PlayStation Evolution: Original PS1 vs. PS5 Comparison | The Daily Scale

In this article, we take a look at how far Sony has come in the last 32 years. Like many, the 1994 Sony PlayStation was the first computing device I got my grubby little mitts on. Being the 2-year-old I was, I absolutely destroyed my father's copy of Tomb Raider. Let us check out PlayStation Evolution.

Travis T

1/7/20262 min read

In the thirty-two years since Sony first entered the gaming market, the concept of "power" has been redefined. What was once considered the pinnacle of 32-bit precision is now outperformed by a modern smartwatch. However, the DNA of the original console still lives on in the PS5’s design philosophy.

1. The Processing Gap: MHz vs. GHz

The PS1 was powered by a 33.8 MHz RISC processor. By today's standards, that is almost impossibly slow. As slow as updating while you're trying to play video games with your bois.

The Scale: The PS5’s 8-core Zen 2 processor runs at 3.5 GHz—over 100 times faster per core, with 8 times the cores.
Wow that's fast!
Memory: The PS1 had 2 MB of RAM. The PS5 has 16 GB. To put that in perspective, you could fit the entire memory of 8,000 original Playstations into a single PS5.

2. Visual Fidelity: The "Jitter" vs. Ray Tracing

If you play a PS1 game today, you’ll notice the textures "wiggle" or jitter. This was because the PS1 lacked floating-point math, meaning it couldn't precisely place a vertex in 3D space.

The PS1: Could handle roughly 360,000 polygons per second with basic "flat shading."
Still pretty impressive when compared to cavemen.
The PS5: Handles millions of polygons per second, but more importantly, it uses Ray Tracing to simulate every individual beam of light. In 2026, with the PS5 Pro’s PSSR (AI Upscaling), we have moved from "blocks" to "cinematic reality."

3. Storage: The Revolution of the SSD

In 1994, the jump from cartridges to CD-ROM (650 MB) was a revolution because it allowed for Orchestral music and FMV (Full Motion Video).

Load Times: On the PS1, loading a level of Resident Evil took 20-30 seconds.
The PS5: Uses a custom NVMe SSD with a raw bandwidth of 5.5 GB/s. Load times have been virtually eliminated, transforming how games are designed. We no longer need "elevator rides" or "crawling through cracks" to hide loading screens.

Comparison

Feature

Playstation (1994)

PlayStation 5 (2026)

Video output

Ram

Storage Media

Controller

CPU Speed

33.8MHz

2MB

240p / 480i

CD-ROM (650 MB)

Digital (initial)

3.5 GHz (Variable)

16GB GDDR6

4k / 8k

Custom SSD (825GB - 2TB)

DualSense (Haptic/Adaptive)

The Daily Scale Verdict

The 1994 PlayStation brought 3D games on console into our lives, and the PS5 perfected it. I for one, am more of a PC gamer, but thank you Sony for introducing me to new worlds beyond my imagination.