The PS5’s actual silicon processor is revealed in these first gorgeous photos

While the world continues to wait for a chance to buy the PlayStation 5, we’re continuing to put Sony’s next-gen console under the microscope — literally, when we showed you the 40,000 tiny PlayStation symbols hidden in each gamepad, and now somewhat figuratively with what we believe are the first up-close pictures of the PS5’s actual silicon from photographer Fritzchens Fritz (via VideoCardz).

Above, you can see one of Fritz’s gorgeous close-ups of the liquid metal interface Sony uses to keep the PS5’s temperatures in check. Below, find a stunning monochrome portrait of it framed against the motherboard:

Photo by Fritzchens Fritz / Flickr

Let’s turn it upright, shall we? Here’s a high-res version you might be able to blow up more easily (just tap it first):

And here’s what you’re actually seeing, according to a tentative die shot analysis that Fritz retweeted:

My interpretation of the floor plan PS5 floor plan:
1. Bomba surprise that Sony likely cut down the 256-Bit FP pipes to just 128-Bit.
2. No Infinity Cache/L3$, also not on the Xbox Series.
3. Might have the old Render Backend design, need higher res to say for sure.
4. … https://t.co/gwrXI903U8 pic.twitter.com/Vvmm1hGSM8

— Locuza (@Locuza_) February 14, 2021

Here’s where you might be tempted to dive into some technical details — perhaps argue how the PS5’s silicon stacks up to its Xbox counterpart or AMD’s versions for PC — but I’d suggest you resist for now. For one, results matter more than specs, but perhaps more importantly, we haven’t finished looking at awesome photos yet!

Let’s zoom in further. “Enhance!”

And here’s one more, zoomed all the way into the region where AMD’s Zen 2 CPU cores live:

That’s as far as Fritz has come with the PS5 so far, but if these kinds of photos excite you, I’d definitely recommend spending some time on Fritz’s Flickr page where you’ll find an incredible number of vibrant, up-close-and-personal, public domain photos of silicon that leap right off the page. PCGamesN called Fritz a “silicon pornographer,” and it’s not hard to see why.