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?"

I'd hazard a guess...

[_xeno_]

...that trying to run 8 cores at once might be what's causing the power drain.

The real question is, of course, are any games going to actually make use of the eight cores? Video games aren't really known for being very parallel-friendly - you might make an excuse for five threads (logic, graphics, sound, controller I/O, and disk I/O), but generally they're fairly serial processes. While updating the game logic, you don't want to draw a frame using half-updated information.

Ultimately, you have to wonder if Sony's decision to go with the Cell and use Blu-Ray was really that intelligent - most of the cost and production problems can be traced to them, and they provide very little real benefit to the end-user.

Pure FUD

[Ender Ryan]

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.

Re:Green tax

[grim4593]

It'll force people to use power more wisely....and decide thing like `do I really need 32 devices on `stand-by`` instead of turning them off and incurring a minute or so wait for them to warm up.

If you believe that, then there should be a tax against the manufactures of the appliances, not the consumers. After all, it is not the fault of the consumer that the manufacturer decided to create their devices so they are never really off. My DVD player has three levels of power: On, Standby, UNPLUG. There is no off. This applies to many entertainment devices, and its not like the box advertises "low standby power consumption" in the stores. And unplugging is not consumer friendly since my plugs are buried under a foot of miscellaneous wiring behind everything. So if there is going to be a tax, it should be a tax on the manufacturer of any device that uses more than X watts when in standby mode: not on the power bill of the consumer.

Re:Green tax

[LithiumX]

Uh...yeah, you'd put tax on the power bill, so that you get charged a proportionate amount. I already pay $200+ a month in electricity for my little apartment. Power bills have nearly doubled over the past few years. All a tax does is make worse matters worse.

I once monitored my power usage - leaving just a single thing on while at work and killing all other circuits (even my refrigerator). I found my biggest power drains were the fridge, air conditioner, incandescent light bulbs, tv, and my stereo. My computer didn't even register compared to those (as it doesn't drain full power constantly). I now have my fridge set to a lower cooling level, I avoid the AC as much as possible (Houston sucks in that area), I use all-florescent lights, and I make sure the stereo is turned completely off when not in use. It helped a bit - I'm just under the $200 mark now.

I don't see the PS3 as being that horrid a power waster compared to other inefficient household appliances.

The tax could be spent on research into power saving technology, solar panels etc.

Oh, but it won't. You see, taxes are legislated with the suggestion or initial detail that the resulting funds be allocated to specific pet projects. Those pet projects are then typically cancelled or mothballed, and the funds go into the main cookie jar.

It's not a grim master plan by politicians to take our money - it's just the nature of taxation.

Also, as for climate change... the root cause of that has little to do with the efficiency of our power or our fossil fuels. The single biggest threat facing our planet is the fact that there are 6-billion-and-rising humans, consuming food, space, and water. Global warming is bad the the US, but on the whole not that terrible for the world. What IS bad is the rampant population explosion, deforestation by those same "poorest people" so that they can eat and breed (which is what people do - we are no different here), and the scourging of the oceans and jungles to pull every last morsel of fish and wildlife in order to feed families.

The answer is not to tax our power consumption. If I knew what the answer was, I'd gladly give it, but I guarantee it doesn't lie in taxation.

Re:Green tax

[Threni]

> People ALREADY pay for their power usage.
> What part of this process are you not understanding?

I think you're missing the bit about sustainable energy consumption, and the need to encourage people to use less energy. It's not that people aren't paying - just that they're not paying enough to cover the damage that's being done, and to make energy consumption sustainable. There'd be nothing wrong with using the current amount of power if it came from wind, solar energy etc, but sadly it's not, because oil is economically more sensible, but less green. If oil were taxed to the extent that solar energy,wind etc became cheaper, then people would use less energy, and the energy they DID use would be less damaging. The knock-on effect of the massive take-up of other energy sources would make them cheaper and encourage research into more efficient versions.