Today I learned, the PS4 pro is the hottest running console that has ever released.

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u/TheCarrot007 6d ago

And most gaming laptops chips are designed to reach 100. It might be news if the case got that hot.

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u/HyruleanKnight37 6d ago

Silicon chips are in general designed to work upto 125 degrees Celsius without degradation, but manufacturers often set a much lower cap in order to prevent surrounding components from overheating and possibly cause the device's skin temperature reach melting/burning point.

85 degrees by that metric is perfectly fine for the chip itself, but since we aren't used to it, it sets off alarm bells in our collective head. It's worse if the cooling isn't designed for it and ends up turning into a jet turbine.

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u/Seanspeed 6d ago

Yea, the main problem here is noise. High temps in a very small form factor case like a PS4 means you've got limited heatsink size, limited ventilation, and small fans. The fan(s) in particular have to work extra hard to deal with all this, which is why PS4's are so known for being quite loud.

PS4 Slim helped a lot with a full node shrink, so it was much lower power, and thus less heat. But PS4 Pro again had a much hungrier processor that even with a die shrink, required a lot of power and thus made the small-ish chassic hot and loud.

It's all basic stuff.

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u/ResplendentShade 6d ago

It bears mentioning also that while they can safely get up to 100 (or higher), if they’re consistently spiking that high then the CPU will throttle its voltage and clock speed and as a result the chip won’t be able to perform at full capacity. Keeping a laptop cool avoids that thermal bottleneck and is an essential part of maximizing its performance potential.

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u/Ok-Day-4148 6d ago

Yeah but a gaming laptop isn’t a console

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u/Seanspeed 6d ago

The point is these processors can handle more than people think.

None of these companies really build laptop/mobile-focused architectures. Their laptop parts are just their desktop parts and architectures scaled down in various ways.

The real problem with high temperatures is that it creates a lot of noise when these compact cooling solutions in these tight form factors are trying to deal with all that.

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u/vDebbs 4d ago

The real problem isn’t the noise, it’s the thermal paste degradation and thermal expansion which damages solder joints. The concern was never about how the CPU can handle the heat but more so on how nearby components handle it. There’s a reason why techs say that overheating is the biggest killer of laptops.

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u/lefsler 6d ago

As for the CPU most CPUs laptop or not can reach 100 degrees as max temp, so I don't believe that is a huge issue.

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u/Neo_Techni 6d ago

But PS4/X1 use laptop CPUs

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u/Wise_Change2346 6d ago

reassuring everyone that the console isn't actually melting down, just quietly cooking at spec

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u/Steliosem06 6d ago

You are right, but compared to most consoles and desktop pcs it is abnormal

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u/Far-Swordfish-1806 6d ago

It’s really not, I’d argue most gaming PCs run hotter than this. Mine sure does.

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u/Kratos_BOY 6d ago

PCs run hotter.

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u/DinnerSmall4216 6d ago

People used to call the og PS4 a jet engine try a PS4 pro playing Ragnarok.

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u/ZeePirate 6d ago

My ps4 pro is so fucking loud now

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u/juicyman69 6d ago

A clean and a repaste can do wonders.

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u/ZeePirate 5d ago

Yeah it’s desperately needed but I’m too nervous to open it up

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u/spindledcarrots 5d ago

I did it a few months ago and I can't recommend it enough. My ps4 pro went from a literal jet engine to being so quiet you can forget it's turned on.

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u/Hafod1 1d ago

I opened my fat ps4 up, It's a little bit quieter now but not very quiet because the screws on the power bank felt like they were glued in so i couldn't clean all of the ps4 properly.

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u/Anglosaurus 6d ago

PS4 Pro. So hot right now.

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u/ZeePirate 6d ago

I have a dedicated fan for when I play it lol, it also “helps” cover up the jet noises

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u/MiaowMinx 6d ago

Have you taken it apart to clean out the accumulated dust? The guy I bought mine from thoroughly cleaned it before handing it over, and even a few years later it's very quiet.

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u/ZeePirate 5d ago

Yeah it needs to be cleaned and new thermal paste but I’m nervous about doing it

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u/KebabGerry 6d ago

My OG PS4 got so loud while playing Horizon Forbidden West that I had to raise the volume to hear the dialogue, I shit you not.

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u/WhiteMilk_ 6d ago

OG PS4 used 2 different fans. My first PS4 was fine but after it stopped showing image, I bought a used one and it was so much louder. And it kept the same level of loudness without any other issues for many years.

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u/wingman3091 6d ago

Original fat PS3 entered the chat

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u/MiaowMinx 6d ago

Bingo. My CECH-A and CECH-2001 are both much louder than my PS4 Pro using the syscon fan setting in spite of "under load" temps rarely exceeding 74°F. My PS4 Pro is extremely quiet most of the time.

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u/reallynotnick 6d ago

Is any console louder than a launch 360 with a disc spinning and the external brick with its fan going?

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u/wingman3091 6d ago

My CECHK - however, it is an absolute toss up. I have one of the launch 360's with no HDMI port, and a fan and bolt mod. It was one which Gamestop had mod-fixed for RLOD and it fell into my possession when my corporate workplace was tossing some ewaste

0

u/wingman3091 6d ago

Right lol. I have a CECHK-02 that sits at 88°c most of the time, with the fan shrieking. I replaced thermal paste, delidded it and have a clean fan and case. It just runs hot. I also have a CECHC-02 (backwards compatible for the UK region) with less than 200 hours on it and it runs at a solid 55°c most of the time - never taken apart. Bought it from an old lady who had it at her place for her grandson back in the day, and it barely got played.

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u/fakemessiah 6d ago

Tracks. Ps4 was the only console I've ever had to increase my tv volume to hear shit in game.

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u/2psah 6d ago

Every time my girl asked me to turn up the heater, i turned on the PS4 Pro...

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u/TokyoRPGFactory 6d ago

Isn't what usually causes the most damage in Hardware components constantly being heated and cooled down?

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u/Neo_Techni 6d ago

yes

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u/utakatikmobil 6d ago

i got a 7000 launch model PS4 Pro with Nidec fan. even after tearing it apart and repasting, it sounds like a hair dryer when loading a really demanding game on such as lego brick life in fortnite. mind you the fan doesn't scream when i load a light title like asphalt.

thing is the air coming out of the vents are just barely warm. the fan pushes so much air at maximum speed, even digital foundry confirms that the 7000 PS4 Pro exhaust air can be 5-6 degrees colder than the latest 7200 PS4 Pro which is the quietest one.

i just got a 2100 PS5 and it's very very quiet compared to the old PS4 Pro. it's like day and night difference. but then the exhaust fan emits so much hot air the whole area behind the console gets really hot. that never happened when i'm playing with the PS4 Pro.

TLDR: launch model PS4 Pro is so loud yes, but it's the least hot.

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u/MikeyLyksit 6d ago

This explains why the fan sounds like a blow dryer set to Mach 2.

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u/Gerar0702 6d ago

Even the “silent” last Pro revision was loud asf.

Playing red dead redemption 2 was painful to hear.

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u/MiaowMinx 6d ago

I don't know offhand whether my Pro was an early or late, but it's very quiet unless it's under a serious load, and then it's no worse than my PS3 Slim.

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u/MoogleRush 6d ago

This only applies to the 7000 models. The 7200 models were the final revisions released and most sought after. They run REALLY quiet after minimal dusting.

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u/ElevateOof 6d ago

I won't lie, I had one for three years and it never even got warm. I disassembled thinking the fan wasn't working. Turns out it was. I recently upgraded to PS5. Unfortunately.... It runs like a nuclear reactor. I kinda miss playing games without worrying about my room going from 63 to 78 in two hours of gaming.

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u/kitbiggz 3d ago

It's all over the place, some people say the PS5 is quiet others not so much. Same with the Ps4.

I've had bad luck on the Ps4 but I bought mine used. So that could be a variable.

Could just come down to how well some are made at the factory. Who knows lol

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u/ElevateOof 3d ago

Oh my PS5 is dead silent. Similarly to my PS4 pro I had to disassemble to verify the fan was even working. My PS5 is so quite but smoldering hot at all times except Minecraft lol. If I knew I'd only be able to safely play Minecraft I would have waited to upgrade. At this point in time I have an $800 dollar gaming machine that seems to struggle running modern reflection slop everyone seems to be begging for. I miss when games were good before looking good.

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u/Saneless 5d ago

It's also the loudest console I've ever owned. And that's new or later after making sure it was spotless inside

And I played discs on the 360, the pro was still way louder

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u/Zidy 5d ago

Its honestly was a huge motivating factor for me getting a PS5 at launch. This shit was so loud that I needed headphones for every game just to drown out the jet engine. I made sure the inside was spotless.

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u/Saneless 5d ago

It was motivation for me to build a PC at the time. That and I wanted to play GTA 3/vc/sa. I already owned them on PS2 and even PS3 digitally. Sony wanted me to buy the games yet again so I decided I'll buy them one last time ok PC

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u/HyruleanKnight37 6d ago

Console design philosophy was still in it's "just shove it in a box and choke the hell out of it" phase at the time. The first console generation that actually considered cooling in their design is the Xbox Series and PS5, though the latter is still pretty bad by modern cooling standards.

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u/The-Master-Reaper 6d ago edited 6d ago

The first model of the PS5 was actually “over engineered” for its cooling and Sony reduced the amount of piping to cut costs

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u/Cypher3470 6d ago

And yet mine still overheated when playing diablo 2.

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u/The-Master-Reaper 6d ago

What’s your model number

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u/Cypher3470 6d ago

Original disc edition.. Is that what you are asking?

Either way, It only happened in d2 for some reason and I think better airflow would possibly have resolved it

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u/Seanspeed 6d ago

This is not the case at all.

Even the XB1 was a pretty quiet console.

Before that, we had disc read noise that made concerns about cooling fan noise immaterial. And before that, consoles just weren't using nearly enough power to need serious cooling in the first place.

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u/edis92 6d ago

True, my one s and one x were absolutely silent compared to my jet engine ps4 pro lol

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u/Interdimension 6d ago

I don’t recall that the Xbox One ran hot or had a loud fan. That entire console was designed in the aftermath of the Xbox 360’s RRoD disaster, so Microsoft’s engineers purposefully added a huge fan and made half the inside of the Xbox One’s case just… empty space.

It’s just Sony that’s been on a roll designing more compact consoles with the PSU inside the console itself. To be fair to them, Sony never had a major cooling fiasco like Microsoft did, so it hasn’t been a serious issue.

But Microsoft has been going ham on cooling for a while now. All their consoles run pretty cool. Lessons learned from the RRoD era. IIRC, their engineering team still has paranoia about overheating issues, so they always go overboard with cooling now.

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u/bigtittynippleswag 6d ago

Bro remember the 360 was just normal

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u/MiaowMinx 6d ago

What makes you think that? The PS3's various case designs were all engineered out of necessity to draw heat away from the CELL & RSX, since both processors tended to produce so much of it.

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u/Steliosem06 6d ago

Xbox is doing a pretty good job nowadays.

But yeah I have teared down most console models from the PS2 generation and onwards and there's literally 0 breathability and ventilation inside, it makes me claustrophobic lol

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u/slowclimb 6d ago

That’s Hot!

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u/Neo_Techni 6d ago

I am always thinking about how loud mine is, that they should have made a device to blow the air in our face for games like Ace Combat 7

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u/Anxiety_timmy 6d ago

May I introduce you to the original Xenon 360s.

The temperature limits for Xenon/Xenos were over 92c, with tagerts around 87/90c iirc. Hell the switch run hotter, the v2 switches can hit 95-100c in the cpu portion of the die.

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u/Gatokar 6d ago

Good to know if the electric bills pile up and I'm feeling a bit chilly

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u/QuasimodoPredicted 6d ago

Loud as hell too. I often had to put it on balcony and close the doors to play in my bedroom

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u/syborfical 6d ago

Did you clean and repaste?

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u/Disastrous_Hope5778 5d ago

I'm not sure. I know the ps4 can sound like a boeing jet about to take off from an aiport, but that is because the fan starts to spin more then usual.

What I have read is some games tax the hardware more and cause the spin to spin more. It can also have to do with the weather if it's warm outside or summer time.

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u/kitbiggz 3d ago

Its certainly the different games. The top heavy games like God of War, Uncharted, are the worst for me on Ps4. But Indie and games with simply graphic run fine

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u/Flashjordan69 5d ago

Tell that to mine, fucker kept shutting down for overheating.

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u/Resident-Move-4851 4d ago

Ps4 pro is goated

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u/iciciban 3d ago

Haha lucky me 😂 never really understand the ps4 jet memes , because my slim barely makes noise even in the most demanding game sessions 😋

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u/misirlou22 16h ago

The main reason I finally bought a ps5 is that my ps4 was just too goddamn loud

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u/dombruhhh 6d ago

My ps4 was a jet engine until I bought a pro and that thing was 10 jets engines and hulk yelling

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u/u5u4r10_4l34t0r10 6d ago

Eu uso ele com um ventilador próximo, na diagonal para trás, ajudando a empurrar para fora o ar quente.

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u/u5u4r10_4l34t0r10 6d ago

E não sei se isto confere, mas a troca do HD por um SSD ajuda um pouco a diminuir o calor por não ocorrer a movimentação mecânica do disco antigo.

General Discussion Today I learned, the PS4 pro is the hottest running console that has ever released.