The first reveal – of sorts – for PlayStation 5 has been and gone, with Sony confirming specs including an octo-core Zen 2 CPU, custom Navi graphics, hardware-accelerated 3D audio, solid state storage and PS4 backwards compatibility. Specifics such as CPU/GPU frequencies and memory allocation remain unknown, but some unlikely – if not downright unbelievable – detective work have helped to fill in the blanks. This is a story I’ve been following with interest for three months now with varying degrees of scepticism, but the evidence is starting to look compelling. Bizarrely, it seems that a next-generation gaming processor is being tested on PC benchmarking tool 3DMark – and there’s a reasonable possibility that it’s PlayStation 5 silicon.
We’ve seen some unbelievable stories play out in the past, be it the PlayStation 3 Slim making a baffling debut in a Phillipines marketplace, two months ahead of launch. Then there was our first look at the PS4 Slim, materialising in Manchester UK, after early Middle-Eastern units somehow appeared on classified ads site, Gumtree. But next-gen processors listed on 3DMark’s results database? That’s something else.
The story begins in January, with a Twitter post from Thailand-based technology spy, TUM_Apisak. Apisak has a proven track record in unearthing new hardware by scanning through the online databases of benchmarks from titles like Final Fantasy 15, Ashes of the Singularity – and of course, 3DMark. In the case of the new AMD-designed processor he uncovered, the data reveals two crucial pieces of information – a codename and a product code. Prior leaks also gave scores for each of the tests, but it looks like 3DMark has started to hide these results on the latest entries.
In the case of the new SoC, it’s called Gonzalo and deciphering the product code unearths a range of potential specs. Adding further spice to the story is that since January, a second Gonzalo processor has appeared on the 3DMark database – a revised version of the same silicon – giving us further information and some hints on how the chip has evolved in the last three months. However, even when the existence of the first silicon revision came to light, speculation linked it to Sony and PlayStation 5. From my perspective, verifying this as genuine is a lot easier if we can find any kind of prior link between 3DMark database entries and final console silicon.
On the face of it, the whole notion of a Sony/AMD semi-custom design appearing on 3DMark in any way at all seems highly unlikely. The pre-production processors are put through their paces on a Windows system, for starters, meaning that the chip would need to be compatible with Microsoft’s OS, and it would require drivers to allow 3DMark to run in the first place – surely a waste of time. And fundamentally, what would running this PC benchmarking tool actually demonstrate – surely AMD would have its own testing suite? Regardless, this bizarre method of finding new AMD designs seem to check out.