Modder builds the world's first PS5 slim

We've featured DIY Perks' incredible builds before, including a huge TV that was bright enough to use outside. Matt's latest build is something a bit closer to home though: he's taken a Sony PlayStation 5 and made his own slim version of it. Obviously, it's nothing as simple as rehousing it in a new case, there's a whole feat of engineering on display here.

As he points out at the start of the video, Sony usually releases a slim version of its consoles a few years down the line, although given the sheer size and age of the PS5 it may be a while yet. Not one to wait, Matt sets about building a machine that's just 2cm thick, with the help of a water-cooling system that can be hidden out of sight. Spoilers, he manages it and indeed builds a PS5 slim that is just 1.9cm thick.

As ever with these builds, there are plenty of cool things to watch out for that are relevant to PC modders. It's the creation of the custom water cooling system that stands out the most. Unhappy with using a standard water-cooling block he decides to create his own system, and ends up using a sandwich made of three sheets of copper to make custom channels. The resultant plate is super thin and works a charm.

It's worth watching the whole video to see how he goes about it, and how he solves various problems along the way. Be warned though, this isn't a cheap build, with the sheets of the copper costing as much as the console itself, and there are plenty of other costs along the way, not least of which is an oven for melting the solder on those copper sheets.

The end result is very impressive, especially when he turns it on for the first time. Well, there's one final problem ready to trip him up, but once that's sorted (involving a spare PS5, no less), the slim PS5 is up and running. You even get some temperature reports from the machine, which show it running notably cooler than the original PS5.

By the end of the video, I can't help but want a PC this thin.

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Alan Dexter

Alan has been writing about PC tech since before 3D graphics cards existed, and still vividly recalls having to fight with MS-DOS just to get games to load. He fondly remembers the killer combo of a Matrox Millenium and 3dfx Voodoo, and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the first time. He's very glad hardware has advanced as much as it has though, and is particularly happy when putting the latest M.2 NVMe SSDs, AMD processors, and laptops through their paces. He has a long-lasting Magic: The Gathering obsession but limits this to MTG Arena these days.