PS6 Handheld Rumor Points to 16-CU RDNA 5 GPU

Rumors suggest the Sony Project Canis handheld will be a PlayStation 6 handheld with an AMD Zen 6 CPU and an RDNA 5 GPU. It will have a base rendering resolution of 540p. According to leaked specs, the device is meant to use PSSR 3.0 to boost games to a 1080p screen, and it's said to have speed levels similar to the PS5 Pro, even though it has far fewer processing units.

A small leak about the new Sony Project Canis handheld has surfaced, with speculation suggesting that it could be a PlayStation 6 handheld. The primary leak, reported by WCCF Tech, claims that the device could have a 540p base resolution. From the start, that doesn’t sound great if it has a fairly standard display size for many other handhelds, such as an 8in display.

Sony Project Canis Handheld Could Use 540p Base Resolution

Even if it is 1080p or close, that isn’t particularly high resolution. A 540p base rendering resolution should be fine when paired with a future version of PSSR 3.0. The leak suggests this could match the PS5 Pro in power and visual output. However, sometimes a resolution is simply too low to start with.

Not all games will necessarily use a base rendering resolution of 540p. When you boot up Minecraft, for example, it shouldn’t start at 540p. It should be able to natively run at a higher resolution than 540p. But if a newer PS5 title is running on the handheld, dropping the base resolution to 540p and upscaling it could be possible.

If it isn’t running at 60fps, however, it raises questions about why the resolution would need to go so low. It should be possible to get 30fps at a higher image quality, although that remains speculation. The same leak has revealed alleged specifications for the Sony Project Canis handheld. It is supposed to feature a 3nm AMD Zen 6 CPU with 6 cores and a 16-core RDNA 5 GPU.

That doesn’t sound like much compared with the claimed performance target of around a PS5 Pro. PS5 Pro has 60 CUs, while the standard PS5 has around 36-38 CUs. Project Canis is reportedly expected to have 16 CUs, which is less than half the compute units of a standard PS5. For the handheld to match a PS5 Pro in power, it would need significant architectural improvements or software optimization.

Pricing Could Determine the Appeal of the PS6 Handheld

PSSR could also be doing a lot of the work. Things like DLSS and FSR can help a lot, but the lower the quality of the image fed into the upscaler, the harder it is to produce a clean final result. DLSS can start to look blurry when the render resolution is below 720p. A 540p starting point is therefore quite low.

With PSSR 3.0, the leaked specifications suggest that Project Canis could deliver an effective 10-11TFLOPS in handheld mode and around 14TFLOPS when docked. A docked mode is useful, but it still wouldn't necessarily match a native PS5 Pro.

The gap between 16 CUs in this rumored handheld and the 60 CUs found in the PS5 Pro would be significant. Reaching similar output would therefore depend heavily on the improvements in AMD’s architecture and Sony’s software technologies.

Price could be key to how the device is positioned. A PS5 Pro is approaching $1,000 after multiple price increases, so a handheld at that level would be a different proposition. If Project Canis lands around the price of a Switch 2, perhaps around $500, or even at most around $600, it could become a much more interesting device.

A portable PlayStation could also appeal to people who never bought a PS5.

For some users, the ability to take a PlayStation 6 handheld anywhere could make it more relevant than a traditional console. It would also put the device into a different category, where it could compete more directly with the Switch as a portable gaming system.

Switch would still have the benefit of Nintendo exclusives, while a PlayStation handheld could potentially have an advantage with third-party games such as Call of Duty and Elden Ring. A PlayStation 6 handheld could offer a portable way to play third-party games. Games such as Elden Ring and Call of Duty could benefit from a device designed around a higher-performance handheld architecture.

The leaked specifications provide an early look at what Sony’s next handheld could offer, including a 6-core Zen 6 CPU, a 16-CU RDNA 5 GPU, a 1080p display, and PSSR 3.0 upscaling. The biggest question is how effectively those components can deliver the claimed performance level from a 540p base rendering resolution.