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Contact UsAccording to a study by Australian consumer group Choice, video game consoles such as Sony Playstation 3 consumes five times more energy than a medium sized refrigerator.
They found out that a medium sized refrigerator of about 12 cu. ft. volume (60 inches in height) will cost $50 a year while Sony Playstation 3 will cost $250 a year even if it is not in use and only turned on. Microsoft XBox came second behind Playstation 3.
Choice is the largest consumer organization in Australia with over 200,000 subscribers.
Study showed that apart from game consoles, Plasma televisions consume four times more energy than a traditional analogue set. Incredibly, the Playstation 3 consumed over ten times as much power as the Nintendo Wii.
The average desktop PC, with out monitor came third in terms of energy consumption. It is interesting to note that Apple iMac with a built-in display, consumes just two-thirds of the energy consumed by a monitor-less PC.
The LCD computer monitor tested was found to be far more energy efficient than it’s CRT predecessor. The CRT used more than double the power of the LCD display. Devices on stand-by mode costs just $15 a year.
According to Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn:
While we hope no one actually leaves their games console on for a whole year 24/7, the figures are indicative of just how much electricity these small devices can chew their way through.
He further said that computers and computer products should be subject to the energy rating star system to help consumers choose energy-efficient models. Click here to see energy consumption chart.
3 responses so far
1 RedFoxOne ~ Jun 3, 2008 at 7:02 am
OMG I had NO idea such a small unit could consume so much juice! And to think I left it on ALL the time (until I read that article). LOL, not anymore!
JJ
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
2 Sasparilla ~ Feb 2, 2009 at 10:48 am
This article is rather misleading. The PS3 uses this much power (200 watts - i.e. two 100 watt light bulbs) IF you had a first generation PS3 AND you had the power switch (on the back of the machine) turned on AND you left the machine itself running at all times (i.e. you didn’t shut it down when you were done playing).
If you shut the PS3 down, like most people do after their done, it consumes 4 watts (about what a microwave consumes when its plugged in but not running) with the power switch in the back of the machine on (turn that off and it consumes nothing). The current generation PS3 uses about 33% less power while running than the first generation PS3 (135 watts down from 200 watts).
The reason the PS3 and the Xbox 360 consume so much more power than a Wii, is that they used new powerful processors and graphics chips, while the Wii uses chips and graphics processors from the previous generation Game Cube (which were less powerful than previous generation PS2 and Xbox systems - the chips have been shrunk so they are cheaper and use less power than the GC). The downside of this is that they are so anemic that the Game Cube cannot output to high definition (doesn’t make it any less fun though).
3 Kiyani ~ Feb 23, 2009 at 3:56 am
We are talking about a medium sized refrigerator here of about 12 cu. ft. volume.
Current PS3 models may have improved in terms of power consumption but at that time they were power hungry. Even though I don’t think 9 months would make such a difference that now they don’t consume much energy.
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