How much power does our systems eat?

[Skeithex]

The Nintendo Wii may officially come in a variety of colors, but according to the Electric Power Research Institute, they're all pretty green. Nintendo's console uses only one-sixth as much power as the PlayStation 3 or the 360.

EPRI tested each system for one hour of play using EA Sports’ Madden 2011 football game, and found that the Nintendo Wii system used an average of 13.7 watts, the Sony PlayStation 3 used an average of 84.8 watts, and the Microsoft Xbox 360 used an average of 87.9 watts.

As you might expect, the Wii uses less power because it's less powerful as a game system. “Obviously there are many considerations when looking at a gaming system and we’re only talking about energy use,” said Mark McGranaghan, vice president of Power Delivery & Utilization for EPRI. “There are also tradeoffs associated with graphics and speed that drive higher energy use and consumers will need to factor those elements in as well. The more graphically intensive systems will, by design, require more energy.”

For comparison's sake, the Wii uses roughly the power of a fluorescent light bulb, where the 360 and PS3 consume as much power as a washing machine.

source

that's a lot for PS3/360.

[froggyboy604]

Indeed, the PS3 and 360 uses more power compared to the Wii.

[Skeithex]

I can see the ps3 being huge in power, but what eats up so much for the Xbox?

[froggyboy604]

The Xbox 360 is also an HD game console which can be connected to a HDTV with an HDMI cable or other types of HD cables for HD video gaming. I'm guessing running the HD video uses a lot of power. Plus, it also has 512MBs of RAM and a fast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_(processor)#XCGPU .

[Skeithex]

I'm guessing it's the processor that's eating the power.

[froggyboy604]

Indeed, it is most likely the processor and video card for the 360.