PS5 CPU Equivalent – Thorough Explanation

In order to gauge the prowess of where the hardware of a particular gaming console stands, one typically looks at its PC equivalent.

This information can come in handy not only to judge the performance of your gaming console but also if you are planning on building an equivalent gaming PC.

For those of you who belong to the PC master race, it can be difficult to make that leap into the 9th gen gaming consoles like the PS5. And if you wish to stay within the PC gaming circle, you must ensure you have an equivalent CPU and GPU.

So what is the PS5 CPU Equivalent? Well, PS5 closely resembles Zen 2-based AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or the AMD Ryzen 7 4700G CPUs.

The CPU in PS5 is certainly inferior to the AMD Ryzen 5000 Zen 3 based CPUs and its intel equivalent.

In the following text, I will explain the reasons as to why, according to my research, PS5 closely resembles the top of the line AMD Ryzen 7 3000 or 4000 series CPUs.

The CPU in PS5

For starters, it should be noted that the CPU used in PS5 is a CUSTOM-made AMD CPU tailor-made for this gaming console.

As such, this is NOT a CPU that you can simply buy off the shelf from a shop and plug it into your PC. 

In addition to that, the CPU in PS5 DOES NOT use the standard AMD naming convention and therefore, you cannot place it in the general hierarchy of the AMD CPUs.

However, we CAN figure out its prowess by looking at its specifications. From the official technical details we know that the CPU has the following characteristics:

• Architecture: Zen 2
• Lithography: 7nm
• Number of Cores: 8
• Clock Speed: 3.5 GHz
• Release Date: November 2020

We can use this information to roughly figure out the PC equivalent of this CPU.

Normal Benchmarks Are Not Possible

When comparing two CPUs and their performance, we generally look at various benchmarks. These include the Passmark, Cinebench R20, or Cinebench R23 benchmarks.

In order to test a CPU with these benchmarks, you have to plug the CPU first into a PC.

Now of course, with PS5 that is simply not possible since the custom-made cannot be installed onto a PC and the benchmarks cannot be installed on PS5 to test it.

The reason why we use benchmarks is that the specs such as the clock speed and the number of cores are not the best measure of a CPU’s performance.

In fact, judging by the just the clock speed and the core count can be highly misleading. Take for instance the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X. They both have the same number of cores (and threads) and also a similar maximum clock speed (the 3700X actually has a higher clock speed), but the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X (despite being slower on paper) has a 15% better performance in comparison.

Hence we rely on benchmarks, but as mentioned testing it using regular benchmarks is not possible with a custom-made PS5 CPU.

As such, we can rely on clever methods of deduction to figure out the PS5 CPU Equivalent.

What is PS5 CPU Equivalent?

We know from earlier that PS5 CPU has the following specs.

• Architecture: Zen 2
• Lithography: 7nm
• Number of Cores: 8
• Clock Speed: 3.5 GHz
• Release Date: November 2020

Two of the most important attributes here are the architecture and the release date.

These give you an insight into what time frame the CPU was introduced in and what equivalent PC CPU it would equate to IN ITS time of release.

So for starters, there are two AMD CPU series that belong to the Zen 2 architecture: AMD 3000 and AMD 4000 Series. These were released in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

When finding the equivalent CPU for PS5, IT HAS to conform to Zen 2 architecture. Zen 3 and Zen 4 AMD CPUs are too advanced for a fair comparison.

Zen 2 Based Equivalent CPUs

There are two particular PC CPUs that closely resemble the PS5 CPU in terms of its specs i.e core count of 8, clock of speed 3.5 GHz, 7 nm lithography, and Zen 2 architecture:

• AMD Ryzen 7 3700X: 8 Cores (16 Threads) / 3.6-4.4 GHz / 7nm / Zen 2
• AMD Ryzen 7 4700G: 8 Cores (16 Thread) / 3.6-4.4 GHz / 7nm / Zen 2

In terms of performance the Ryzen 7 3700X is more powerful compared to the AMD Ryzen 7 4700G (Passmark score of 22,663 vs 20,252 respectively), but the latter has a built in GPU. 

So in short, in my comparison, the PS5 CPU equivalent in PCs is the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X. The intel CPU equivalent to this is the Core i7 10700K on the lower end and Core i7 11700K on the upper end.

The Zen 3 based 5000 Series CPUs are NOT PS5 CPU Equivalent

Many wrongly compare PS CPU to be equivalent to the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU.

However, this comparison is simply not feasable.

For starters, the AMD 5000 series is based on the more advanced Zen 3 architecture. In addition to that, this series was released in 2022, almost two years after the release of PS5.

As such, the 5000 series CPUs, particularly the 8 core AMD Ryzen 7 5700X is too advanced compared to the CPU in PS5.

Also Read: What is PS5 Equivalent GPU?

Final Words

So in short, based on the specs and adat available to us, the PS5 CPU equivalent for PC is AMD Ryzen 7 3700X. This roughly compares to Intel Core i7 10700K or the Core i7 11700K in terms of performance.