By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
SvennoJ on 27 December 2013
Edit Thread
mutantsushi said:
SvennoJ said:
mutantsushi said:

...XBone has much lower "standby mode" power draw than the current PS4...

Does the standby power use depend on what features you enable?
Or do you mean it uses more power when it's downloading in standby mode?

Yeah, I guess I wasn't as clear as I should be, the latter is the case: Sony always intended for downloads to happen in "standby mode" (thus an advantage of that mode), but their ARM auxiliary CPU wasn't sufficient, so they are currently relying on the main CPU for background downloads in a "low power" (but nonetheless pretty high power) mode, although they apparently may attempt some hardware fix to allow future console revisions to have a real "standby mode" download ability.

here is a link explaining that and citing the (in Japanese) source which was a Sony manager: http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/11/15/ps4-consumes-70w-while-downloading-in-standby-because-it-uses-the-main-apu-and-not-just-the-arm-chip/

Honestly, I don't see any major benefit of background download and standby mode as a whole (as opposed to turning the unit off completely), just because that can also happen in the background while you are playing games... (Possibly the auxiliary ARM CPU /is/ sufficient for handling downloads when the main CPU is running the OS and other background tasks (and/or active game))

Ah that makes sense. Basically like the ps3 nightly auto updates. System wakes up to check for and download updates. I assume it goes back to low power mode after the download has completed, so it shouldn't use that 70 watt for long.

Anyway I also don't see the point. So far updates have all been automatic in the background and fast enough that it's done before I get to reading the notification. Cold boot is very fast too, with auto sign in last user enabled it's seamless as well. I disabled all the standby functions like you suggested, so it turns off completely with the power button. Perfect.