Checking in with a footprint of 390 x 260 x 104mm (92mm on the digital version), the PlayStation 5 is one of the largest consoles that Sony has ever made. While the company typically releases a slim variant of its consoles three or four years later, Matt from DIY Perks (opens in new tab) has created his rendition of the PlayStation 5 Slim. And as the cherry on the top, he even added a custom liquid cooling loop to improve thermal performance.
The PlayStation 5 digital edition is 92mm thick, and Matt's ambitious goal was to bring the console's thickness down to 20mm, an impressive 78% reduction. For comparison, a conventional single-disc DVD case is 15mm, so the envisioned PlayStation 5 Slim will only be marginally thicker. Logically, that means that Matt must dump everything from the case to the heatsinks to hit his thickness target. Unfortunately, the only piece of component that he salvaged from the original PlayStation 5 was the motherboard.
The YouTuber carved his full-cover water block for the motherboard, flash storage, power circuitry, VRM, and custom heatsinks for the other components, like the GDDR6 chips. He also made a slick copper case for the project. Admittedly, the copper sheets alone cost more than the PlayStation 5. It's a "for the science" type of project and one that isn't feasible for most consumers.
The PlayStation 5's original power supply delivers 31A at 12V, making it easy for the DIYer to find a proper alternative. Matt replaced the unit with an HP DP5-750RB A power supply with a capacity of 750W. It offers up to 62.5A at 12V, which is more than enough to power the PlayStation 5 and Matt's custom water cooling loop.
The YouTuber built a long, external aluminum case to house the power supply and the water cooling components. For the latter, he tapped one of Alphacool's 7x40 slim radiators coupled with seven tiny Noctua NF-A4x20 fans for heat dissipation and an unspecified reservoir and pump.
Matt's first attempt ended badly as the console froze during his tests and consequently refused to turn on. Not happy with his failure, the DIYer sourced another PlayStation 5 console and finally got his project back on track.
Besides being slimmer than the original PlayStation 5, Matt also wanted to reduce the operating temperatures, which is where his custom water cooling loop comes in. He added three temperature probes to measure the AMD SoC (Oberon), the memory, and VRM. He ran Horizon Forbidden West for several hours and recorded 46 degrees Celsius on the SoC. Since the temperature probe isn't inside the SoC, he estimated the temperature to be around 65 degrees Celsius. The memory posted temperatures of 52 degrees Celsius, whereas the VRM only heated up to 44 degrees Celsius.
Matt compared his results to Gamers Nexus' thermal tests for the vanilla PlayStation 5. Gamers Nexus recorded 75 degrees Celsius on the SoC, 95 degrees Celsius on the memory, and 71 degrees Celsius on the VRM. In comparison, Matt's PlayStation 5 Slim saw 13% lower temperatures on the SoC, 45% on the memory, and 38% on the VRM.
It's just a matter of time before Sony releases the official PlayStation 5 Slim. Although the upcoming console will be thinner than the original, we don't expect it to be in the same alley as Matt's creation. One thing's for sure, though. The PlayStation 5 Slim will likely be cheaper than the regular versions.
