The yet-to-be-announced PlayStation handheld will feature AI upscaling, and some of its specs will address the lower memory bandwidth compared to the base PlayStation 5.
Speaking on the NeoGAF forums, well-known AMD leaker KeplerL2 revealed some additional information about the handheld that's been rumored to be in the works for a while, revealing that the AMD APU that will power the system will be the only one from the company to have AI upscaling in the near future. The leaker also added that the handheld will come with 16 GB LPDDR5X RAM despite launching in a few years, as LPDDR6 is still away, and that it will have 1/3 of the base PlayStation 5 memory bandwidth, although with more cache and improved memory compression. Clarifying the cache the system will feature, the leaker confirmed it will come with 4MB of L2 cache and 16 MB of MALL cache, which the current generation systems don't have. Regarding the architecture of the PlayStation handheld, KeplerL2 reiterated that both the handheld and the PlayStation 6 will be based on a fork of the gfx13 (RDNA5/UDNA) architecture.
While the PlayStation handheld has been rumored to be in the works for a while, Sony has provided no indication that such a system exists. Still, last week, it was revealed that the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro will soon get a low energy mode that will reduce performance to save power, which is believed to be a performance profile for this yet-to-be-detected handheld, so it seems increasingly likely that a handheld system is indeed in development.
While Sony has yet to confirm if the PlayStation handheld is indeed in the works, Microsoft made part of its plans for the handheld market clear during this year's Xbox Game Showcase with the announcement of the ROG Xbox Ally, a handheld gaming PC coming in a clear Xbox flavor. The company was reportedly also working on a full-blown handheld system, but plans were reportedly halted to focus on improving the Windows 11 handheld gaming performance, which is lagging behind the performance offered by SteamOS.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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