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[viveks86]

Sony’s Engineering Director Yasuhiro Ootori is considered one of the main masterminds behind the design of the PS4, and yesterday he held a special lecture on the console’s cooling solution at the INTERNEPCON Japan trade show in Tokyo, as reported by Japanese websites Famitsu and Inside Games.

Not only Ootori-san gave a detailed rundown on the heat management design of the PS4, but compared it with the designs included in the PS2 and in the three different models of the PS3.

Lot more details and schematics at the link below:
http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/01/17/sony-engineer-compares-ps4-to-formula-1-car-shares-detailed-schematics-and-info-on-cooling-solution/

EDIT: Can someone translate the slides? There is a ton of information that we can discuss if we knew what it said

 

[vpance]

I like this one

 

[Prelude.]

I'd like a translation/explanation of this one.

 

[viveks86]

I like this one

Looks like my building's fire exit floor plan!

 

[UnrealEck]

I wonder what they can do with future builds of the PS4. I've not even seen one in person but they already look quite small.

 

[The Crimson Kid]

The design of the PS4 is simply ingenious.

A couple of weeks before the PS4 came out, I had to replace the heat sink and a few fans in my PC, so I had to learn a lot about how heat is dissipated and generated in a computer, creating proper airflow, positive and negative pressure, etc. I think a lot of people just take that stuff for granted.

It is really impressive that they managed to draw enough air in, cool all the components, and push that air out with only one quiet fan and so few air intake vents.

When I read about how the internal case design was made to create separate areas of positive and negative pressure in the console, my mind basically melted. It's crazy that the air pressure changes throughout the case (and creating a vacuum effect in negative pressure areas) using only ONE fan. That's just some fantastic engineering right there.

 

[jaythagamer]

thank you for posting, good read
I wish I could read japanese though, looks like a very interesting presentation

 

[Orayn]

I'd like a translation/explanation of this one.

The Y axis is Pascals, a unit of pressure and the X axis is a volumetric flow rate. Putting those two together, I think it's measuring the force and displacement of each system's fans.

 

[buy teh haloz]

I've been wondering exactly how it works.

 

[viveks86]

thank you for posting, good read
I wish I could read japanese though, looks like a very interesting presentation

You are welcome! And yes, I wish a gaffer who knows Japanese could translate all the slides. Must be a crazy amount of work, but would be great to understand the nitty gritty.

 

[BlackBuzzard]

Still cant believe how small the PS4 is.

 

[SwiftDeath]

Can't wait to get translations on these slides

 

[v1lla21]

I'd like a translation/explanation of this one.

I think this one has to do with kaijus.

 

[ElTorro]

When I read about how the internal case design was made to create separate areas of positive and negative pressure in the console, my mind basically melted. It's crazy that the air pressure changes throughout the case (and creating a vacuum effect in negative pressure areas) using only ONE fan. That's just some fantastic engineering right there.

That's how basically all designs with centrifugal fans work.

 

[artist]

I like this one

It's the PS4 front view, look at it ..

 

[timlot]

It's the PS4 front view, look at it ..

I would imagine heat coming out the bottom back and rising would get sucked in from the top back into the system.

 

[tipoo]

The cooling solution of the PS4 follows a mix of the basic designs of version G and N of the PS3 (the second and third iterations).
The airflow design of the PS4 is based on the PS3 version N, while the power supply, heat sink and cooling fan derive from the know-how gathered while building version G.
Air coming from the intake port is split in two and used to cool both the bottom and the top of the main board, then flows into the heat sink, cools the internal power source and then is expelled through the exhaust port.
The airflow is regulated and channeled thanks to the difference between areas of positive pressure and negative pressure generated by the cooling fan.
The design of the heat sink is simple, with two heat pipes. The pitch of the fins has been improved by giving it a different angle in the low speed area compared to where the air flows faster, and the design of the blades has been optimized for the PS4.
The fan has been given a trapezoidal shape when seen from the side: during experimental testing the engineering team determined that this peculiar shape reduces the noise generated by turbulence.
The motor that propels the fan is a three-phase one. It’s slightly more costly than the single-phase motors used in the PS2 and PS3, but allows for lower power consumption and less vibration at lower rotational speeds.
Since in video games graphical load and heat generation varies very sharply, the PS2 and PS3 had a problem where their fans would not decrease in rotational speed efficiently when load dropped suddenly. This problem doesn’t appear in the PS4, reducing the overall noise.
The PS4 has a sensor that measures the temperature of the air passing through the exhaust area. Thanks to that, it’s possible to control the surface temperature of the shell.
A comparison between the efficiency of the cooling solution of the PS4 with the three PS3 models and the PS2 was also made.
The PS4 has a heat treatment capacity compared to the volume of the unit similar (slightly lower) to the first PS3 model despite being much smaller.
The airflow is considerably more powerful than that of the G version of the PS3 and similar to that of the N version.
The area of the intake and exhaust ports is quite a lot lower than the first PS3 that was “full of holes,” but higher than the other two models, while keeping a natural design.
During gameplay the noise level is comparable to the latest model of the PS3, despite the much higher graphical load. On the dashboard noise is much inferior thanks to the three-phase motor of the fan.
The Ps4 has a much lower power consumption ratio for its fan compared to the total power required by the console than all models of the PS3. The fan uses only 10 W of the 250 W provided by the power source, for a ratio of only 4%
The PS4 beats the earlier models of the PS3 (but not the latest one) for heat treatment capability per dollar cost, being able to dissipate the heat generated by 5.1 W per dollar.

..

 

[tipoo]

This reminded me what a beast the original PS3 heatsink was

 

[Dynamic3]

So it's true, using the vertical stand is bad. :/

 

[Prelude.]

So it's true, using the vertical stand is bad. :/

The stand doesn't block the side intake.

 

[Persona7]

It looks exactly like the slim PS3 cooling solution. Does the PS4 also have that modular power supply that can be easily removed similar to the slim PS3?

 

[UnluckyKate]

This reminded me what a beast the original PS3 heatsink was

Insanely big but clever cooling system. Very powerful and noise efficient. But it must cost a lot.

Funny how the PS4 is almost identical to PS3 slim from the inside. They must have learn and optimise a lot. Working from this existing layout must have cut the cost down a lot from the suppliers to the factory

 

[Cerity]

I'd like a translation/explanation of this one.

static pressure ratings of the fans. Pretty much the higher the numbers the more air can be pushed through the heatsink/internals of the ps4.

edit: I'm guessing the PS3-A/G/N correspond to the different PS3 models of when they changed the fans - CECHA/CECHG/CECHN. The A generation were 19 blade fans IIRC and were considered the best fans for the phats due to noise/cooling. I'm guessing the G generation fans are the 15 blade ones and were considered the worse of the two, people wanting to keep their phat ps3's alive sought out the 19 blade ones.

 

[Lord Error]

The stand doesn't block the side intake.

Not completely, but it blocks it enough that fan has to work harder. They need to make a stand that simply has four legs on each corner of the console, lifting the console up for about an inch off the ground. I tried building something like that out of legos, and with that kind of stand the fan speed does not increase over when you keep it horizontal.

 

[Horsemama1956]

The design of the PS4 is simply ingenious.

A couple of weeks before the PS4 came out, I had to replace the heat sink and a few fans in my PC, so I had to learn a lot about how heat is dissipated and generated in a computer, creating proper airflow, positive and negative pressure, etc. I think a lot of people just take that stuff for granted.

It is really impressive that they managed to draw enough air in, cool all the components, and push that air out with only one quiet fan and so few air intake vents.

When I read about how the internal case design was made to create separate areas of positive and negative pressure in the console, my mind basically melted. It's crazy that the air pressure changes throughout the case (and creating a vacuum effect in negative pressure areas) using only ONE fan. That's just some fantastic engineering right there.

Call me crazy, but the cooler looks like something you would see in a laptop, no? Why does it amaze you so?

 

[Marty Chinn]

It's too bad that the PS4 is louder than the Xbox One. I'd rather have a slightly bigger console if it meant getting the audio level of the Xbox One.

 

[tipoo]

Call me crazy, but the cooler looks like something you would see in a laptop, no? Why does it amaze you so?

I doubt the majority of laptops have separate chambers for high and low pressure air, or as many intakes designed to flow in a certain pattern through the innards before even hitting the fan to get to the heatsink. The Retina Macbooks have something like the latter with the slots in the sides as do some other laptops, but not the other thing, and certainly not in the budget laptops the majority of people buy.

 

[Curufinwe]

It's too bad that the PS4 is louder than the Xbox One. I'd rather have a slightly bigger console if it meant getting the audio level of the Xbox One.

Slightly bigger would be fine by me, too.

 

[Abriael]

Slightly bigger would be fine by me, too.

it's no surprise though. The PS4 is a Japanese console, and the Japanese love miniaturization.

 

[SwiftDeath]

it's no surprise though. The PS4 is a Japanese console, and the Japanese love miniaturization.

While not that big a factor, I imagine the smaller size allows for somewhat cheaper shipping logistically speaking so could be a good move over the long term in that respect