Sony PlayStation 5 Teardown by iFixit [VIDEO]

Image: iFixit

In a press release yesterday, iFixit announced that they finally got to tearing down Sony’s PlayStation 5 — an entire month after the teardown specialists took apart the PS5’s DualSense controller.

Image: iFixit

The folks at iFixit were elated to discover that the outer panels of the console are very easy to remove and require no tools — a simple lift-and-slide motion makes them pop off. In addition, the console’s vacuum-able dust ports make cleaning the console a breeze.

The teardown experts found most PS5 components to be modular and, therefore, quite easy to remove and replace. However, the console’s innards are riddled with security screws that make disassembly unnecessarily taxing.

Disappointingly, swapping the optical drive is a no-go — it is bound to the motherboard, and a replacement optical drive simply refuses to read discs thanks to software locks. iFixit also noted that the sealed-in liquid metal TIM will be particularly challenging to replace during service.

While the PS5 does not have a vapour chamber for heavy-duty cooling like Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, it does have a massive heatsink and an array of copper heat pipes that get the job done. The PS5 also has a larger power supply (350W) as compared to the Xbox Series X (315W), with a maximum power draw of 200W while running at full load.

Overall, iFixit gave the PS5 a ‘Repairability Score’ of 7 out of 10, which is the same as the Xbox Series X’s. iFixit‘s teardown of the PlayStation 5 was also accompanied by a video teardown, streamed live to YouTube.

If you’re still unsure of whether or not you should pull the trigger on buying a PS5, you may benefit from our review of the latest PlayStation.