PS5 teardown reveals huge cooling system and SSD expansion bay

You don’t have to wait for a repair shop to see the PlayStation 5’s innards. Sony has conducted an official (and strangely relaxing) teardown of the PS5 that provides more than a few insights into its imminent game console. For one, it has an elaborate cooling system.There’s a large 120mm fan that draws in air from both sides, and a heatsink whose shape and airflow reportedly deliver the kind of cooling you’d expect from a vapor chamber (like that used in the Xbox Series X). It even uses liquid metal as the thermal interface material on the AMD-made, eight-core CPU to ensure “long-term” cooling performance.

It’s also apparent that you won’t have much trouble adding another SSD. Both of the curvy white panels come off easily, exposing a conspicuous SSD bay where you can install a PCIe 4.0-based M.2 drive. Just don’t expect to replace the 825GB of default storage — that’s built into the PS5’s motherboard. You can also remove the panels to clear out dust from two dedicated catchers.

The PS5 teardown also gives you a good look at the CPU itself, its 16GB of GDDR6 memory, and the custom SSD controller. The 350W power supply is built-in, so you won’t have an ugly brick hanging off the back of your machine.

There are still some questions left about the PS5, including its still-mysterious interface. We wouldn’t be surprised if a third-party teardown went further. However, this might just answer many of your questions about the design. Like Microsoft, Sony was interested in a design that runs quietly, not just quickly.