edman565 atomicWAR said: I'd love to see Steam OS running on a PS5 personally. That would be awesome. Even Bazzite shouldn't be that difficult to get up and running. Reply
bit_user Bravo! The degree of refinement (i.e. how many console features & functions work properly) is truly impressive! This is much more than just a testbench achievement! To be honest, part of me isn't that interested. Aside from the GPU, it's not hard to find desktop mini PCs that offer better price/performance. If the PS5's GPU were more impressive, that could make it worthwhile, but it was fairly mid-range at launch and that was 5 years ago. By contrast, booting Linux on something like the PS3 could've been interesting for playing around with the Cell SPEs. The current (and previous gen) consoles are too much like PCs, to interest me on technical level. Reply
banananon usertests said: Meaning that all PS5 consoles can now be turned into PCs (albeit with some remaining issues)? PS5's cannot be downgraded. The writer's claim that they can be is false, and seems like they miscomprehended the GitHub readme. The PS4, for example, requires a microcontroller soldered directly to the eprom to downgrade. I hope the writer sees this and corrects the article. Reply
usertests bit_user said: To be honest, a small part of me isn't that interested. Aside from the GPU, it's not hard to find desktop mini PCs that offer better price/performance. If the PS5's GPU were more impressive, that could make it worthwhile, but it was fairly mid-range at launch and that was 5 years ago. Lessons can be learned from the BC-250, which was arguably worth the $50-100… maybe up to $150 that people were paying for it. The BC-250 doesn't include a case, PSU, or SSD, which all add to the cost, and I think it has less ports. It also has 2 of the CPU cores and a substantial amount of the GPU disabled (not just CUs, some aspect of it was cut in half IIRC). A used PS5 is ready to go. Tens of millions of people have them, and if they are sitting around unused and not being resold, there's now an opportunity to repurpose them into a fairly powerful mini PC (if they are using the correct firmware, see above comment). The 16 GB GDDR6 memory is not ideal, but it works. 8-core Zen 2 (with weak FPUs and low clocks) is not too impressive next to the cheapest Zen 4 mini PC you can find, but better than a Steam Deck. This story is talking about leaving the SSD alone, but if you can use that, a near-terabyte is more valuable than ever. Reply
bit_user usertests said: The 16 GB GDDR6 memory is not ideal, but it works. 8-core Zen 2 (with weak FPUs and low clocks) is not too impressive next to the cheapest Zen 4 mini PC you can find, but better than a Steam Deck. This story is talking about leaving the SSD alone, but if you can use that, a near-terabyte is more valuable than ever. 16 GB should be more than enough for casual use. Same with that CPU. I see the weak FPU as a non-issue, since anyone who really cared about FPU performance wouldn't even be considering even a full 8-core Zen 2 APU. I'd agree that utilizing the integrated SSD would be a game-changer, in terms of the value proposition. That's the biggest issue with the mini-PC option, nowadays. Reply
usertests bit_user said: 16 GB should be more than enough for casual use. I was thinking less of the capacity and more about the use of GDDR6. It can exhibit high latency, which isn't ideal for some PC applications. I recall some of the reviews of the 4700S desktop kit (PS5 board with GPU completely disabled) were critical due to this factor. The Tom's review covers it for the 4700S but was more focused on other aspects like the PCIe 2.0 x4 connection for the dGPU: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-4700s-desktop-kit-review-ps5-cpu/4 It's a tradeoff you can likely accept if you pulled a dusty PS5 out of the closet or can get one cheap on the used market. I see many of them going for $300+ on ebay, so maybe the value proposition is dubious. Reply
bit_user usertests said: I was thinking less of the capacity and more about the use of GDDR6. It can exhibit high latency, which isn't ideal for some PC applications. I recall some of the reviews of the 4700S desktop kit (PS5 board with GPU completely disabled) were critical due to this factor. High memory latency makes it less attractive than using Zen 2 APUs in an AM4 socket, but still a viable option for anything where someone would consider using a Ryzen 4800U-tier system. This test shows the PS5's GDDR6 latency is only a little worse than the Steam Deck's LPDDR5 latency: Source: https://chipsandcheese.com/p/the-nerfed-fpu-in-ps5s-zen-2-cores To put that in perspective, Source: https://chipsandcheese.com/p/amds-chiplet-apu-an-overview-of-strix usertests said: It's a tradeoff you can likely accept if you pulled a dusty PS5 out of the closet or can get one cheap on the used market. I see many of them going for $300+ on ebay, so maybe the value proposition is dubious. Yeah, price is a big determining factor. Unless they can reuse the onboard storage, I think the value proposition really hinges on whether you need better GPU performance than a typical APU can provide. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/ps5-linux-loadr-goes-public-turning-phat-consoles-into-full-linux-pcs#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/subscription
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