Xbox 360 vs. PS3 vs. Wii vs. PC Power Consumption Report

by Marco Chiappetta — Wednesday, February 21, 2007, 10:55 AM EDT

Harcoreware.net has an interesting article on-line today that details the power consumption characteristics of today's top three new consoles while playing back video and playing games. And for the sake of comparison they also built a mid-range gaming PC to see how it stacked up.

"Today's video game console war is taking an interesting twist, as we fire up our trusty power meter to look at power consumption levels of the 3 newest video game consoles. We tested power consumption during video game play, DVD playback, HD video, standby mode, and other console functions. We also added in a PC and a dedicated DVD player to make things interesting. The results may surprize you!"

The disparity between the Wii and other consoles is amazing. And how about that PC? Looks like the XBox 360 and PS3 consume quite a bit of power.

Tags: Xbox, Xbox 360, S3, Wii, PC, PS3, Power Consumption, Power, Report, port, box, 360, RT

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com