Game Console Energy Usage Comparison

Broadband writes "Modern gaming consoles consume more and more power, dissipate more and more heat and cause a lot more noise with their cooling systems compared to their brethren a decade ago. While it's obvious that an Xbox 360 would have higher energy demands then a Playstation 1, the curious question is by how much? Even more importantly is the question of whether your console might be costing you money while you sleep. Preposterous you say? Actually quite the opposite! We put every console in our lab through rigorous testing to find the answers to these questions and see who the energy hogs really are. "

Comments

Errrrum

[msaver]

While it's obvious that an Xbox 360 would have higher energy demands then a Playstation 1

Probably true, but not obvious.

Re:Errrrum

[William_Lee]

It should be pretty obvious based on common sense. The PS1 is using a much simpler chipset in terms of number of transistors. Each generation of PC chips has consumed more power for the most part. Consoles aren't going to be any different (with the possible exception of thw Wii). In any case, a PS1 is ancient chip technology compared to an Xbox360.

Standby Energy Usage

[Distinguished Hero]

From the writeup: Even more importantly is the question of whether your console might be costing you money while you sleep. Preposterous you say? Actually quite the opposite!

From TFA:
Let's take a look at how much power video game consoles require while in standby/off mode.

Console Energy Leakage kWh Wasted Each Year Annual Cost
  Playstation 1 0.1W 1.752 kWh $0.26
  Playstation 2 2W 17.52 kWh $2.63
  Xbox 0.2W 3.50 kWh $0.53
  Xbox 360 2W 17.52 kWh $2.63
  Gamecube 0.2W 3.50 kWh $0.53
  Dreamcast 0.2W 3.50 kWh $0.53

USD 2.63 per year for something that cost over USD 300! Oh the humanity!

Re:Standby Energy Usage

[Dubpal]

How about thinking about it in terms of how much energy is being wasted globally by these leaks?

At the moment (according to Wikipedia) 103 million PS2s have been sold worldwide. That's an annual leak of 1.8 terawatts. And what's the impact on the environment of generating that energy?

Re:Standby Energy Usage

[posterlogo]

That's a little harsh don't you think? The point was that these energy leaks are totally unnecessary. It's not a controversial subject -- almost nobody would argue that it would be nice to have fewer leaked energy.

I don't care much for your cherry-picked comparison to "Hollywood fatcats". I'm sure there are probably many MORE conservative/Republican/oil-wealthy/corporate "fatcats" out there as well (you were trying to make a selective attack on "liberals" right?).

As for the people in third world countries, I'm embarrassed than an obviously educated person such as yourself would compare energy leaks in rich-people's houses to family size in third world countries. That is blatantly racist, elitist, and pretty much wrong. I came from a 3rd world country, one of two children. We were fortunate, as are you and most Western families. It has been shown over and over again, that family size often does not follow "rational" patters that should in theory correlate with wealth. In fact, more often it correlates with religion, need for able-bodied workers, and lack of family planning assistance (at this point, the US only offers family assistance in 3rd world countries through abstinance-only programs, rather than the far more effective total approach including contraception). For a more eloquent and clear explanation on birth rate and the factors that effect it, see this wiki article.

In short, people in 3rd world countries will do what they feel is right, or necessary, to survive and live as enriched lives as they can. Your 12 children case is highly exaggerated, as the highest average rate in the world is Niger, with 7.6 children/woman. Now you honestly think we're going to see exponential growth of these families in Niger? How many of those children are going to go on to reproduce, let alone survive their first year? In fact the majority of the top-50 countries in the world for birth rate are in Africa. You think we're seeing exponential growth in population there? In reality, most of the continent is devastated in terms of the death rate.

Anyway, to get back to the point of this thread (which you usurped to make your racist view points public), the grandparent post was attempting to state that on a global scale, energy leaks may make a totally unnecessary (albeit small, and calculable) impact on the environment. I challenge you try and compare children of 3rd world countries as equally unnecessary impacts on the world.

Re:Standby Energy Usage

[Skater]

In other words, "Any small number becomes sufficiently large when multiplied by a large number."

It's easy to take the .2 watts or whatever and multiply it out to make it sound huge. Meanwhile, the number of computers running for people to simply read and post in this article on Slashdot is probably dwarfing that - but no one's complaining about that in this thread.

power costs

[PresidentEnder]

Oh my GAWD! You mean I could lose almost $3.00 a year if I don't unplug my PS2?
But wait! Let's assume that it takes me 30 seconds to get off my lazy ass and move to the entertainment center, move the entertainment center, unplug the PS2 from the power strip, and move the entertainment center back into place so my roommate can still watch TV. I play videogames almost every day, sometimes in two or three seperate sessions. Just for argument's sake, we'll figure I do this 360 times a year. That works out to 10 800 seconds, or 180 minutes, or three hours.
Given that the federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, that means that if I spend the time unplugging the PS2, then I'll be losing money! (3*5.15 = 15.45, if my redneck math is right, which I think is more than $2.63)

Re:Nintendo 64?

[Donniedarkness]

I'd almost bet that it is more efficient than its competitors-- it uses cartridges instead of cd's, so it wouldn't have to spin a cd drive all the time. I'd say the power save from that would be pretty noticable.

Many holes in this "research"!:

[Ancient_Hacker]

Oh, the humanity. When a armchair EE like me can poke all these holes, what's to become of us?

• Measuring power is, as the cold fusion guys figured out, is a lot harder than it seems.
• They didnt as far as I could see, mention exactly what equipment they used to measure the power draw of these fine devices.
• If you think, like most people, that electrical power is amps times volts, BRAAAP, you're the weakest link.
• Power is the integral of instantaneous amps times instananeous volts. You can't use a $2.99 Harbor-Freight voltmeter and ammeter to do this.
• All modern power supplies use a rectifier and switching regulator arrangement, which unlike an old steam iron, does not draw amps in proportion to volts. Instead it has a very non-linear power curve, full of sudden peaks and drops, and even some reverse current flowing during every AC cycle!
• The numbers they published are very suspicious-- only ONE significant digit in the lower numbers, which suggests either they rounded them off without telling us, or they used a wattmeter without a low power range.
• Either possibility introuduces anywhere from 25% (by dropping a digit) to 600% (trying to read 2 watts on a 200-watt meter) of error.
• Even if these boxes draw that much power, it's not necessarily a waste. A lot of folks live in houses that require heating during at least part of the year. Every watt of heat from one of these boxes is one less watt of heat the house heating system will have to produce (assuming there's a thermostat involved).
• On the other hand, if you have air-conditioning in use, each watt of heat from these boxes will require an additional 1/EER watt of power from the AC unit. EER's nowadays tend to be in the range of 10 to 14, so that's an extra 7 to 10 percent extra power draw during the hot months.
• All these devices require a TV or monitor, IIRC. Those draw considerable power too, often dwarfing the gaming box's power.

So guys, why do such a half-arsed job of it? Why not be the best?

Re:So let me get this straight...

[kfg]

So you should be concerned over milage in a vehicle that cost you $30,000? What if it had a "sitting in the garage" usage (as many electric cars do), would you be concerned about that?

What logical connection do you see between the cost of acquisition and the cost of operation of an console? Would it make a difference to you if the console only cost $10? Why? A cost is a cost. It's all money out of your pocket and that $20 is a couple of pizzas you didn't get to eat.

Now add up the costs of all the other devices in your house that operate similarly. Your VCR. Your Cable box. Other computuing devices. At minimun wage you might end up working a week to have your stuff doing nothing. A week is a lot of time to invest in nothing.

Which brings us to the real point of interest in the figure, which isn't actually direct financial expense. Add up all the households in the country. You should be interested in the total fuel use of the nation to power devices doing nothing?

I think you should. At any right I am, but YMMV.

KFG

PC energy usage ... consoles are looking efficient

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm less worried about the console than a new desktop PCs. Rumour has it that 1000W and 1200W powersupplies are soon to be standard fair (my spaceheater is only 800W) to support these pigs (and that doesn't include the monitor or peripherials. At the same time we can make pretty capable laptops that draw 30W, so it isn't like energy efficient technology doesn't exist. I can live with a computer that browns out the neighbourhood when I'm in the middle of the latest 3D gaming extravaganza, but I see no justification for a machine that consumes several times more power than maxed out laptop when it is sitting idle. This is a sign of twisted priorities due to weak legislation. PCs are now significantly contributing to stress on our environment, and an aweful lot of it is completely needless -- all PCs should have all low power modes that kick in for un-demanding tasks.

The best advice for now: 1) If you must run your peer-to-peer, do it on a laptop with the screen turned off -- not your ultra-gamer with the 300W video card 2) turn off your desktop when you aren't gaming.

Re:Damn Terrorists

[Pink Tinkletini]

Crude is more or less fungible. It doesn't matter where it comes from--only that without the Middle East, prices for all types of oil would shoot up dramatically. And that's why we care about Saudi Arabia, even though our oil comes from elsewhere.

Re:Odd...

[weeb0]

If you add the power consumption (and leak) for an entire town of 100,000 habs. If 30% of the pop has an xbox360, it cost's 600,000$! It's a lot of energy. And that's why, the idle current leak is not essential. Only think in your house how many appliance has a clock on it?! Everything connected (unless there is a hard switch) leak current. We'll have to think about it very soon. A lot of electricity come from diesel or gaz or worst, coal it's a lot of pollution for absolutely nothing when we think the quantity of energy wasted to have the clock on my microwave and my range, on my coffee machine and soon on my fridge and my toaster.

Re:Damn Terrorists

[vux984]

Did anyone else read this and think 'Gee, go figure. A more powerful system needs more electricity.' Sounds like non-news to me.

No. Because its not obvious at all.

In fact, it could be argued that in computers that the opposite is more likely. After all a solar powered calculator the size of a credit card can run off the light of a candle and is a more powerful system than a 1960's computer that needed a warehouse and an industrial power supply. We're pretty accusomted to seeing computers deliver more on less.

And I bet if the article had discovered that modern consoles were 10x as powerful, and used less electricity than their previous generations, you would probably have yawned and said:

Did anyone else read this and think 'Gee, go figure. A more powerful system needing less electricity.' Sounds like non-news to me.

Two conflicting statements, both so perfectly reasonable that we would question neither. I think it IS worth reporting which one turned out to be true.

Don't you?

Re:Odd...

[fermion]

If you run air conditioning, the cost must be multiplied by some factor >>1. This will still be under $100 a year, but it is significant. This does not include indirect and opportunity costs of using massive quantatities of electricty.

The interesting part is the massive growth in the consumption of energy. Take to any power distrubition person and they will tell you that meeting that demand, 24X7, is no small task, and conservation would greatly increase the reliability of the power grid, and therefore the quality of life and national security.