12 replies to this topic

[SDDMN]

Wii U 360 PS3 Super Slim

Front-End 32w 67w 66w
FIFA 13 Demo 32w 76.5w 70w
Netflix HD 29w 65w 62.5w

The Wii U has apparently conquered the 360 and PS3 in terms of efficiency. Going by the chart, the system uses half of the power the 360 and PS3 use.

Is this good news to you? Or does this info help you consider the Wii U to be a piece of junk? Do you think the Wii U will still be the greenest console even when Sony and Microsoft release their next consoles?

http://www.gamesindu...=european-daily

Edited by SDDMN, 10 December 2012 - 11:08 AM.

[Tricky Sonic]

Power consumption doesn't indicate its raw strength or anything, people turned off by this just show they have no knowledge on the topic, and most people probably don't. It's like in computer hardware - one strength AMD used to have over Intel was it was able to put out fairly equal power with consuming much less energy. Newer Intel CPU's are doing better. It's just an efficiency thing. The less power you use is a good thing, puts less of a strain on the system as a whole.

[Crackkat]

well this is very good to hear makes me feel better about playing it for hours in a time of recession, it might be handy to pop that info into an advert sometime though, could sway some people perhaps

[Alex Atkin UK]

Power consumption might not tell you everything, but it certainly is AN aspect of figuring out how powerful a console is though.

Is it possible that a console developed in the last few years can outperform a console developed 8-9 years ago, using less electricity? Of course.
But its certainly not going to be the kind of improvement I will demand from the next Xbox.

If it comes with anything less than a 200W PSU I will be hugely disappointed. Why? Because my gaming PC running a mid-range graphics card uses 260W at peak and I would hope that the new Xbox will be slightly more powerful than that. My PC is comfortable at 1080p with everything turned on for TODAYS GAMES (unless you demand 60fps, then you would have to turn down the effects/resolution), but I do not expect it to remain so for 5 years. With the costs involved with developing a console however, it absolutely needs to remain relevant that long.

Even taking into account consoles being more efficient than PCs, its going to take a LOT more electricity than what the Wii U pulls if they want to produce a console that is a significant improvement over their previous generation.

The bottom line is, the Wii U can get away with these specifications because its previous generation is the Wii and its a HUGE improvement over that. Had the Wii been as powerful as the Xbox 360, the Wii U would have had to be at least twice as powerful as it is, to be a worthwhile upgrade.

Edited by Alex Atkin UK, 10 December 2012 - 01:44 PM.

[The Lonely Koopa]

Hasn't this been known since before the Wiiu Launch.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I think its been assumed but with the Wii U coming with a 70W PSU it wasn't completely confirmed.

However the fact the Wii U is only pulling 35W from its PSU makes you wonder if Nintendo are actually holding back 50% of its capability to stun and amaze us with it a later firmware update. Either that or they are just playing it REALLY safe with the PSU.

[dyatir]

Just read the headline, what??????

[alan123]

The Wii U has apparently conquered the 360 and PS3 in terms of efficiency. Going by the chart, the system uses half of the power the 360 and PS3 use.

Is this good news to you? Or does this info help you consider the Wii U to be a piece of junk? Do you think the Wii U will still be the greenest console even when Sony and Microsoft release their next consoles?

http://www.gamesindu...=european-daily

is it good news for me, to be honest i couldn't care less on how green the Wii U is, i have no time for the polar bears etc.

[flowerlandfilms]

I wish it was literally greener.
I have the See Through Green N64.
And I bought an after market replacement See Through Green Case for my Wii. With LEDs in it.
I want a green U.

[Plutonas]

dont say that... for example my gtx480 consumes power like 2x GTX670 sli!!!! but 1 GTX670 is 35% better than gtx480... Its the radeon new chipset that consumes less, amd is known of low consumption.... Also the slow weak cpu, consumes nothing.... about 10-15v... most of the power goes to the gpu of wii U...

Edited by Orion, 10 December 2012 - 02:32 PM.

[SoldMyWiiUAndLeftTheForums]

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr last time I looked Wii U's were only White or Black

[Desert Punk]

No hard drive in wii u and the extra memory probably means the optical drive can turn off when a large portion of data is in memory. Gpu and cpu are at the same fabrication size as 360 and PS3 though but the wii u design is more minimalist. The gpu is meant to benefit from AMD's improved architecture with regard power consumption which Eurogamer could be as much as a 40% power saving over the xbox gpu architecture on a same performance basis.

Add a external hard drive to wii u and the power consumption will increase considerably and the gamepad probably wastes power as many people will leave the charging station constantly powered.

[Alex Atkin UK]

The optical drive NEVER turns off whilever a disc is in there, it spins and spins even if you are sat using Miiverse, the Web Browser, with the game not even running.

Its one of those little things that are really annoying, like the 10 second lag getting into Miiverse every time you want to send a message.

The HDDs the PS3 and Xbox 360 use are very low power, being designed for laptops. At most they will use around 2.5W, generally they will use around 1W. By comparison the bigger HDDs used in many desktop PCs and external USB HDDs with their own PSU will use between 5 - 10W.

Even that allows me to have a Core 2 Duo 2.9Ghz NAS box with 1x SSD and 2x 3.5" HDDs, that idles around 35W most of the time, peaking at around 70W.

That same CPU for example was previously in a PC that used 130W idle, the difference was I switched to a smaller more optimised motherboard, RAM and a better PSU. Bottom line, 35W can get you a lot of performance if you are careful about your architecture and consoles generally are VERY optimised.