PS4, Xbox One Power Consumption Analysis Points To Sony Advantage And Future Efficiency Gains

A new report from the National Resources Defense Council put the PS4 and Xbox One under the power efficiency microscope and came back with less than glowing things to say about the new devices. According to the organization, both consoles draw more power than they should despite heavy investment in power-saving technologies.

[pyramidshead]

Nice work.

[cleft5]

Not really surprising on this one, the power brick almost ensures that the Xbox One would consume more energy and be less efficient. Having no power brick means that Sony's R&D had to be confident in their design because no way a fear of overheating wasn't a concern. Still both consoles performed very well, which is good since there is this big always on push as of late.

[nukeitall]

How is the Xbox One less efficient?

If anything, the Xbox One is more efficient in all the tests. This means Xbox One does everything the PS4 does with less power. The difference can be as high as 33% (refer chart, game play).

The only exception is in stand-by mode, which the Xbox One is using more power to fuel Kinect Voice recognition. Something the PS4 does not do, hence the higher power draw.

Efficiency will improve, but I doubt it will have a significant impact on the power draw simply by the fact that stand-alone player has specialized hardware to perform a few specific tasks, whereas a console is quickly turning into a computer.

[G20WLY]

^What's wrong with your eyes nuke?

Look at the 'media' portion of the chart and tell me the XBone doesn't use substantially more energy there as well!

In standby, powering Kinect...hello viewers! And what about all the time you're asleep, at work, at gym, at anywhere not wanting to dance in front of your TV? XBone keeps sucking up electricity at a rate far greater than PS4, but you want to make out it's more efficient, despite the formal test clearly proving otherwise?! lol

BTW, PS4 does do voice recognition, not that anyone gives a toss lmao XD

[Wh15ky]

These power consumptions are really nothing for anybody to get their knickers in a twist about.

@G20WLY
Even if both systems spent 100% of the year in standby mode the difference to your annual electricity bill would be about £11 (or less than 20 USD).

Even if Sony and MS managed to half the power consumption of each console you would be looking at saving about £20 per year.

The consoles at present will consume less electricity in a year than a 2kW electric heater will in 5 days.

All this article proves is that it's a non issue.

[rainslacker]

Can I play the spin game too?

Efficiency is directly related to the computing power of the system.

So, It seems that most people who are technically inclined believe that the PS4 is 50% more powerful than the X1. However, looking at all these numbers, I see that despite being 50% more powerful, it actually only draws between 20-30% more power in each of the test cases presented, minus the standby mode.

Thus it is more efficient.

Think of it this way. You have a furnace. One furnace can heat a 1000 sq/ft house for $100/month, or a 2000 sq/ft house for $200/month.

A second furnace can heat a 2000 sq/ft house for $150 a month. Or it can heat a 1000 sq/ft house for $75/month.

Which is more efficient?

Looking forward to who can dispute my reasoning. Should be interesting.

[The_Con-Sept]

@Nukeitall:

I can agree that gamers can go on gaming sprees for lengths as far as a full 24 hour period with the console in gaming mode. But this is based on an average user. And what is the average user doing? What almost every american does 6-12 hours a day.... WORKING. Or school... depends really. I leave my PS3 off sometimes for weeks at a time between games.

And a unit being powered off but still consuming electricity is where it can "add up."

at a glance those little .5 and 1.3 doesn't seem like much. But you keep multiplying them by the hour.... you see the bigger difference.

Pay an electric bill and look at the wattage you use when you get it one time. Just look at your bill ONCE in your life.

[ProjectVulcan]

Meh, neither console exactly guzzles power. I predicted less than 150w fully loaded in games for PS4, and lo and behold, it is 137 watts according to this test.

This isn't much really. Original PS3s and Xbox 360s were close to 200 watts fully loaded gaming. They got hot....

People said that PS4 might overheat or whatever because of the small case, but I said if its chipset drew less than 150w, it won't be that hard to dissipate. Turns out that it is a bit less than that in TOTAL, the chipset itself is probably not much more than 100 watts.

100 watt TDP is a piece of cake to control these days even in a small box like the PS4 case. High end laptop GPUs pull as much as that by themselves before you even factor in their CPU.

They will both no doubt shrink onto the 22nm production node later next year, PS4 will barely break 100 watts total after that revision you see.

[SilentNegotiator]

More power AND more power efficiency. Sony sure did a bang up job* with hardware this gen.

*To non-Americans, "bang up job" means "very successful"

[Spartan119]

Haha did you even read the article or did you just read the title. The PS4 requires more power consumption for all tasks besides being in stand by mode. So that means if both consoles were being used for a period of 10 hrs playing games and watching movies the Xbox would be more power efficient. Nice try Maria, you can try spin it any way you want but you just end up making yourself look stupid

[SilentNegotiator]

...no, I did not. It seemed very straight forward. How much more deceptive could that title be?

[RonRico]

"The PS4 consumes more power than the Xbox One in every mode except Connected Standby, where the Xbox One chews threw 18W compared to Sony’s 8.8W"

[Jvaughn661]

I find this article slightly misleading. It states " the ps4 consumes more power in every category except for connected standby." As you can see in the first graph of the article. It then goes on to say "both consoles are expected to spend much of their time in this mode" insinuating that in the long run the xbox will consume more power as you can see in the second graph pictured above. For those who don't know connected standby is when your console is turned on and leave it unattended so the screen turns dark to save power. Well I for one don't leave my console unattended for long periods of time. I spend most of my time streaming Netflix and playing games, so in my case my xbox is more power efficient than the ps4. This is just me though. Does anyone else on here spend a lot of time in control standby?

[MarkusMcNugen]

When Im at school its usually in standby. But, of course the aricles title is misleading and the article doesnt exactly match up to its name. It was submitted by N4Gs greatest Troll submitter. MariaHelFutura combs the internets all day every day looking for articles that are pro sony and anti-microsoft and submits them.

Click her name under the picture and look at the articles shes submitted since forever. You'll see pretty much exactly what I said.

[Magicite]

once again proves that MS fails at hardware.

[Jeedai Infidel]

No, it proves you don't bother reading past misleading titles.

[Z_-_D_-_3]

Costs more.
Is less powerful.
Consumes more power.

The Xbone is so in-proportional with what it should be.

[twdll]

Why would the NRDC care?

[MidnytRain]

Why wouldn't they? Honestly, the power thing doesn't surprise me. Sony and MS are able to sell their consoles cheap for a reason. They cut corners in places they figure their audience won't think/care about before dropping cash.

[-Foxtrot]

Al Gore likes this

"Excelsior"

http://25.media.tumblr.com/...

[Snookies12]

ManBearPig?

On topic though, good stuff. Always good to be efficient in power consumption.

[Riderz1337]

Damn Sony built such an amazing piece of hardware...All with the power brick included in the console. How do they do it? Seriously, Sony are hardware magicians or something lol, they surprise me every time.

Also their hardware failure rates are very low in comparison to the competition. Good job Sony. Gonna buy the PS4 when inFAMOUS Second Son comes out =)

[stuna1]

Each PS4 comes with a little bit of magic inside! Lol.

OT; It's always good to save a little on the electric bill.

[MarkusMcNugen]

"Also their hardware failure rates are very low in comparison to the competition."

Care to back that one up?

[Riderz1337]

Xbox 360 launch Vs. PS3 launch.

There you go.

[JamieL]

@ Riderz1337
So since we are going back gens, why not compare the Xbox with the PS2 as well? The PS2 was anything but reliable, not as bad as the 360 at first, but Sony never did anything about it either, we were just screwed if they broke. It's funny how it's ok to go to different gens to prove a point about Sony, but as soon as the "PS3 failed compared to PS2", argument comes up YOU will proclaim "each Gen is a fresh start". All fanboys need to wake the F$@k up and realize they are wasting life on this "war", and how silly they look taking this stuff so serious.

[Spartan119]

Try reading the entire article and not the misleading title. Xbox more power efficient in all factors besides standby mode. But hey if you wanna buy a console and leave it on standby to be more power effiecient go a head. I plan on using my console

[Gremdude]

I think you will agree that your console is in standby more than it is on? Or do you play with your Xbone 24 hrs a day?

[first1NFANTRY]

Sony is in a very good position, end of story.

[JodyCones]

I went Christmas shopping today and literally every store I went to people were asking for PS4's and there were tons of xbox one's with all their games stacked high, no PS4's. A sales clerk at gamestop told me "I just can't get rid of any xbox one's, we sold two in the past week and sold 9 PS4's in just the past hour". My jaw dropped. The PS4 is killing it!

[Chris12]

Riiiiiight..... There were no PS4's anywhere to be seen but the Gamestop clerk said they sold 9 in the last hour? These shill posts are tiresome.

[first1NFANTRY]

Trust me mate it's the same situation here in Aus. Every electronics store i've been to has no ps4 instock till the third shipment next year and even then it's not guaranteed you'll get one.

[MasterCornholio]

The same thing is happening in Spain. There are no PS4s anywhere but there are plenty of Xbox Ones on shelves.

@Chris12

Just accept the facts and move on.

#dealwithit

[MarkusMcNugen]

@JodyCones

100 dollars does make a big difference when 50% of the U.S. is in abject poverty.

[Neonridr]

in Canada (at least where I am), you can't find either console.

I don't try to pretend that one is better than the other, they are both completely sold out around these parts.

[Funantic1]

So the X1 uses less electricity unless in standby mode. That's probably because of the ability of the Kinect to turn on at voice command. Honestly I turned this feature off. So I can't turn on the X1 by saying "Xbox on". I still can turn it off by commands tho. I did this because I didn't like the power brick fan being on. It wasn't loud but still. But once my X1 turned on by itself. So I took it off standby. I don't keep my PS4 in standby either.

[Galletto3]

i actually love the stand by feature. I can yell from wherever and it will start up by the time I actually grab a controller

[Rock_On_PS4]

Sony cares more about the environment and has designed a more powerful, energy efficient system. Even the hippies/liberals will like the PS4 more than the XBox One.

[Gabenbrah]

Sony cares about the environment... Now I've heard it all xD

[Joey_Leone]

Why do you think Sony doesnt make they're hardware backwards compatible anymore? Its because Sony WANTS you to reuse theyre products instead of throwing a good fuctional device in the garbage. Sony does care about the environment.

[MarkusMcNugen]

@Joey_Leone

No... just no. If you believe what you commented, you know nothing about corporations.

[JamieL]

Yea they love it so much they move manufacturing to China to avoid all the Environmental laws in Japan, and save a mint. They love to pollute the environment for profit, just like every other corporate manufacturer out there. Welcome to the real world.

[rainslacker]

Sony is aggressively pursuing being completely green by the year 2050. They are ahead of schedule. They adopted policies well ahead of government mandated changes, and they not only met them, but exceeded them by a large margin.

Do a little research. I know it's hard, but here's one from the first page of Google.

http://www.eco-business.com...

There are countless other sites reporting similar things, as well as many more initiatives by Sony in achieving this goal.

They've been doing this since before the PS3 launched. The PS3 was the first game console to not have any mercury used in it's solder joints.

[Trekster_Gamer]

Get your nose out of Sony's butt!
They care about the bottom dollar, just like every other corporation!

AND THERE IS NOT A DAMN THING WRONG WITH IT!!

[strickers]

They are also one the greenest. Do some research and you will see that. More useful than mouthing off.

[MasterCornholio]

What people should care about is not whether Sony wants our money or not, its how they obtain the cash from us.

There is a difference between robbing consumers blind with criminally high profit margins (Apple) and providing an excellent product at a fantastic value (Moto G).

[MarkusMcNugen]

@MasterCornholio

True, but you can exactly compare phones to consoles since more people are willing to spend 500-600$ on a used phone than people are willing to spend 400-500$ on a new console.

[Software_Lover]

Did you read? It uses more power.

[KingDadXVI]

WTF this is the most ridiculous article on here yet. So my console will run me $30 per year on a bill that runs at about $2400 per year. That is 1.25% of my total electric bill. Damn I guess I should throw out my console. I can't believe people get paid to do studies like this. ROFL.

[TheoreticalParticle]

You use $200 of electricity per month? My roommate runs a server 24/7, we both have high end PCs in addition to the server, a 60-inch TV, AC, fridge, washer/dryer, 2 360s, and our bill is $100/month.

I think you're probably overlooking the value of "studies" like this and could be saving yourself a significant amount of cash on your electric bill every month.

[KingDadXVI]

Well, here in New Brunswick, Canada with 3 kids and electric heat it costs on average about $200 per month. Obviously less in the summer but in the winter the heating drives it up. I am all for relevant studies but I am sorry this is rather pointless.

Wait, I just thought of something. It gave Maria another opportunity to Troll.

@arugula The Xbox One is meant to be in standby mode so that the Kinect can turn on the console when you tell it to. Think about 18 watts in the context of a light bulb. It is 1/5 the power drawn from 1 - 100watt incandescent bulb.

[GW212]

My bill runs me about $200 a month as well. I have a large house with electric heating, multiple TVs... in fact I have at least double what you listed above in both items/electronics and I'm assuming square footage as well. So, I don't understand how you can be shocked at that number. Some people on this site have well-paying day jobs, houses and cars. Shocking, I know.

[monkey nuts]

Sheldon, is that you? XD

[cell989]

And all of that without a power brick, manufacturing engineering at it's best

[XboxFun]

Maria is on a roll, trekking across the vast internet universe looking for any article that paints MS/X1 in a bad light. No matter how irrelevant the story or website is.

[MightyNoX]

Would you rather she trolls mod blogs and whine about being unfair to the X bone.? :)

[n4rc]

Lmao.. Some of you honestly think an external PSU somehow uses more power then an internal?

Smokin rock boys.. Lol

[kneon]

Well it does tend to be true. An external power supply doesn't have the same heat output constraints so it doesn't need to be as efficient. When you put the power supply inside the box heat becomes a bigger issue so you will want to have a more efficient power supply.

It's not that an external power supply can't be efficient, it's just that most companies won't bother.

[n4rc]

Well ya I get that.. But based on some comments in here people seem to think an internal PSU is more efficient simply based on it being internal..

[arugula]

They are both incredibly high in standby mode but 18W is just ridiculous. If I had either I would make sure that they were unplugged after use.

Honestly, your not going to get that many updates where you really need a console on 24/7. Its such a waste of energy.

Just another reason i'll wait this gen out like I did the last. Its not like MSFT and Sony released 3 or 4 different versions each after initial release last gen. Oh wait...

[Gremdude]

The PS4 can be turned all the way off. The X one cannot. That is the difference

[n4rc]

More lies...

Xbox can be turned completely off

[jjind]

One diagram Xbox one uses less energy but in the other diagram is going to cost more in the long run?? That doesn't make sense. But of course, the ps4 is more power efficient... Anything to shit on the xbox one. My Energy bill has not changed at all since November 22.

[Blackdeath_663]

the ps4 uses more power but only when you are using it. when the console is on standby as it most often is the ps4 uses less. the second graph shows kilowatt hours per year as in the console energy uses over a whole year based on the average use people will make of their console the yellow bar and the green one show that the ps4 uses more energy during gameplay and navigation/other while the XBone uses much more energy during standby. how you have so spectacularly failed to read a simple graph is beyond me.

conclusion: ps4 uses more power when performing certain tasks however it is more efficient over a year.

[Nintenja]

The XB1 does power the kinects by default. It uses more power because it is doing more at once.

[idontcare]

well, we'll see!

[IRNMUNKEY]

Who cares! What a total non story!

[Spartan119]

OMG how many people here dont even read the article. They just read the troll submitted Mariahelfutura misleading title. Out of about 6 or 7 categories the PS4 uses less power in stand by mode and thats it. 1 category out of what like 6 or 7. The xbox one is more power effiecient when playing games, streaming movies, Navigating UI and so one. Spin the article how ever you want though. You are just making yourselves look stupid

[Rocky5]

These are more accurate, not sure how they got the value for the Xbox one in off mode.

http://cf.shacknews.com/ima...

[solidboss07]

I am pretty sure that when PS4 is using more power, for example when web browsing, it is doing it much faster than the XBone.

[Smootherkuzz]

WHO cares your are not going broke using either console!

[GirlOnFire]

The Xbox 360 probably still draws more power use than both new gen consoles. ^~^

[Neonridr]

so when the consoles are in standby mode the PS4 uses less power, but when the console is off or being played the Xbox One uses less power.

Now when they say that the standby mode more than offsets it I guess that really depends on the type of gamer in the house.

These are only using the underload (playing a game) and the standby modes, so the numbers aren't exact. If you were to game for 8 hours a day the PS4 would use 216 more Watts of power than the Xbox One. For the 16 hours the console was in standby, the Xbox One would use 160 more Watts of power. So in the end, the PS4 on the day would have used 56 more Watts of power.

Now I know that not everyone is gaming for 8 hours a day, but during a christmas break or holidays, it's not hard to imagine someone putting that much time into gaming. I know some kids who play their consoles that much.

Plus if you were to turn your Xbox off at the end of each day (I know a lot of people prefer standby) then there would be no comparison as the PS4 would always be using more power.

Just some food for thought I guess.

[kewlkat007]

Lol..yup these articles. .have nothing to do with playing and enjoying great games.

[fullmetal297]

Yet another misleading article that is completely from the original one:

http://www.huffingtonpost.c...

The graphs states that because the the PS4 is running more powerful hardware, the PS4 will consume more power playing games and stream media. However, the Kinect is always drawing power due to it always listening even on standby so it will cost in the electric bill in the long term.

[ipach]

where are all the PC master race people on this story?

[Callediceman]

They are over at The Division PC news article discussing how the smoke plume effects from Nvidia physx are gunna be the next generation in pc gaming... no really, they are.

[Pandamobile]

What do you want us to do? We could point out that the PS4 and One use low amounts of power because they're essentially 2 year old laptop parts. Would that scratch your itch?

[Callediceman]

I was just being facetious, to be honest i have a pc rig myself. nothing amazing but 2 Geforce gtx 460's intel I5 3.3ghz. I enjoy all platforms but sometimes i joke alil too much.. no offense intended just some joking around...

[Pandamobile]

The comment was directed towards ipach

[Callediceman]

@Pandamobile ohh sorry dude.. Game on my friend, game on.

[Revvin]

I bought my PS4 for entertainment not to save the planet, I'm not into play with twigs and leaves and recycling my sandals. I try to save energy where I can but I don't buy into the global warming scare mongering.

[corvusmd]

So the title is a little biased from this article...but past that, there are two ways to look at it A) PS4 is a better console if there are no games worth playing and you keep it off all the time....fail or B). If you plan not to play EITHER console for a long period of time, be smart and unplug it....for those of you that just learned what electricity is...next week we will go over how to use a seat belt. :/

[walterpeck]

You know i generally feel bad for the most of you guys. Its funny how it goes from power consumption to how many ps4/Xbox 1 there are to purchase why dont u guys grow up and just b happy we have new consoles to enjoy. U are the type that make me ashamed to call myself a gamer #real talk

[air1]

Did I miss something? The cart that I looked at had the xb1 using less power in everything but stand by... Unless you don't plan on playing your ps4 at all, how does it win?