PlayStation 3 is equipped with a slot-loading 2x speed Blu-ray Disc drive for games, movies Blu-ray, DVD, CD, and optical media. [88] It was originally available with hard drives of 20 and 60 GB (60 GB model is only available in PAL regions). [17] [89] An 80 GB model that was introduced in NTSC regions, [90] and the 40 GB model has been introduced in all regions. [91] [92] All PS3 models have user upgradeable 2.5 “SATA hard drive. [93]

PlayStation 3 using the Sony, Toshiba, IBM designed Cell microprocessor as the CPU, which consists of a 3.2GHz PowerPC-based “Power Processing Element” (PPE) and eight synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). [94] the eighth SPE is disabled to improve chip results. [95] [96] Only six of the seven SPEs are accessible to developers as the seventh SPE is used by the OS. [96] Graphics processing is handled by NVIDIA RSX ‘Reality synthesizer’, which can output resolutions from 480i/576i SD up to HD 1080p. [88] PlayStation 3 that have 256 MB of XDR main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory for the RSX. [97]

PlayStation 3 system has Bluetooth 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and HDMI 1.3a which was built at the time all of this model. [88] Wi-Fi network is also built-in on 40, 60 and 80 GB models while the flash card reader (compatible with Memory Stick, SD / MMC, and CompactFlash / Microdrive media) is on the built-in 60 GB and 80 GB models CECHExx. [88] [97] The system supports up to 7 controllers connected via Bluetooth technology 2.0. [98]

The PS3‘s hardware has also been used to build supercomputers for high-performance computing. [99] Terra Soft Solutions has a version of Yellow Dog Linux for PlayStation 3, [100] and sells PS3s with Linux pre-installed, [101] in one unit, and 6 and 32 node groups. [102] In addition, RapidMind is pushing their stream program package for the PS3. [103] In addition, on 3 January 2007, Dr. Frank Mueller, Associate Professor of Computer Science at NCSU, clustered 8 PS3s. Mueller commented that 256 MB of system RAM is a limitation to a particular application, and try to consider retrofit more RAM. Software includes: Fedora Core 5 Linux ppc64, MPICH2, OpenMP v 2.5, and GNU Compiler Collection CellSDK 1.1. [104] [105] [106]

On 22 March 2007, SCE and Stanford University released in the Folding @ home project for the PlayStation 3. [107] This program allows PS3 owners to lend the computing power of their consoles to help study the physical process of protein folding.

Sony PlayStation 3 has included the ability for the operating system, referred to as System Software, which will be updated. [115] the update can be downloaded from the PlayStation Network directly to the PS3 and then installed or downloaded from the official PlayStation website to a computer, transferred to portable storage media, and then installed on the system. Updates can also be installed from game discs that require the update to run the game. [115]

PlayStation 3 which also includes the ability to install other operating systems, [116] such as Linux.