PS6: New Sony PlayStation handheld console tech details revealed by leaker

A reputable leaker has revealed more tech details about the rumoured PS6 handheld console expected to be released by Sony's PlayStation for the next generation of gaming hardware.

KeplerL2 has previously shared information about what they claim to be a PS6 handheld console on the NeoGAF forum and the user has now shared what's claimed to be more technical details of the console.

As spotted on the GamingLeaksAndRumours Subreddit, KeplerL2 posted: "The only AMD handheld with AI upscaling anytime soon will be the PlayStation handheld."

AMD is the company that has made the chips for PlayStation consoles since, and including, the PS4. A report from Reuters in September last year revealed AMD beat Intel to the contract of making chips for the PS6 in 2022.

The user also said the handheld will have 16GB of RAM but "handheld only has 1/3 the memory bandwidth of the PS5 (although more cache and improved memory compression), it's pretty obvious that a mode that cuts bandwidth in half is meant to simulate the handheld". KeplerL2 has referenced lower memory bandwidth before but the extent was unknown.

When asked about its cache, KeplerL2 replied: "4MB L2 + 16MB MALL." That basically means improved processing speeds and performance improvements to offset the lower memory bandwidth.

In September last year, KeplerL2 commented in a NeoGAF forum that for the rumoured PS6, "there are two SoCs (System-on-a-Chip) in development for next-gen, idk if it's a Series X/S situation or home console + handheld but probably one of them will be affordable at least".

On the same forum, the same leaker said the speculated PS6 handheld is "a 15W SoC on 3nm" which is less powerful than the current PS5 console.

That led to speculation if the rumoured PS6 handheld device could even play PS5 at all given it's less powerful but KeplerL2 explained: "It can definitely run PS5 games, just not at the same resolution / FPS (frames per second), mainly due to lower memory bandwidth."

A separate comment from the user said: "Hard to estimate performance since it's using an unreleased GPU uarch but I think it's somewhere between XSS (Xbox Series S) and PS5."

Separately, according to hardware leaker zhangzhonghao, a reputable insider on Chiphell, the PS6 console will use AMD's next generation UDNA architecture.

The GPU will be the successor to AMD's RDNA 4 and CDNA as it looks to combine these two - RDNA 4 is partly used for enhanced ray-tracing (how light behaves) in the PS5 Pro console.

To be clear, this is all rumour and speculation at this time as Sony has not confirmed the PS6 is even in development.

Elsewhere from indy100, a new console is 'top of mind' at Sony which doubles down on hardware over streaming and check out our review in progress of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.