Anyone notice a bump in their energy bill?

http://gizmodo.com/5012629/ps3-sucks-up-five-times-as-much-energy-as-a-fridge-ten-times-as-much-as-a-wii

That's good to know since I'm picking up a PS3 shortly. Thanks, as there will be no folding@home for me.

Why do they even compare it to the Wii. Of course that won't require as much electricity.

They might as well throw the Sega Genesis and NES in that comparison while they're at it.

Anyone notice a bump in their energy bill?

http://gizmodo.com/5012629/ps3-sucks-up-five-times-as-much-energy-as-a-fridge-ten-times-as-much-as-a-wii

Yes..lets rehash old crap again. If you want to run Folding @ home 24/7 yeah. But really if you want to run F@H you arent worried about the cost, as you are more interested in contributing to the Folding project.

What a Stupid comparision but..to be expected from Gizmodo....:rolleyes:

Yes..lets rehash old crap again. If you want to run Folding @ home 24/7 yeah. But really if you want to run F@H you arent worried about the cost, as you are more interested in contributing to the Folding project.

What a Stupid comparision but..to be expected from Gizmodo....:rolleyes:

I wonder which would yield the bigger return:
Donate $250 in electricity per year to Folding@Home (with no tax break).
Donate $250 a year to the American Cancer Society (and get a tax break).

If only the American Cancer Society had a leaderboard with teams of donators, it might appeal more to the gaming competitor in all of us.

IIRC, the bare minimum for a fridge to qualify for the "Energy Star" rating is ~120kWh per month (normal, household sized model.) According to the chart at CHOICE, the PS3 uses 144.87kWh running 24/7 for a month.

In what world is (120 x 5) > 144.87?

Edit - Misread, corrected to 120x5, point remains though.

IIRC, the bare minimum for a fridge to qualify for the "Energy Star" rating is ~120kWh per month. According to the chart at CHOICE, the PS3 uses 144.87kWh running 24/7 for a month.

In what world is (120 x 10) > 144.87?

Is the PS3 idling or running something compute intensive?

Is the fridge located in a warm or cool climate?

Is the PS3 idling or running something compute intensive?

Is the fridge located in a warm or cool climate?

PS3 is running Folding@Home (probably the most intensive thing it can do), fridge example is taken from the Energy Star regulations (as best as I can recall them.)

...and if the fridge is in a forest alone and the door opens, does it make a sound?

...and if the fridge is in a forest alone and the door opens, does it make a sound?

No, but the light comes on.

well, when a fridge is actually running its compressor, it's power use eclipses the PS3.

A well insulated fridge with the door sealed only needs to "run" a minority of the time.

There are different models (65nm) of the PS3 and 360, the newer ones use far less energy. The "article" mentions nothing.

It would be a more apt comparision if say..the Fridge was left open trying to cool the whole house. They took the average usage of a Fridge which DOES not run all the time at MAX level and compared it to something that could be used like that. I wonder how much the fridge would cost a year to run if the doors were left open....Like I said.. Stupid comparision...It's just a stupid "article" posted using a stupid comparision with ONE thing in mind.. to drive people to the site so gizmodo can get more ad money...

idle = standby ????????????

I wonder which would yield the bigger return:
Donate $250 in electricity per year to Folding@Home (with no tax break).
Donate $250 a year to the American Cancer Society (and get a tax break).

If only the American Cancer Society had a leaderboard with teams of donators, it might appeal more to the gaming competitor in all of us.

Yeah You could do that. But all research costs money. The thing with F@H PC processor time and power are dontated. with all the other research money is donated and that money is used to pay the scientists, do research and test. In this case the PS3 (PC processrs GPU's..etc) replace the man power in all the other forms of research.

But back to the point the PS3's power comsumption is no different than all the other Computers in the Folding @ home Network that run 24/7 They are just as power hungry as the PS3. Where is Gizmodo's article on a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz Quad core running F@H 24/7?? :rolleyes:

I noticed no change in my electric bills. I have VERY low bills, too. My bills range from $35 to $95 per month. If the change were anywhere near significant, I'd notice. I don't leave it on all the time, but I do play it a lot. It's both my game machine and my BD/DVD player in my main room. I'm trying to find a 2nd one for the same purposes for the 2nd room.

I wonder which would yield the bigger return:
Donate $250 in electricity per year to Folding@Home (with no tax break).
Donate $250 a year to the American Cancer Society (and get a tax break).

I don't know if this was supposed to be rhetorical but FWIW IMO F@H for $250 in electricity is way more effective than donating $250 to ACS (directed to research) in terms of output. The only question then is what data is more effective in terms of actual results (cures, etc) in the real world...

The PS3 can levitate, Fridges Cant.

I don't know if this was supposed to be rhetorical but FWIW IMO F@H for $250 in electricity is way more effective than donating $250 to ACS (directed to research) in terms of output. The only question then is what data is more effective in terms of actual results (cures, etc) in the real world...

Yeah but I think he was trying to say, what has the greatest return for HIM. Since he gets a tax break and all.

I wonder which would yield the bigger return:
Donate $250 in electricity per year to Folding@Home (with no tax break).
Donate $250 a year to the American Cancer Society (and get a tax break).

If only the American Cancer Society had a leaderboard with teams of donators, it might appeal more to the gaming competitor in all of us.

The Folding@Home contribution is more direct whereas the $250 you give to the ACS gets split up between administrative costs and I don't know for a fact but I'm pretty sure...six figure incomes.

I noticed no change in my electric bills. I have VERY low bills, too. My bills range from $35 to $95 per month. If the change were anywhere near significant, I'd notice. I don't leave it on all the time, but I do play it a lot. It's both my game machine and my BD/DVD player in my main room. I'm trying to find a 2nd one for the same purposes for the 2nd room.

You must tell me how you do that...

The Folding@Home contribution is more direct whereas the $250 you give to the ACS gets split up between administrative costs and I don't know for a fact but I'm pretty sure...six figure incomes.

There are websites out there which tell you exactly how much of each dollar goes to administration and so forth.

still wondering why they are comparing a more powerful machine with its CPU @ 100% vs. a less powerful machine @ idle?

i'm all about being green but this has to be the worst comparison ever.

Here's some more numbers to chew on, with the PC thrown-in to give perspective:

active cpu's (as of 6/2/08):
Win PC_______197629 units @ 188 TFlops
PS3___________52974 units @ 1494 TFlops

power usage under F@H:
Win PC_______150 W (conservative est avg for wide array of pc configs in use)
PS3__________200 W

gross power index under F@H:
Win PC_______29.6 MW-units
PS3__________10.6 MW-units

effective power/Flop ratio:
Win PC_______158 KW/TFlop
PS3____________7.09 KW/TFlop

So, the BIG picture that seemed to fly over the head of Gizmodo is that watt for watt, the ps3 is smoking solution to crunch work units. It achieves more TFlop output and uses less power to do it. The active userbase for ps3 would have to nearly triple just to match the power consumption of the contributing Win PC's...and if it did, the TFlop output would tower the Win PC contribution by a factor of 24x. That would be 4.5 PFlops, or essentially, 2.3x that of the current entire F@H operation (all clients).

So if you want to contribute "green" F@H work units, you should be using a ps3 and not a Win PC...and if you don't want to abuse your electric bill, simply don't run it 24/7. A mere 8 hrs a day is not so much to ask.

Now to bring the frig back into the fold (no pun intended), consider that there are only 53k ps3's out there actively F@H. How many refrigerators are out there in operation?...more than 5x the ps3 number, would you say? Certainly, there are over 1/4 M fridges in the entire US, right? Perhaps, even 30 M fridges would be a conservative estimate? So by that margin alone (not even counting the respective kW/hr ratings), the cumulative power consumption of all US fridges works out to be 566x greater than active F@H ps3 on the face of the earth. :eek: Even if the ps3 power consumption was 5x that of a refrigerator over a 24/7 period (where 1-1.2x would be more likely), it is still a drop in the bucket (<1% ?) when considering the total userbase of refrigerators in the US.

So Gizmodo?...worry not about a ps3 running 24/7 in your studio. How about unplugging your fridge to be green?...are you going to do it for the environment? :p (here's your plate of crow)

Why did they measure the older 90nm PS3 for? they should be comparing the 40GB since that's pretty much all you can get in Oz nowdays.

Bad reporting. I have plenty of other appliances that use more power than my PS3

Actually I wonder if I could get a tax break for using my PS3 for Folding@Home, you might even be able to get the initial outlay tax deductible too.

Why did they measure the older 90nm PS3 for? they should be comparing the 40GB since that's pretty much all you can get in Oz nowdays.

Bad reporting. I have plenty of other appliances that use more power than my PS3

Actually I wonder if I could get a tax break for using my PS3 for Folding@Home, you might even be able to get the initial outlay tax deductible too.

The numbers for the 40 gig are about half the power consumption; I'm guessing it'll be the same for the MGS4 bundle since it's 65 nm.

FUD; my 40GB consumes half that amount.

As expected, this bit of tripe is getting picked up by forumites and news posters worldwide, being posted with the usual HURF DURF PS3 IZ ENERGY HOG $250 A YEAR LULZ tagline.

Hands up here who runs F@H on their PS3 24/7/365. Anyone? Anyone?

As expected, this bit of tripe is getting picked up by forumites and news posters worldwide, being posted with the usual HURF DURF PS3 IZ ENERGY HOG $250 A YEAR LULZ tagline.

Hands up here who runs F@H on their PS3 24/7/365. Anyone? Anyone?

This is exactly what Gizmodo wants. Web clinks equal money to them. No matter how stupid or unrealistic the comparision is. They just want the traffic driven to their site so they can get more money for Ad space..

This is exactly what Gizmodo wants. Web clinks equal money to them. No matter how stupid or unrealistic the comparision is. They just want the traffic driven to their site so they can get more money for Ad space..

Or they have an even more sinister agenda. I agree with all the responses so far, and just want to reinforce that the fridge is cycled off the majority of the time, but when compressing refirgerant and running its blowers it's using a lot of power. As do most high-torque motorized appliances (vacuums, blenders, can openers), meaning Gizmodo's opening statements are not just ignorant but dishonest.

Or they have an even more sinister agenda. I agree with all the responses so far, and just want to reinforce that the fridge is cycled off the majority of the time, but when compressing refirgerant and running its blowers it's using a lot of power. As do most high-torque motorized appliances (vacuums, blenders, can openers), meaning Gizmodo's opening statements are not just ignorant but dishonest.

In what sense?

In what sense?

Is the "normal use" of a fridge defined as "operating at full energy consumption 24/7"? How about a PS3?

Gizmodo didn't do this study, so your blame is a bit misguided. This is the source of the data:
http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=106346&catId=100245&tid=100008&p=5&title=Computers%27+energy+costs

And yeah, there are quite a few people who do run F@H 24/7. I'm sure that some of them are on this forum. Me? I haven't even downloaded it because my power bill is bad enough without leaving the PS3 on and running full tilt all the time.

Also, the 15 cents per kWH is in Australian dollars. And it seems to be a rather expensive price for electricity these days.

I've heard from a number of places that leaving your PS3 in standby mode still sucks up alot of power, so I've been shutting off my PS3 completely when not using it. I've been flipping the switch on the back, so there is no red light on the front. The only thing is, I've been wondering if there is any downside to doing this? Like would I loose all my settings in the various audio and video menus and such?

I've been doing it for awhile now and haven't noticed any issues, but wasn't sure.

It doesn't use much in standby mode.

They spell it all out here:
http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=106346&catId=100245&tid=100008&p=5&title=Computers%27+energy+costs

Gizmodo didn't do this study, so your blame is a bit misguided. This is the source of the data:
http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=106346&catId=100245&tid=100008&p=5&title=Computers%27+energy+costs

Title of the Choice chart: "Power usage of common household technology products."

Title of the Gizmodo page: "PS3 Sucks Up Five Times as Much Energy as a Fridge, Ten Times as Much as a Wii"

One is accurate and succint. The other is found in sloppy piles in farmer's fields. Care to hazard a guess which is which?

And yeah, there are quite a few people who do run F@H 24/7. I'm sure that some of them are on this forum. Me? I haven't even downloaded it because my power bill is bad enough without leaving the PS3 on and running full tilt all the time.
However, they certainly don't comprise anywhere near the majority of PS3 users.

I am one of the people running F@H 24/7. Early on when F@H came out there was considerble discussion about power usage and how significant it was (there is an old thread around here someplace). As for myself, I looked at my power usage pretty carefully (plotted KW used by month etc.) and the change in my bill was so small that it was hard to see. As a result I have been running F@H 24/7 for probably 18 months and have no regrets!