Anyone know how efficient the 360's PSU is (test the draw both up- and down-stream of the PSU)? It'd be a lot harder to test the PS3's cramped internal PSU, and somewhat pointless to test the Wii's, but the 360's external PSU should be easy to test with the right tool.
Power consumption of the various consoles..
- Thread starter Rangers
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Wrong there... at 4 times the standby power draw as its competitors (24connect...) you'd need to be beyond hardcore to actually use less power over longer periods of time...
Say you play approx 1 hr per day.
188W(gameplay) + 23*2W(standby) = 234W per day for 360
18.4W(gameplay) + 23*10W(standby) = 248.4W per day for Wii w/ Connect24 enabled
So, if you leave your console idling for any length of time, or play more than 7 hours per week, the competitors become less energy efficient. Of course, if you disable Connect24, which is pretty useless right now, the Wii becomes far more energy efficient than the competitors. And if you unplug these things when you're not using them, you can save yourself a fair amount of energy in a year.
Anyone know the average cost per kWh in the USA and/or Canada so we can see how much these bad boys are costing us?
Rainbow Man
Veteran
That's not wrong.
You have to turn Wii24 ON yourself. Frankly at the moment there's no point to do that. Well you hcan have the disc slot glow blue once a month when nintendo releases a new channel. Whoop de doo.
Or you can save the 25 or whatever watts and update manually. Same thing.
If wii could sit and do protein folding while in wii24 I guess it would have more efficient use of power rather than just spinning in a busy loop like it seems to do now..
Peace.
randycat99
Veteran
Man, these are some heady power consumptions! I hope there is still a lot of power management optimization to be done. It just seems there should be more drastic changes in power use for particular tasks (especially just being idle), if everything is working optimally.
I pay around 14 cents per KWH but I think that's on the high end compared to most people..
Is the Mac Mini comparable to a laptop with integrated graphics and minus the display in terms of power consumption? I'm looking into what I'll get as my next computer, and I'm really thinking I'd like to get something as power efficient as possible, while still being usable for everything but games. Gaming is going to be handled by my Wii and the aging computer on my desk. I honestly thought the idle consumption wouldn't be too bad, but with a 420W supply, it most likely isn't very good.
So at 0.234kWh per day, the X360 would cost you about $12 per year for one hours playing time per day, if my quick math is ok. I guess that's not really a significant number to convince people to be careful about leaving them on or using them heavily. Although, I have no idea what the real average usage time is for a new console.
Rainbow Man
Veteran
If you think this is heavy I suppose you haven't looked at the power draw of a large plasma scrfeen!
The idle power use at the dashboard for 360 especially is just atrocious. PS3 is at least drawing some flowing graphics simple as they may be while 360 isn't doing anything at all if you don't touch the controller. Still the fans spin at full tilt and the console belches out heat at the back.
If they can play DVDs and make the thing draw less power and emit less noise why can't they get at least as good figures when it's doing nothing?
Peace.
I would guess it to be higher in many cases, both because of multiple members of the household using it, pausing to do other stuff and then coming back, and of course there are quite a few users who spend way too much of their life staring at moving pixels....
Additionally, electrical energy costs are rising - in the last year alone by 50% where I live and by 500% over the last six years.
But there are reasons apart from the immediate wallet issues to care about energy efficiency.
One is from a technical esthetics point of view - what do you achieve and how much do you expend to achieve it? Waste is never elegant. Another viewpoint is the environmental - these machines burn energy that comes from somewhere and by the nature of energy production today, add to the total load in terms of greenhouse effect et cetera, and do it completely pointlessly in the console. Or you could see it from a more libertarian moral angle, or consider the ergonomics.... And so on. No matter how you turn it, needlessly wasting energy is just bad, and the economics of it is only the start of the story.
I agree completely. I'm going to shop for energy efficiency on my next computer since I plan to leave the PC gaming space. It's not really a money issue for me, but just knowing that I've at least made an effort to do my part in protecting the environment. I'm glad the Wii is fairly energy efficient, but I'm going to turn off connect24 for now as there doesn't seem to be any real use for it. I just think that most people would only be motivated to purchase energy efficient devices if they are shown a benefit of financial gain. That's how they're getting people to switch over to energy efficient light bulbs. I would also agree that the $ I calculated is based on a usage scenario that is most likely lower than the average for a new console.
The irony is that these energy efficient lightbulbs are more damaging to the environment in terms of toxic materials and energy to produce.
Ideally company's would be capped on the power consumption of devices. TVs are getting bigger and bigger, and like car engines, will just gobble more and more power. Running costs are never considered. And you can't just say to people 'use less stuff. Go outside sometimes instead of having a TV in every room!' as people have never been particular responsible in the actions. comfort and convenience are the driving factors for decision making, rather than long-term issues. If it's a choice between cycling 5 miles to work in the cold and wet, or driving, 99% choose the latter because they like the comfort. Basically, if the world gets destroyed by human activities, it's all people deserve. People will have no-one to blame but themselves.
Staying on the technical topic! What's happened to power scaling? The technology is there to reduce consumption with workload. Why's that not in affect here?
randycat99
Veteran
If you think this is heavy I suppose you haven't looked at the power draw of a large plasma scrfeen!
I should have been more specific to say these are heady power consumptions for "little computer appliances".
I know in the larger scope of things, these are still small potatoes at even 200 W. Any decent refrigerator, a home AC unit, or even a simple hair dryer would laugh at these power consumption figures. It is still troubling that the power draw isn't dropping like a rock from the 200-ish W level once it is just sitting there idle. It just seems "not right" (though maybe this has been going on all along with the general PC's we have had around for years) compared to other things in life- like if a car engine was running nearly full out whether it was sitting there in neutral or leaving tire marks, anybody would notice something is seriously "wrong".
Additionally, the power draw under dvd playback is troubling when compared to just a standard standalone player. If these "wonder-technology" devices are sucking down so much power just to do the same job a dvd player can do with mere watts, where is the "efficiency" in computation? Of course, this is overly simplified, and I have a feeling that once the power management optimizations are in place to make idle power draws look reasonable, the same benefits will naturally emerge for rudimentary tasks such as dvd playback (as surplus computational elements are rightly isolated from the power use chain).
As for an earlier post asking about if a Mac Mini has any relation to a laptop, the answer is actually a resounding "yes". The Mac Mini is essentially an iBook design that has been reshuffled to a different physical package for stationary home computing use. I'm typing this from one now, less than a foot away, and it is a marvel of non-obstrusive computing gizmetry!
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Gradthrawn
Veteran
God damn tree huggers... looking at things backwards as always.
It should be obvious that the reason the PS360's power draw during idle and playback are so close is not due to power inefficiency, it's due to extreme power efficiency! Both MS' and Sony's respective suppliers and engineers have been able to obtain near identical power draw when playing a game or watching a DVD as when the console is sitting idle! This is obviously a breakthrough in engineering and shows just how far ahead of the game the PS360 is from the competition. So, consumers can rest assured that even when playing an enthralling game of Halo 3 or Heavenly Sword, their console will be as energy efficient as it is when it's sitting idle! Bravo!
It should be obvious that the reason the PS360's power draw during idle and playback are so close is not due to power inefficiency, it's due to extreme power efficiency! Both MS' and Sony's respective suppliers and engineers have been able to obtain near identical power draw when playing a game or watching a DVD as when the console is sitting idle! This is obviously a breakthrough in engineering and shows just how far ahead of the game the PS360 is from the competition. So, consumers can rest assured that even when playing an enthralling game of Halo 3 or Heavenly Sword, their console will be as energy efficient as it is when it's sitting idle! Bravo!
I just found that article through another source and was about to start a new thread about it when I found this.
I actually find it amazing that the PC is so close to the consoles. Especially such a poorley balanced "power efficient gaming PC".
Drop that extra 2GB of RAM, the X-Fi and 333Mhz from the CPU (all completely unecessary in a gaming PC of that level) and the PC would likely undercut both of the consoles in power use.
I wonder how a more up to date PC would fair using Penryn and say the 9600GT.
I actually find it amazing that the PC is so close to the consoles. Especially such a poorley balanced "power efficient gaming PC".
Drop that extra 2GB of RAM, the X-Fi and 333Mhz from the CPU (all completely unecessary in a gaming PC of that level) and the PC would likely undercut both of the consoles in power use.
I wonder how a more up to date PC would fair using Penryn and say the 9600GT.