Use this page to check PS5 / Xbox Series X console electricity consumption for your own PS5 / Xbox Series X console: enter your wattage, hours of use per day and electricity rate, and press Calculate. You see your daily, monthly and yearly cost plus your yearly kWh consumption. Those same results also cover PS5 / Xbox Series X console power consumption.
Wondering what your console adds to the household electricity bill? Your ps5 / xbox series x console electricity consumption stays small while the system idles, then climbs when demanding games push the hardware. That means the annual cost depends more on how you play than on which of the two consoles you own. This guide turns the energy these consoles draw into plain watts, kWh and dollars, so you can estimate your own energy bills and cut them.
Both consoles are built around a powerful processor and GPU, so their power draw changes dramatically from one activity to the next. The same machine can pull a few watts while sleeping and well over 150 watts while rendering a 4K game with ray tracing. Manufacturers publish a typical electricity consumption figure, which is an estimate of the energy used across a year of ordinary play, and independent testers add measured wattage for each activity.
Think of the power consumption of a console as three separate numbers: what it pulls while you play, what it pulls while you browse menus, and what it pulls while it looks switched off. The table below uses illustrative mid-range figures that I chose to keep the later arithmetic easy to follow. Your own unit will land a little above or below them, because the game, the screen resolution and the console revision all move the reading.
| Activity | PS5 (watts) | Xbox Series X (watts) |
|---|---|---|
| Gaming at 4K | 175 W | 190 W |
| Dashboard and menus | 52 W | 46 W |
| Standby mode, shutdown setting | 1.5 W | 1.5 W |
| Standby mode, instant on setting | 11 W | 11 W |
Notice how little separates the two consoles. The wattage gap while gaming is only about 15 W, so neither system is a clear energy hog compared with the other. Heavier workloads such as new releases built for 4K and ray tracing push both toward the top of their range, and the power rating printed on the back of the unit is a ceiling that real play rarely touches.
Your power use rises with the resolution you pick. Output in HD costs less than UHD, and a 60 fps performance setting asks the chip to work harder than a 30 fps one. Streaming a film or music is a lighter task, so media apps and navigation through menus sit far below demanding games. A wired connection and a Wi-Fi link behave about the same, though keeping a network link alive during standby can add a little.
You do not need a special calculator to work out the running cost of a console. You only need three inputs: the watts, the hours of use, and the electricity price on your tariff. If you want to check your work, a plug-in meter reads the real wattage of your own unit in seconds. For comparison, see how many watts does a tube light use.
A kilowatt hour is the unit your utility bills you for: one kilowatt (1,000 watts) drawn for one hour. A console pulling 175 W for four hours therefore uses 0.7 kWh. Multiply the kWh by the price per kWh on your bill and you have the electricity cost. The formula looks like this:
$$\text{Annual cost} = \frac{\text{Watts} \times \text{Hours per day} \times 365}{1000} \times \text{Price per kWh}$$
Work out each mode separately, then add the results. A single average hides the fact that a console spends most of its life nearly idle.
Here is the electricity usage of a game console for one realistic player. Assume 3.5 hours of gaming and half an hour on the dashboard every day, the remaining 20 hours in standby, and a price of 19 cents per kWh. Gaming alone costs about 3.3 cents per hour on the PS5 and 3.6 cents on the Xbox Series X. For comparison, see how many watts does a pos billing machine use.
| Console and standby setting | Gaming (kWh per year) | Dashboard (kWh per year) | Standby (kWh per year) | Total kWh | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS5, shutdown | 223.6 | 9.5 | 10.9 | 244.0 | $46.36 |
| Xbox Series X, shutdown | 242.7 | 8.4 | 10.9 | 262.1 | $49.79 |
| PS5, instant on | 223.6 | 9.5 | 80.3 | 313.4 | $59.54 |
| Xbox Series X, instant on | 242.7 | 8.4 | 80.3 | 331.4 | $62.97 |
In this example the PS5 is cheaper to run by about $3.43 per year, and the gap comes entirely from the 15 W difference while gaming. Flip the dashboard and the Xbox wins that single line, but the dashboard is a small slice of the total. The most expensive habit is not the console you pick: switching from the shutdown option to instant on adds roughly $13 a year to either one.
Published xbox series x power consumption tests and ps5 power consumption tests agree on the broad picture: both land in the same band while gaming. Microsoft and Sony each publish energy efficiency information for their hardware, and each manufacturer treats its measurements as an estimate based on assumed play patterns rather than a promise for your home.
The PS5 Digital Edition and Disc Edition have very similar energy use, since the drive barely matters while you play. The PS5 Pro is the one to watch, because its stronger GPU lifts the max capacity and the typical gaming draw. On the Microsoft side, the smaller Xbox Series S uses clearly less than the Series X.
Context helps. A PS4 uses noticeably less than either flagship, an older PS4 revision more than a newer one, and the Nintendo Switch sits at the bottom of the chart because it is a portable design. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo each target a different power budget, which is why a Nintendo handheld costs only a few dollars a year while a flagship PlayStation or Xbox costs tens of dollars. A living-room TV adds to the bill too, and a gaming laptop can out-draw both consoles. Always include the screen when you add up the electricity usage of your gaming setup.
A console that looks off can still be drawing power. This is the so-called vampire load, and across a year it can rival the energy used while you actually play. Also see how much energy does a san switch use.
The instant on setting keeps part of the system awake so it can start quickly and install updates overnight. That convenience is why standby mode climbs from a trickle to about 11 W in my example. If you play every day and want the fastest wake, it may be worth it, but you should know the price.
Sleep mode is a light rest that preserves your game session. The shutdown option, often labelled energy saving, powers the system down almost completely. After Microsoft changed its defaults, new consoles ship with the energy saving choice selected, but that only helps the idle hours. It does nothing for the power used during play.
True power off is very low, only a watt or two. Unplugging the console, or using a switched power strip, removes even that, although you lose background downloads. The saving is real but small, so do it for the weeks when nobody plays.
You can reduce your energy bills with a few menu changes rather than by playing less. The best power settings are free and take about two minutes.
Turn on automatic power down so the console shuts off after a period of inactivity. Without it, a console left on the dashboard overnight keeps drawing 40 to 50 W for hours. That is the easiest saving in the whole article.
Good power management comes down to a short checklist, and the savings add up across a household with several consoles.
Efficiency has improved with each generation: regulators and voluntary agreements introduced power caps and eco-design rules, which pushed every manufacturer to make the idle floor lower. A more efficient console matters beyond your own bill, because gaming at scale adds up to real emissions and a measurable carbon footprint. Your electric utility's tariff, a regional price cap where one applies, and the environment all benefit when you pick efficient settings. Treat sustainability as a bonus: the cheapest watt is the one you never use.
To put the totals in perspective, compare them with the rest of your living room. The annual electricity consumption of an average TV used a few hours a day is often lower than a flagship console's, which surprises many people who blame the screen first. Sony and Microsoft both publish guidance for lowering the draw of their systems, and the advice is consistent: the average player saves more by changing one setting once than by rationing play time every week. If you share a home with several players, add each console's yearly kWh together before you judge whether a change is worth the effort. Keep a note of the date you checked, because firmware updates and new games can shift these readings over time.
On the money side, plan with a range rather than one number. Cost per year depends on your average habits, so recheck your estimate whenever you start a new game, change cents per kWh after a price change, or add a second screen.