The PS5 appears to be entirely designed around its cooling solution with little thought given to the resulting size; an old-school heat sink the same area as the entire board? We're back to the PS3 design; when in doubt, just install a bigger fan and add more metal. Tried and true, but not particularly interesting. It gives me more respect for the end product design though - they had to dress up a cooling solution that's as large as the components themselves. The liquid metal TIL is an interesting innovation, though, and I'll be curious how well that performs. It's clear the noise level of the console was a key objective; I'm expecting the PS5 to be a quiet cool console, but the trade is off is Sony is making the largest console ever produced, all so the GPU can hit its high clocks to offset the fewer CUs in the machine. Also: dust collectors are a great addition, and I'm glad to see the NVMe slot as an proper expansion, and not just a replacement, as was originally speculated - and its not proprietary sized unlike Microsoft's, which should keep prices down.
On the other side, the XSX used its innovative split board design to integrate the heat sink into the center of the machine, a One X style vapour chamber for the SOC, and then a vertical fan to pull all of the air out of the machine. It results in a simple cuboid, but also a silent, smaller form factor where the components are wrapped around the thermal solution. I prefer Microsoft's design, personally, because they clearly considered a smaller form factor as a key objective, and the entire console design work towards a simple goal: make a console that can blend in. The PS5's design demands attention; it wants to be noticed. I'm not a fan of that type of design.
XSX for me.
