PlayStation 4 Runs Much Cooler Than PS3, FCC Reports

[Xman490]

All these news are good to read, but it's starting to sound like typed-word Escapist journalists are overhyping the PS4. Or Sony is just overreaching to please us.

I guess the latter is more the case. This is still the second day in a row a notably positive article about the PS4 came up here.

 

[Jamash]

Thats 5 to 35 Celsius for anybody in one of the vast majority of countries not still using a nonsensical temperature scale.

5&#176C?

My new fridge is set to 5&#176C, so if the PS4's temperature can drop as low as 5&#176C, wouldn't there be a risk of condensation forming?

I know when I take a bottle of liquid out of my fridge in this summer heat, condensation almost immediately forms on the outside.

No, I think it's likely the operating temperature of the die that the CPU and GPU live on. There's also the fact air will constantly be flowing through the machine and the fact the temperature isn't going to very suddenly spike from 5 to 30.

It basically means there's a bloody good cooling system in it.

That makes a bit more sense, but I'm still a bit confused as to what the article is saying (and what it means by "operating temperature").

Is it taking about how much heat the PS4 will produce, or the ambient temperature of the environment that the PS4 is designed to operate within?

I know it seems dumb, but from what I've read elsewhere, there seems to be some confusion about what this article is stating and the definition of "operating temperature".

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Ok. Reading some of the comments it seems I'm not the only one confused a bit. Aren't operating temperatures the temperatures it is designed to work in. Like it's not designed to work in below freezing conditions or in direct sunlight on a hot day.

I just fail to see how it can run at 5 degrees Celsius without breaking the laws of thermodynamics

 

[Roxas1359]

All these news are good to read, but it's starting to sound like typed-word Escapist journalists are overhyping the PS4. Or Sony is just overreaching to please us.

I guess the latter is more the case. This is still the second day in a row a notably positive article about the PS4 came up here.

I think it's more of the later since the lead designer behind the PS4 is a 31 year gaming industry veteran who has quite the history on helping create and develop some iconic games.

OT: That's good that they are having it run cooler, but I wanna know how much power it'll consume when compared to the PS3 because I need to calculate how much the bill will go up later on.

Ok. Reading some of the comments it seems I'm not the only one confused a bit. Aren't operating temperatures the temperatures it is designed to work in. Like it's not designed to work in below freezing conditions or in direct sunlight on a hot day.

I just fail to see how it can run at 5 degrees Celsius without breaking the laws of thermodynamics

Obviously Sony has managed to find a way to have video game logic and physics work in our world and have designed their console to run on that logic. XD

 

[The White Hunter]

Thats 5 to 35 Celsius for anybody in one of the vast majority of countries not still using a nonsensical temperature scale.

5&#176C?

My new fridge is set to 5&#176C, so if the PS4's temperature can drop as low as 5&#176C, wouldn't there be a risk of condensation forming?

I know when I take a bottle of liquid out of my fridge in this summer heat, condensation almost immediately forms on the outside.

No, I think it's likely the operating temperature of the die that the CPU and GPU live on. There's also the fact air will constantly be flowing through the machine and the fact the temperature isn't going to very suddenly spike from 5 to 30.

It basically means there's a bloody good cooling system in it.

That makes a bit more sense, but I'm still a bit confused as to what the article is saying (and what it means by "operating temperature").

Is it taking about how much heat the PS4 will produce, or the ambient temperature of the environment that the PS4 is designed to operate within?

I know it seems dumb, but from what I've read elsewhere, there seems to be some confusion about what this article is stating and the definition of "operating temperature".

It's not very well worded and without more detail it's hrad to really tell. I'd wager it's a cool running chip, being AMD's new mobile architecture it's likely low power and has a low thermal output, because it's intended for laptops and even tablets and phones once scaled down.

I'd guess it's the temperature the chip operates at and they have a serious heatsink and some hefty fans in the machine, hopefully they aren't horribly loud in exchange. I could be totally wrong though, because there's no solid info on it.

Anybody email them and ask? Or asked Sony?

 

[The White Hunter]

All these news are good to read, but it's starting to sound like typed-word Escapist journalists are overhyping the PS4. Or Sony is just overreaching to please us.

I guess the latter is more the case. This is still the second day in a row a notably positive article about the PS4 came up here.

I think it's more of the later since the lead designer behind the PS4 is a 31 year gaming industry veteran who has quite the history on helping create and develop some iconic games.

OT: That's good that they are having it run cooler, but I wanna know how much power it'll consume when compared to the PS3 because I need to calculate how much the bill will go up later on.

Ok. Reading some of the comments it seems I'm not the only one confused a bit. Aren't operating temperatures the temperatures it is designed to work in. Like it's not designed to work in below freezing conditions or in direct sunlight on a hot day.

I just fail to see how it can run at 5 degrees Celsius without breaking the laws of thermodynamics

Obviously Sony has managed to find a way to have video game logic and physics work in our world and have designed their console to run on that logic. XD

Except for the fact that unless the CPU is actively using power at 100% efficiency and thus not putting out any heat it isn't violating a law at all...

It's an actively cooled system, energy is put into moving cooling elements such as fans.

It's a relatively simple task to get a CPU operating below the ambient temperature. (but for a performance part it requires some beastly cooling)

Edit: It just occured to me that these temperatures could be "above ambient" which would make more clear sense. Nothing is well explained here.

 

[Jamash]

I'm thoroughly confused as to exactly what this article is saying.

If "Operating Temperature" means the heat the PS4 produces while operating, then it's lowest operating tempertature of 41&#176F seems to suggest that the PS4 is a fridge.

However, if "Operating Temperature" means the ambient temperature of the room at which the PS4 is designed to operate within, then this statement:

According to the FCC, standard operating temperatures for a PlayStation 4 range from 41 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Compare that to the PlayStation 3 which was designed to operate in temperatures between 113 degrees and 131 degrees Fahrenheit.

seems to suggest the the PS3 is better than the PS4, since it can remain operational at higher temperatures, so while the PS3 will happily operate at a room temperature of 113&#176F, a PS4 would shut down in the same situation since that exceeds it's maximum standard operating temperature of 95&#176F.

Is the maximum operating temperature in which the PS4 can operate really lower than the minimum operating temperature of the PS3, meaning that the room in which your PS3 worked in would be too hot for the PS4?

 

[Darkness665]

Baby processors don't make much heat! Film at 11.

 

[Strazdas]

curse you stupid temerature measurement created by a maniac who though that optimal measure can be "my own body temperature".
Here i though they must be kidding with 40C drop, but turns out they were using the retarded rollecoaster. Yeah, its not hard to drop that when your using mobile phone processors you know.

I just fail to see how it can run at 5 degrees Celsius without breaking the laws of thermodynamics

Maybe it is cooled by liquid nitrogen? Which you have to replace every month because well duh.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Ditch the fans and heatsinks already, companies out there do make some impressive self contained liquid cooling units.

 

[Matthi205]

I've managed to get an AMD Athlon II X2 220 cooled down below room temperature at full load (and 14K below room temp in idle), so it's not really magic. It just asks for sufficient cooling measures - in my case a good fan and a Scythe Ninja 3 (though you've also pretty much got to have a bit of luck with your CPU, not getting one that was a X2 220 originally, but rather a deactivated because broken quad or hexacore CPU).

Are you sure your sensor wasn't misreading the CPU temperature? Electricity flowing generates heat, it doesn't take away from heat. You'd basically need something like a Freon based coolant system to go below room temperature.

The AMD tool's readings were suspicious, they were showing temps BELOW 280K/10`C. It was winter, but come on... that couldn't be true. So I looked up the mainboard sensors, and after testing with a thermometer inside the case it turns out they were more or less accurate. I was also using the PC case as a refrigerator at the time, so I assume that the temperature readings were indeed correct. The fan gave in a few months later, though, forcing me to run the system on passive cooling in the summer (yeah... I had no case fans). It got up to 65`C with an outside temperature of around 40`C. As I said already, I might've just hit an overclocking wonder (it takes a 1GHz overclock with only a 6-10K temperature increase and with a +50mV voltage increase to go over the "auto" setting in the BIOS).

Though my Ivy Bridge machine with only an i3 runs pretty hot even with the Silver Arrow. 33`C with a room temp of about 25, 28`C with all 3 fans set to "Jet Turbine", and about 60'C passive. It all depends on how lucky you are and how crappy the CPU mfg's design is.