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cooling is a big thing on consoles as the engineers need to account for a life in a not well cooled location (eg. cabinet, tv stand etc. Many consoles in the recent past has thermal issues From that point of view over-engineering is the way to go for sure. I mean they used liquid metal, that is something you don't even see in normal PCs/laptops

EDIT: cooling (fan) noise also is something they seem to have tackled with this design




Yes the noise is a big deal. Hopefully with the extra airflow accounted for in the console design and the massive fan, it should mean that it doesn't need to run full bore all the time and can help keep it quiet.

I have an original PS4 (bought it at launch, haven't needed to replace it) and that thing runs fans at full tilt with any modern PS4 game and it gets loud enough to really ruin the experience.

My PC also makes a lot of fan noise, but since I play with a headset at the PC, I don't hear it. But with the PS4, I am playing in the living room with speakers, so it matters a lot more.


You can plug your headset into the PS4 controller.


they used liquid metal, that is something you don't even see in normal PCs/laptops

FWIW, one of the old 17" MacBook Pros had this. I think it was a G4. Didn't help once you fired up Virtual PC.


Not the most important correction, but if it had a G4 processor, that would be a PowerBook G4 (or iBook G4). Apple didn’t call their laptops MacBooks until they switched over to Intel.


You are correct, now that I think about it. I loved that machine. Passed it down to my mother who destroyed it in a week by dumping coffee on it.

"No big whoop. I bet you do it all the time."


Ouch, that’s unfortunate. The aluminum PowerBooks were beautiful machines too; I can’t deny that I was lusting over them when they first released!


I think you are confusing liquidmetal (a "super alloy") with liquid metal (a gallium alloy liquid at room temperatures).


I was playing The Last of Us 2 on my version 1 PS4 and it was blowing like crazy inside my cabinet! I opened the door out of concern

In classic Google fashion I found several threads saying the same thing

I want to guess that the end of life graphics pushed the system that hard, but its probably just bad coding somewhere.


Yep, I too played Last of Us 2 on my v1-launch edition PS4 and I wasn't sure the console was going to survive to the end of the game. I was seriously concerned for the console's health. God of War is another game that put that console to its breaking point. A few times dropping down to what was probably 15-20fps with fans on at max-speed.

It actually is bad enough that I will limit gaming sessions out of concern for the hardware. Which is also probably better for me and my personal life.


At least in a God of War they yell everything, on Last of Us 2 I could barely hear anyone over the fan

Guess I will wait a while before getting PS5, means I also have to wait on Cyberpunk 2077. I heard they’ll CD Projekt will upgrade ps4 version purchasers for free but I dont trust their ability to do that in an uncomplicated way.


Were you playing the disc version? I think I have the original PS4 too and I didnt hear anything, but I played the digital version so maybe that's the reason?


grandparent poster here: I was playing digital version.




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