Gaming consoles guilty of wasting electricity

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19-04-2012, 11:01 AM
James

Gaming consoles guilty of wasting electricity

Gaming consoles guilty of wasting electricity

Gaming consoles waste billions of rands in energy every year in idle mode
19-04-2012, 11:08 AM
czc

So do TV's left in sleep mode, so do computers left on.
19-04-2012, 11:33 AM
foozball3000

Waste? So you mean squatters have xboxes?
The rest of us pay for that power... it's not given to us, so it can't be waited, just used.

Quote:

Tons of energy is being wasted every year by gaming consoles in idle mode according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University

Tons? Electrons don't weigh much, so that must probably be enough to power the sun... :p
19-04-2012, 01:21 PM
symbolofmylife

Well, my PS3's power saving is set to two hours...As far as I remember that is the shortest time the console allows...So a small patch can be introduced to make it way shorter though.

But, it shuts down only if there's been no controller movement or input and if no disk is running in the console.

So on weekends when we lounge around watching movies off my external HDD, every two hours the warning appears that the console is about to shut down which a quick controller switch-on sorts out.

I can also understand why this feature is by default switched off: Some people dont read manuals, or dont take the time to get to know the console. So it gets left on, shuts down by itself, and the new oblivious owner thinks there's something wrong with it. Dont blame the manufacturer here, blame the user!
22-04-2012, 08:16 PM
tiandup

The 4th generation Playstation 3 has a 250W powersupply. My PC has a 850W powersupply and I'm guessing on idle my graphics card pulls more than 250W on the plug. "whistling:
22-04-2012, 08:20 PM
czc

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiandup

The 4th generation Playstation 3 has a 250W powersupply. My PC has a 850W powersupply and I'm guessing on idle my graphics card pulls more than 250W on the plug. "whistling:

You have an old GPU or something?
22-04-2012, 09:00 PM
tiandup

Quote:

Originally Posted by czc

You have an old GPU or something?

GTX580. I may have exaggerated the idle consumption but 150W is still a lot. :)
22-04-2012, 10:38 PM
ManiaC

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiandup

GTX580. I may have exaggerated the idle consumption but 150W is still a lot. :)

Although most of the newer GPUs go into power saving mode when idle, switching off unnecessary goodies, kinda like what CPUs do

I've seen a device on the gadget show which allows you to measure standby usage of appliances / electronics, not sure if these are available in SA though
23-04-2012, 06:17 AM
reactor_sa

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiandup

The 4th generation Playstation 3 has a 250W powersupply. My PC has a 850W powersupply and I'm guessing on idle my graphics card pulls more than 250W on the plug. "whistling:

LOL, what gfx you running??
My system with 5870s in crossfire with an oc'd i7 draws less than 200w total when idle.