Sony's system architect for the PlayStation 5, Mark Cerny, has unveiled the hardware specifications for the next-generation console and there a few surprises.

For starts, while the PS5 will sport a solid state drive, like the Xbox Series X, it will have less storage space than its big rival.

It will feature a custom SSD with 825GB of storage. However, it will be capable of transferring 5GB/s.

There will also be an additional SSD slot for expansion and, unlike Xbox, it will not require a dedicated memory add-on - you should be able to add any NVMe SSD card. And, external USB hard drives will be supported too.

Other specs include an eight core Zen 2 CPU, with each core running at 3,5GHz.

The GPU will be 10.28 TFLOPs, running 36 CUs at 2.23GHz, while the PS5's RAM will be 16GB of GDDR6 (256-bit).

As previously stated, the PlayStation 5 will also be Sony's first console to include a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive. That'll come as a huge relief to the AV community who want the best video and audio performance from movie playback.

We'll no doubt find out more in the coming weeks and months, but we're happy that PlayStation has finally matched Xbox in revealing the key details on its new console.

Here are the PS5 specs in full:

  • CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)
  • GPU: Custom RDNA 2 - 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)
  • Memory: 16GB GDDR6/256-bit RAM, 448GB/s
  • Storage: Custom 825GB SSD
  • Expandable storage: NVMe SSD Slot, USB HDD support
  • Optical drive: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray