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The Next-Gen Consoles and Power Consumption
Ant writes "This HardCOREware review reports that the current video game console war takes an interesting twist as the power consumption levels of each of the three new consoles (Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 (PS3), and Microsoft Xbox 360) were explored. Video game playback, DVD playback, and other console functions were tested. One of the most interesting stats were the console idle power usage: 'Wii - 1.3 watts, Wii (Connect 24 On) - 9.6 watts, Xbox 360 - 2.5 watts, PlayStation 3 - 1.9 watts. Nothing significant here; you're looking at spending about $0.20 USD a month to keep the PS3 plugged in, which isn't much. The Wii requires 10 Watts to run Connect24 (which will connect to Nintendo's online service and notify you of system updates) racking up a cost of about $1 a month which is nothing too significant, but still about 5X more than if it were just turned off. Turn Connect24 off, and it's back down to normal.'"
How much of the Xbox idle power consumption is keeping the USB ports powered to charge Play&Charge wireless controllers? Could you reduce the power by unplugging the USB cable of your controllers when done, or would that have no impact? Anybody know?
Comment of the year
My Xbox 360 consumes:
~2 watts while turned off
~130 watts while idle at the xbox live dashboard
~165 watts while playing Gears of War
These meter readings do not include the display device (obviously)