Console Thermal Dynamics and Acoustic signatures within home environments *flow*

[Shifty Geezer]

Personally I find the early hands-ons to report quieter consoles than they are in reality in homes. They don't experience the 'oh my god I'm dying' fan levels these consoles can hit. My PS4 is quiet enough on the whole, but in the summer, a few degrees warmer, it can ramp up to hairdryer.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

Size comparison...

https://twitter.com/x/status/918945673227177984

That emoji doesn't really work for a comparison where there's not much in it.

It's like the fuss that was made about the original XBoxOne's size: everything I'd read on the Internet made me think it was going to be gargantuan and when I finally saw it at my friend's house, I thought it was the S because it looked similar in size to my launch PS4.

 

[Nisaaru]

Personally I find the early hands-ons to report quieter consoles than they are in reality in homes. They don't experience the 'oh my god I'm dying' fan levels these consoles can hit. My PS4 is quiet enough on the whole, but in the summer, a few degrees warmer, it can ramp up to hairdryer.

My X1 D1 stayed pretty much quiet in the summer during Destiny Iron Banner marathon seasons. I've never understood all the "whining" about the external PSUs and "large" cases if putting them internally might have pushed it over the threshold.

To me the XB1 with all its short comings felt like luxury compared to the early few 360 generations I've experienced where I put every game onto the HD I wanted to play just to minimise the noise level slightly.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My X1 D1 stayed stayed pretty much quiet in the summer during Destiny Iron Banner marathon seasons.

Did the ambient temperature change a lot? In plenty of hotter climates, air conditioning is quite usual. In the UK it's rare for the temperature to get into the mid 20s so we don't bother with air-con, and that's when the consoles rev it up. The PS4 was noisy even downloading 'in low power mode' which is when I learnt Sony totally wasted their engineering putting a low power ARM processor in there when they couldn't even manage background downloading with it.

 

[mpg1]

Video comparison:

Surprisingly when both are level it looks that X1X looks to be a few mm's more in height, roughly about the same width wise, but X1X has significantly less depth.

I think the both design's are deceiving in the opposite directions. The triple stack design makes Pro looks like it has much more height/thickness where as the 2-tier PS2 style design on One X and One S makes it look like it has less height/thickness. Don't understand why Sony went with triple stack design...

 

[MrFox]

Did the ambient temperature change a lot? In plenty of hotter climates, air conditioning is quite usual. In the UK it's rare for the temperature to get into the mid 20s so we don't bother with air-con, and that's when the consoles rev it up. The PS4 was noisy even downloading 'in low power mode' which is when I learnt Sony totally wasted their engineering putting a low power ARM processor in there when they couldn't even manage background downloading with it.

Yeah the launch ps4 was sensitive to ambient temp. Didn't notice with the pro but logically it should too.

Xb1x vapor chamber should allow a hotter heatsink, leading to narrower rpm swing with ambient (more delta, so a 5C rise have less impact). Except for the power supply which might overheat and have a reduced life. We still don't know the max gaming wattage so it's still up in the air.

 

[Grall]

Except for the power supply which might overheat and have a reduced life.

It's not going to overheat its own PSU, sheesh! MS probably stuck a temp sensor in there anyway to make sure that doesn't happen.

 

[MrFox]

It's not going to overheat its own PSU, sheesh! MS probably stuck a temp sensor in there anyway to make sure that doesn't happen.

It should be fine, and from the pictures it's getting air from a 90 degree vent, hot/cold mix. Ps4 was using an identical trick but straighter hot/cold mix since the psu was wide.

 

[Nisaaru]

Did the ambient temperature change a lot? In plenty of hotter climates, air conditioning is quite usual. In the UK it's rare for the temperature to get into the mid 20s so we don't bother with air-con, and that's when the consoles rev it up. The PS4 was noisy even downloading 'in low power mode' which is when I learnt Sony totally wasted their engineering putting a low power ARM processor in there when they couldn't even manage background downloading with it.

Germany, so in general slightly higher temperatures than the UK.

I could only survive playing with a large fan blowing into my face.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm surprised your PS4 wasn't howling then. 'Face fan' weather makes mine unbearable. Maybe there's a large variance in high-temperature operating volumes?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'm surprised your PS4 wasn't howling then. 'Face fan' weather makes mine unbearable. Maybe there's a large variance in high-temperature operating volumes?

I'd put hard cash on the inconsistencies being mostly about how the thermal paste is applied during manufacture, or just drying out over time. I cleaned and applied new thermal paste (Artic Silver 5) and replaced the pads on my PS4 and PS4 Pro and in both cases it made a significant difference. It's easy enough to do as well given the number of guides on YouTube.

 

[MrFox]

Never had my launch ps4 or pro get louder than my old ps3 slim. Pro is the most silent during media playback. Loudest was in 32C summer and it was as loud as the ps3 slim, which was quite noticeable, but nothing like my 60GB fat or gtx780 which are very loud all the time.

I keep my living room clean, vaccum my stuff, and new electronic devices have to be dismantled and put back together whenever I buy something new. Because.

Maybe there is credibility to the launch model having a batch of bad heat paste, but I'll never know. Some people have dirt issues. And some fans have worn bearings/sleeves.

Or else everybody is lying and it's a worldwide conspiracy.

 

[MrFox]

This title... it's art.

 

[mpg1]

I had one of the early Xbox 360 models and it was insanely loud. Xbox 360 slim I have now is pretty quiet.

Actually thinking back through the consoles I have had I kind of miss the silent/cartridge based consoles...everything just worked fast and was silent. Sort of why I admire Switch...

 

[Grall]

Actually thinking back through the consoles I have had I kind of miss the silent/cartridge based consoles...everything just worked fast and was silent.

Aye. Nintendo64 was the most powerful home console without a built-in fan, and even then it had a huge mother of a heatsink built into it. Its case design and convective cooling system was actually very elegant. I much admired the N64 hardware from that perspective.

Sort of why I admire Switch...

Switch has a fan though, doesn't it?

 

[mpg1]

Aye. Nintendo64 was the most powerful home console without a built-in fan, and even then it had a huge mother of a heatsink built into it. Its case design and convective cooling system was actually very elegant. I much admired the N64 hardware from that perspective.


Switch has a fan though, doesn't it?

Yeah N64 is my favorite console. Most of it is nostalgia but also the hardware. The semi-external power-brick was an interesting design.

Switch has a fan but as far as I know it isn't very loud...or at least i haven't really seen many complaints. But aside from the fan I also mean the ease-of-use of the console itself; flash based physical copies that run the game, minimalist OS with focus on games, no moving parts (disc drives).Yes I would like to see some basic online features on the device itself but generally it feels like like Nintendo has maintained a lot of things that made a console feel like a console.

 

[Grall]

The semi-external power-brick was an interesting design.

Oh, yeah. Thanks for reminding me! N64 was the closest thing to a unified, 'holistic' console Nintendo has released. The console was one whole device. Never much liked Wii U from that point of view; it consisted of (at least) four parts; console, gamepad, and two power bricks. Then add the wiiwand controllers, pro controller etc, and it got really really messy... (Plus the cooling fan was noisy, and the optical drive even noisier still.)

 

[MrFox]

Not sure what sort of home console would be possible today with carts and passive cooling. Probably just a non portable version of the switch.

 

[mpg1]

Not sure what sort of home console would be possible today with carts and passive cooling. Probably just a non portable version of the switch.

Basically. Power consumption in consoles really took off after the 90's...

Switch is back down to NES/SNES era of power consumption:
http://www.roosterteeth.com/forum/technical/topic/2231681
NES: 9 watts
Super NES: 10 watts
Nintendo 64: 19 watts
GameCube: 39 watts
Wii: 45 watts
PlayStation: 17 watts
Game Boy: 0.7 watts
Game Boy Advance SP: 1.6 watts

 

[function]

Basically. Power consumption in consoles really took off after the 90's...

Switch is back down to NES/SNES era of power consumption:
http://www.roosterteeth.com/forum/technical/topic/2231681
NES: 9 watts
Super NES: 10 watts
Nintendo 64: 19 watts
GameCube: 39 watts
Wii: 45 watts
PlayStation: 17 watts
Game Boy: 0.7 watts
Game Boy Advance SP: 1.6 watts

Always makes me sad when people neglect the Dreamcast - the first console with heatpipes and active cooling (and handheld connectivity, full SD output, progressive scan, included online, 24-bit colour, normal maps, screen in pad, speaker in pad, etc etc) ....