hile artificial intelligence developers demand more memory and staggering budgets for server-grade graphics cards, owners of an older gaming console have unexpectedly gained a way to run smart algorithms right in their living rooms. If you thought a console was only good for playing games with a gamepad in hand, reality proved more interesting: developer abhi245y has introduced the PS5LM Plus project, turning a jailbroken PlayStation 5 into a budget alternative to expensive AI accelerators. In the end, you get a device with 16 GB of shared memory capable of running full-fledged language models.
Project mechanics look simple only at first glance. The new development grew out of ideas by artificial intelligence engineer Mert Cobanov, who previously attempted to pair neural networks with the console's architecture. Early versions ran into central processor limitations and calculated at a sluggish pace, but fresh software puts the graphics hardware to maximum use.
How graphics overclocking turned a console into a server
To boost performance, the developer ported the open-source AMD RADV driver from the Mesa project and adapted the llama.cpp library to work through the Vulkan graphic interface. This workaround allowed direct access to the console's hardware, bypassing Sony's closed restrictions.
With a memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s, the Qwen3.8-27B model reached a speed of 20.9 tokens per second. As enthusiast tests note, the result deserves attention: the metric is comparable to what much more expensive desktop builds demonstrate.
"With a memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s, the Qwen3.8-27B model reached a speed of 20.9 tokens per second."
Smaller models run even faster: Gemma 4 E4B delivers about 61 tokens per second, while Llama 3.2 3B accelerates to 124 tokens per second. The PS5LM Plus application also includes a built-in web interface for chatting with the AI and provides a ready-made application programming interface over a local network on port 8081, letting you connect third-party development tools to the console.
The price and pitfalls for the owner
Savings look tempting, but you will pay for them with your own nervous system. The jailbreak procedure itself comes with serious risks: such manipulations with the console can lead to a ban of the device or your PlayStation Network account.
The technology relies on the enthusiasm of lone programmers and carries direct risks to your security, so for everyday use, buying a console purely for neural networks remains a dubious idea. This is a curious garage experiment for geeks with a soldering iron and an old console on the shelf, but we strongly advise against spending money to hunt down a hacked version just to run a text bot.