cooler design. There’s no ifs and buts about it – this is clearly and obviously a cost reduction exercise, coming at a time where the platform holder can expect to shift millions of consoles as the holiday season kicks in at full force. The monstrous cooler of the original model – weighing in at 1639g – is replaced with a 1368g alternative, so essentially 277g of the 300g weight reduction is accounted for with the smaller cooler. The heat sink has fewer heat pipes (four vs six) and is built with an overall reduction in the copper content – aluminium only has 60 percent of the thermal conductivity of copper. There is another interesting change to the design: the fan has been replaced by another that has more blades, potentially capable of pushing more air out at the same speeds.
But what’s more interesting is the evidence surrounding what has not changed, based on Evans’ data. Most crucially, the power draw of the machine looks very similar to the launch model PS5 in a world where cost reductions on cooling assemblies are usually rolled out only when the main processor is transferred over to a smaller, more efficient process technology. So, on the face of it, there are questions to be answered here and fundamentally it comes down to this: if the chip isn’t any cooler and if the power requirements are the same, what has changed that justifies such a significant cutback in the mass and materials of the cooler? It’s a perfectly reasonable question and I’ve asked Sony for comment.
The crux of the controversy surrounding Evans’ video stems from his view that the new PS5 is worse than the old one – it’s his contention that a smaller cooler made from less efficient materials produces a hotter machine. It’s not an outlandish theory by any means when you look at the mass and material reductions but the question of whether it’s hotter or not cannot be determined by measuring the heat output of the exhaust alone and even if it does run a few degrees hotter, it may well still be within manufacturer’s tolerances. In Evans’ video, there was a very small reduction in noise from the new model, which seems at odds with the notion of a hotter machine. This may be explained in a number of ways – firstly, if the new machine is running hotter, that is absolutely fine according to its firmware and nothing to be worried about. After all, if there was an overheating problem, you would assume that the fan would speed up to better expel the heat. Secondly, the new fan may be doing a better job of pushing out the hot air and may simply be quieter than the original in the first place. It’s a new part, after all. The final theory – which is perhaps somewhat less plausible – is that a smaller heatsink based on materials with a lower overall thermal conductivity has been redesigned in such a way to make it more efficient.