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The story
A thread on the Hardware/Industry (Geha) board lit up over fresh patent information about the PS6. The PS6’s cooling had been said to rely on liquid metal, but the patent suggests the design may have shifted instead to a vapor chamber or heat pipes sealed with pure water. In the thread, the phrase “water cooling” took on a life of its own, stirring up talk about maintenance difficulty and durability on console hardware alongside the old “Sony Timer” joke (a dig at past Sony products conveniently failing right after the warranty expires) — while a separate technical debate broke out over the structural differences between vapor chambers and heat pipes.
Is the PS6 ditching liquid metal? Patent reveals a new cooling system using pure water
One Sony Timer trigger and it’s drenched through — total write-off, no warranty coverage, lol
Source: sumahodigest.com / Original article here
What people said
Wouldn't that alone be enough? Waste of characters
What are they gonna do about this
Eh, it's fine, isn't it
Perfect timing for the Sony Timer, right?
Especially when it's made by our lord and savior Sony
Either way, it's not something Sony can handle
Well, it's pretty obvious it'll turn to hot water and break down in no time
Feels like their stuff is always thermal-throttling
They probably lock in the (exterior) design first and engineer the cooling around it afterward
At an overseas fighting-game tournament, switching from the 'wall' (forum nickname for the PS5, after its tall white side panels) to 'the box' (Xbox Series X) made the thermal throttling disappear
The input lag unique to the 'wall' went away too, so both the organizers and the players were thrilled
It's a business that profits off hardware anyway
This time, let's just publish the master key from the start
Switch 2 doesn't even have a vapor chamber in it
They explained it at the 'Himitsu' (Secret) exhibition event, so if it's not actually in there that'd be false advertising lol
Switch 2 does have a vapor chamber too, you know — it's just flat
People get confused because of 'the box' (Xbox)
Round = heat pipe
Flattened = vapor chamber
Vapor chambers come in a lot of different internal structures too, so Switch 2's is a vapor chamber built with the same internal structure as a heat pipe
A vapor chamber isn't water cooling
Sounds like you don't actually know what you're talking about if you think 'water cooling = amazing'
Nope. A heat pipe moves heat in one direction, a vapor chamber spreads it out
Heat pipes transport heat, vapor chambers diffuse heat
On that basis, Switch 2's part is clearly built for transport, so it's a heat pipe
They're the same thing, I'm telling you
'Vapor chamber' is just the name given to a flattened-out heat pipe
I already said vapor chambers come in various internal structures
In principle, sure, they're the same
But a vapor chamber's purpose is to diffuse heat
↑However you look at it, this is clearly built to move heat around
So calling it a heat pipe is more accurate than calling it a vapor chamber
That's exactly what I already wrote, read the words
A vapor chamber is just a heat pipe flattened out
【Vapor chambers have all kinds of internal structures】
Vapor chambers get used where a heat pipe is hard to bend, and also to deal with thickness limits
Heat sinks come in all sorts of structures and you still call them heat sinks, right? Same deal — a flattened heat pipe is a vapor chamber.
That's literally all there is to it
There's no water-cooling element anywhere in that lol
If anything, since the hardware patents are only at this level
Even calling it 'Project Amethyst,' co-developed with AMD, makes it look like they're just slapping together whatever AMD handed them
PlayStation was never Sony's own technology anyway
It's all AMD technology
Sony's just selling games on the strength of the brand
They're probably just getting the chip and base tech wholesaled from AMD and dumping the rest on subcontractors
Even PSSR, which they tout as 'developed by Sony,' is basically a downgraded version of part of FSR
is a no-go for consoles
People already cry 'design flaw'
just because air cooling needs the dust cleaned out once in a while
The only one calling it 'water cooling' is OP
>>The design shown uses a vapor chamber or heat pipes sealed with pure water.
Should be fine, probably — dunno though
Don't go underestimating Sony products
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
What sparked this discussion is, strictly speaking, just patent information — whether it will actually be adopted for the PS6, and if so when it might reach an actual product, remains unknown. In the thread, the phrase “water cooling” took on a life of its own, but what the source material actually describes is a vapor chamber or heat pipes sealed with pure water — a different thing entirely from the user-serviceable coolant systems found in PC all-in-one liquid coolers. Technical replies pointing out this distinction ran alongside comments worried about breakdowns and short lifespans simply because of how “water cooling” sounds, making for a discussion whose two sides ended up talking a bit past each other. On top of that, there was a fairly technical back-and-forth over the structural differences between vapor chambers and heat pipes, with posters converging on the idea that while the underlying principle of moving heat is the same, the terminology splits depending on whether the goal is diffusing heat or transporting it. Two points worth flagging for readers: a patent is not the same as a confirmed product decision, and the maintenance hassle that the words “water cooling” evoke doesn’t actually apply to this kind of sealed, phase-change cooling.
*This article is compiled as excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread “PS6: Ditch the Drippy Metal, Go Water-Cooled!“
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