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PS3 8x More Power Hungry Than PS2

MonsieurCreosote writes "The Playstation 3 apparently demands eight times as much electricity as the Playstation 2, and more than twice as much as the Xbox 360. It also consumes much more power than a top-end PC gaming rig. It's not clear what's causing the massive drain, but Sony is now denying reports that the PS3 experienced overheating problems at the Tokyo Games Show last month. From the article: 'While an Intel Core 2 Duo PC with high-end graphics card chews politely on a 160 watt entré, the PlayStation 3 gorges itself on 380 watts... The extra power consumption of the PS3 over the PS2 suggests that we're not really getting much better at designing efficient systems, we're just pumping more 'fuel' into existing paradigms'. Are modern console hardware designers getting sloppy?"

6 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. It's the new all-in-one solution. by Umuri · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sony is obviously trying to extend from home electronics into the home heating business. Since most kids never move from their gaming consoles, these will remotely heat just the area immediatly around them, saving you tons on heading for kids who never use the rest of the house!

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    You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
  2. Yeah, but it's ok... by Control+Group · · Score: 4, Funny

    Included in your $600 is a miniature power plant that runs on burning batteries.

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    Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
  3. Re:Green tax by NineNine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No we don't need another tax. It's called the power bill. You pay for it there. WTF is a "tax" going to accomplish, other than fattening the pockets of politicians, complicating our unbelievably complicated beuracracy even more, and making the poor even poorer?

  4. TFA is wrong... by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you dig down through the four layers of links to the original source, you will see that they came up with the 380 watt number by multiplying the amperage number with the wattage number on the power supply label. That gives you the peak draw that the power supply is capable of, and probably not even close to average consumption.

    I have a 600 watt power supply in my PC, but even when I'm gaming it drinks in only 250 or so watts of power. The only time it gets even close to the 600 watt mark is for a fraction of a second after power up. I'll bet the PS3 only comes close to 380 watts for about the same amount of time right after powerup.

  5. Pure FUD by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This entire story is pure FUD.

    The PS3 has a 380 Watt PSU. There is no info here about what the actual power draw is likely to be at most times.

    For comparison, my gaming PC has a 600 Watt PSU. IIRC, with my hardware, it should be peaking at about about 250 Watts while running games.

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    Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
  6. Utter bollocks by DrXym · · Score: 4, Informative
    This story is utter bollocks that has been parroted from one blog to another without the slightest thought gone into checking if it might be true or not. Just follow the links and speculation from blogs all the way down.

    How were these figures calculated? By taking the 127 from 100-127V range supported by the PSU and multiplying by 3A to get 381. 3 amps is what the FCC label says. But since the PS3 runs in Japan at 100V, the PS3 must demand at most 300 watts. At most. But that's just the PSU. It doesn't mean the device actually draws that power.

    By way of illustration, the XBox 360 PSU run at 5 amps. 5 times 127V = 635 watts. So why no stories about the XBox demanding 635 watts? Why no stories that say the PS3 actually uses half the power of the 360? Because the XBox 360 consumes 160 watts in normal usage. It is entirely misleading to look at what the PSU can deliver to determine what the device actually uses.

    The same will be true of the PS3. Unless some reputable site such as ARSTechnica, Toms Hardware etc. sticks a probe in the thing and states what power the thing draws this story should be treated as bollocks. Bollocks swallowed whole by Zonk as usual.