That the PS5 will be a powerful system is beyond dispute Previous press conferences have revealed that Sony's new console will feature eight cores with 35 GHz processing power, 16 GB of RAM, a GPU capable of over 10 teraflops of computation, and a custom 825 GB SSD that can access memory faster than almost any other product on the market today conferences have revealed [At the very least, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney believes there is something unique about Sony's integration of hardware and development tools

This information comes from The Verge's coverage of the May 13 Unreal Engine 5 press conference, where Sweeney made bold claims about the PS5's technical capabilities, particularly its GPU and SSD:

"The PS5 has enormous GPU power but also several orders of magnitude more bandwidth in storage management We've been working closely with Sony for quite some time on storage, and the PS5's storage architecture far surpasses anything you can buy today on a PC at any price It will be the driving force behind future PCs"

Incidentally, the claim that PS5's SSDs outperform what is available today is not limited to Sweeney; Mark Cerny made the same claim at the PS5 hardware launch event in March Cerny said that similar SSDs will be available for PCs later this year Although it will be offered, Cerny made it clear that a standardized PS5 could have much better hardware and software synchronization than a custom-built PC

Sweeney also acknowledged that in terms of raw speed, PC makers will sooner or later be able to match PS5 SSDs Like Cerny, however, Sweeney also pointed out that the PS5 has a special data management system that PC SSDs cannot match Sony has complete control over both the PS5's components and firmware

Still, Sweeney believes this level of integration is worth pursuing Sweeney said that once PC makers see how efficiently the PS5 can access data, they will say, "Oh, wow, that's great; I've never seen anything like that before

If they need proof of how fast PS5 can access data, it's actually already out there: on May 13, Sweeney and his team presented a technical demo of Unreal Engine 5 running live on a PS5 console, "Lumen in the Land of Nanite" was unveiled In this challenging title, the adventurous protagonist traverses a rocky canyon and explores an ancient tomb, showcasing dynamic lighting and complex 3D objects in both locations

However, Epic created this demo from scratch to showcase the PS5's capabilities, and it is quite possible that other teams have created similar demos for the PC or Xbox Series X (the bare specs of the Xbox Series X are far superior to the PS5 and, in fact, the Xbox Series X has a much higher performance than the PS5), Don't forget that you can already build a PC that is more powerful than the PS5 in every aspect except SSD) On the other hand, Unreal Engine 5 games can be played on the Xbox Series X and PC, so Sweeney has no particular incentive to push the PS5 over other systems

PC gamers (myself included) may view the claim that consoles lead the world with skepticism, but it's not that far-fetched an idea My colleague Adam Ismail was quick to point out that consoles generally make new technologies cheaper and more accessible, which benefits PC gamers as well

In any case, until the PS5 launches this holiday season, there is no way to confirm Sweeney's claims However, among the technologies to watch for in the PS5, it is clear that SSDs are key to the console's innovation