Sony details PS5’s fast SSD, variable clock rates, 3D audio tech [Updated]

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  Mark Cerny explained that prior console generations put a strain on developers to get up to speed with how to maximize a console's potential. (Note here that he's being pretty generous about the archaic architecture that plagued the PS3.) [credit: PlayStation ]

PlayStation 5 lead system architect Mark Cerny revealed a bevy of details about the upcoming console in a livestreamed presentation today, promising the system's built-in SSD would be able to load content 100 times faster than the old spinning hard drive system on the PS4. The increased loading speeds enabled by SSDs are "really... the key to the next generation [of consoles]," he said.

While the PS4 hard drive can achieve speeds of 100MB/s for data laid out in an ideal form, time spent "seeking" across the head of the hard drive means effective load speeds are closer to 20 seconds per GB, or 50MB/s, Cerny said. For the multi-gigabyte content of today's games, Cerny said that means "load times can get pretty grim... [players have to] wait for the game to boot, wait for the game to load, wait for the level to reload every time you die, and wait for... 'fast travel.'"

Using the SSD on the PS5, by contrast, Cerny says developers can load 2GB of data in just 0.27 seconds, two orders of magnitude faster than the PS4. That 5.5GB/s speed is faster than the 2.4GB/s loading quoted by Microsoft earlier this week for the upcoming Xbox Series X.

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