If you like me are oblivious to how much power your video game consoles consume (even when in standby mode), you may be interested to know that modern video game consoles consume more power than most household devices.
According to the Choice report by The Australian Consumers’ Association, the PS3 uses the most power when in use closely followed by the Xbox 360. These devices also consumed the most power even when idle, “serving as an important reminder to turn off videogame systems after use.” Interesting to note is that the PS3 consumed over 10 times as much power as the Nintendo Wii.
The report states that “leaving a PlayStation 3 on while not in use would cost almost $250 a year in electricity bills (charged at 15c per kWh). This alone is around five times more than it would take to run a refrigerator for the same yearly period.”
Gamers with Plasma TV sets should also take note that the Plasma TV is a “power hungry device” that consumes “over four times more power than a traditional CRT analogue TV set.”
The report suggests leaving the devices in standby mode to reduce energy usage, save on costs and carbon emissions. Head over to the Choice website for a look at the power usage of common household technology products.
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Comments
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Honestly...
That's very hard to believe, I have a PS3 at almost a year, I play it every day and when I'm not playing it, I leave it in idle mode, I noticed no significant difference in the electricity bill (apart the normal inflation).
Consuming 5 times more than a fridge? That's just ridiculous, really, I can't believe that, who is this "choice" company, why should I trust them? In these days it's very hard to believe in anything we find in Internet since it became a mean to win free publicity in a very easy manner.
I believe PS3 and X360 consume more than a Wii (that's perfectly natural considering the amount of power processing), but I can't believe a PS3 consumes $250 year just while in idle, it just makes no sense at all.
Take my advise, if you think your console is a crazy energy eater then just compare your electricity bill with someone you know that as a similar house with the same "normal" electronic devices and lights and that stuff, but that does NOT have a game console, and you'll see that the differences that might exist will never represent that a video-game consoles takes that much energy to run, because if it did the differences in the bills would be bigger.
People should be more concerned with other energetic problems than blaming video-games and consoles of everything, each time I go to the mall they have around 70 to 100 large LCD's working more than 10 hours straight! Why? Why don't they just plug them on when people want to see the image quality? And that's just a simple example, because there are MUCH more things that could be easily done to reduce energy consume, now blaming a video-games console of "energy savvy" seems a little desperate for attention.
As always, these reports bend the truth to suit their cause..
The items used in the comparision were the latest energy efficient units, but bizarely, they used an original 60GB PS3 with 90nm Cell CPU. The newer units are alot more energy efficient, but then that does not make sentational news right??
The facts:
All Xbox360's to date (90nm CPU): 170W PS3 60GB: 180W PS3 40GB: 135W
Woo look, the latest 40GB PS3 with 65nm Cell, is more energy efficient that the 360, how about reporting that...
In reply to MK24ever's post:
First, it doesn't say that's in idle mode, since at the end it says to put them in standby mode when they're not in use.
The $150 a year is denoting if you were to leave it on (not in standby) all year long.
I think the point of this article is that your playstation takes more energy than a refrigerator for the same amount of time running, so make sure you turn it off or put it in standby mode when you're not using it.
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