There was a report last month that an updated version of the PlayStation 5, the CFI-1200 model, has been released in Australia that makes the console lighter. The PS5 disc version at launch weighed 4.5 kg, while the latest model weighs 3.9 kg, and the PS5 Digital Edition weighed 3.9 kg, while the latest model weighs 3.4 kg.

Tech YouTuber  Austin Evans has acquired the CFI-1200 model and has opened it up to discover multiple changes done to the internal design of the PS5 console.

The new PS5 model has a different motherboard that is noticeably smaller than previous models and the SSD enclosure has an improved shield. The heatsink has shrunk in size as well and is smaller than than CFI-1100 model. However, the heatsink does include a heat pipe that runs to the other side of the console. The black plastic mold has more support added to it than before.

Evans claims the CFI-1200 model uses up less power than the other models. In his test he was playing Astro’s Playroom and noted the launch PS5 model was drawing about 218 watts of electricity, while 2021's CFI-1100 model was using around 229 watts, and the new CFI-1200 model was using about 201 watts.

One negative Evans pointed out is the CMOS battery is now completely blocked by the heatsink, which would make it much harder to replace in the future if the battery were to die.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo  was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own  YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Hopefully they'll be able to make a full on PS5 Slim next year. That would be in line with when the PS3 and PS4 got Slim models.

I haven't been following the news, but I guess a node shrink should be available by that time for a slim.

I think a full on slim for 2023 is unlikely because of the engineering efforts they've been putting into these annual re-designs. There are only so many engineering resources to go around. Meanwhile, we haven't heard/seen anything about iterative Xbox redesigns, which suggests they're putting the bulk of their engineering efforts into a major redesign. This makes sense for both of them. Microsoft has smaller/lighter options right off the bat, so they had the luxury of putting their efforts into a major improvement that would take years to complete. Meanwhile, Sony had the larger/heavier consoles and needed to get the weight and manufacturing cost down in an iterative fashion with smaller, and more frequent, updates. None of this guarantees that Microsoft will get "slim" consoles to market sooner, because there are variables they don't directly control (such as die size of AMD chips), but it does suggest it might happen.

This is normal for Sony. PS4 had the 1000, 1100, 1200, all before the Slim. Each model had some internal modifications. They're doing the same thing now with PS5, so a 6nm or 5nm Slim by next holiday wouldn't be out of the question. Series X is already as compact as it's going to get before they start using 6nm or 5nm. Then they can shrink it down. They don't even have to though, because a PS5 slim is probably going to end up similar in overall size to the existing Series X. Both companies will likely want to shrink to Slims as soon as possible. With inflation, it saves them money, and the cheaper they can make them, with inflation, the more money it will seem like they will be saving the consumer. I don't see the Slims being a massive price drop. $100 max at the absolute most.

Yes definitely. We saw numerous revisions to the 360 within each form factor, in addition to several form factors as well. And this is nothing new. For example, the Commodore 64 went through countless revisions as they cost-reduced its production again, and again, and again. But just as Sony has done three major versions of the PS5 without doing a slim yet, Microsoft could have done some cost reduced and/or lighter weight Xbox Series X models by now. If they have, we haven't heard about it. Frequent minor revisions soaks up your engineering talent's time. So my theory is that Microsoft is putting its engineering efforts into major revisions, rather than annual minor revisions. Perhaps that's a slim of the existing Series X. Perhaps it's a slim of a Series X without an optical drive. Perhaps it's a Series S with an optical drive. Who knows. :)

damn, the mother board is way smaller. That's great, cause smaller is indicator of less power consumption, and that means less heat, and that means better and less expensive (to produce) hardware. Good stuff here.

The article indicates that Austin Evans' testing showed less power consumption for the new model in a head-to-head test running the same game, so it seems highly likely.

Yeah, less expensive, yet you're being charged more to buy a PS5 in nearly the entire world.......this doesn't make much sense to me imo. A lot of people are most likely going to be pretty pissed about this lol. Sony bragging last year they were no longer selling the disc based PS5 at a loss. Now they've consolidated it to where they're saving themselves money in manufacturing and they're charging more for it? All while Microsoft and especially Nintendo, with no conglomerate company backing them, won't up the prices of their consoles??? The only positive spin I can make of this is hoping that Sony is able to manufacture more PS5's from these changes.

While I totally agree that' it's an opportunistic money grab by Sony at the same time I'm not singing Nintendo's praises either the OLED Switch was only $50.00au less at $539.00 than the PS5 digital before the Sony hike.

Fair point! Nintendo wasn’t selling the Switch at a loss since launch. And with how ancient the Switch hardware is now, there’s no reason why it should be priced the same as it was over 5 years ago.

Nintendo benefits from the lack of competition in the handheld/convertible space, so they can charge almost whatever they want. Easy for Nintendo to not raise the price to adjust for currency conversion when they're making money in every market. Microsoft not doing so, despite them probably not making money on the Series X, would be surprising.... except that they see the PR benefits to not doing so.

If I had to guess, I would say Sony has most likely worked it out so that the price increase to PS5, along with the savings on materials and shipping, should keep them in the same ballpark as they are now as to profits, or losses I guess you could say. If inflation keeps going up, this would make sense. I very much doubt by this time next year, that Sony will be showing far greater hardware profits vs this year. More likely to be similar. They may have higher profits due to software and subs though, depending on how that goes.

Inflation isn't a linear thing. Not everything goes up. Food and energy are going up more. Most other things are going up less. GPU prices on the PC side of thing are going down in price, for example, so the same thing might be happening for console GPUs as factory capacity starts opening up and the supply chain normalizes. We don't know that, but it's a reasonable supposition. I think the PS5 price increase had very little to do with inflation, and a lot to do with currency fluctuation. That's the reason why they didn't increase it in the U.S., as their currency has gone up. I don't think it has anything to do with competing with Xbox, as they also increased the price in Canada, Australia, and the UK, which are all markets the Xbox does very well in.

like I mentioned before I feel it is an opportunistic decision by Sony. Taking exchange rates , companies usually adjust their pricing when it comes to exchange rates individually per country and the reason is because exchange rates are variable and don't rise or fall in uniform manner . I remember when the Australian dollar was above parity with the US$ and Sony's console and game prices came down in Australia to represent the Australian dollars value at that time though not completely or as fast as when it's the other way round but the weak US$ didn't see a price increase there, so the uniform nature of this increase shows that they are using the current climate that has been described by most analyst as being short term as an opportunity to maximise profit while they can since they have stated that they no longer lose money on PS5 hardware.

Cheaper to make but more expensive to buy.

Does smaller mean better though? Haha

Does smaller mean better though? Haha

well changes to the internal design, reduce of heatsink, less consumption, etc are obvious for a revision that reduced weight.

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