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How Many Watts Does a PS5 Use? (PS5 Wattage Test)

Cornwall Solar Company

On this page, you will find out how many watts a PS5 draws.

The PS5 is awesome! There’s so much power inside. I’ve got to say I’m super impressed with how fast it runs big games. Boring loading screens seem like a thing of the past and the graphics are unreal. She’s a big console though, far chunkier than the predecessors. With all that size and performance, you have to wonder about the power consumption, don’t you? Gaming might not be so fun when the electricity bill arrives, and could you dare to dream about playing in an RV…

Below we will discuss and test PS5 wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.


How Many Watts is a PlayStation 5?

The PS5 maximum power rating is 350 watts but the console actually uses between 100 to 200 watts when playing games.

The exact power consumption depends on the game you’re playing or the function you are using. 

For example, running a high-end game like Horizon Forbidden West uses nearly 200W, while playing a less demanding game like Battlefield 4 uses 100W.

You’ll use even less power, around 55W, to stream Netflix or Amazon Prime.

The reason for this difference in power consumption is down to how hard the computer is working. Naturally, the internal GPU and CPU will be working hardest to run the most intensive modern games. Whereas it’s much less work for it to run older titles from previous console generations. Adding to this, at higher running wattages the console will run its cooling system and fans at higher speed to dissipate heat.

You should also be aware that your PS5 uses 0.4W in standby mode and upto 7W in rest mode.


How to Find Out Your PS5 Wattage

There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a PS5.

  1. Check Product Specification

The quickest way is to look at the PlayStations 5’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or Sony’s website for technical details.

PS5 power spec
  1. Use a Wattmeter

A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your PS5 to get instant information. 

I used one to test my PS5 which gave a live reading of 190W when playing Horizon Forbidden West.

PS5 wattage test showing 190W
  1. Wattage Formula or Calculator

If you know the amperage and voltage of your PS5 you can use this to find the maximum watt rating. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.


PS5 Power Consumption Test


How Much Electricity Does a PS5 Use?

You can use PS5 wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your PS5.

A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a PS5 drawing 200W would use 200Wh when running for an hour.

Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 200W PS5 running for 1 hour uses 0.2kWh.

In reality, you play games on a PS5 for 2 hours a day. This means a console uses upto around 400Wh or 0.4kWh electricity a day. That’s 12kWh a month and 144kWh a year. 

That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.06 a day or $22 a year to play high end games for 2 hours every day.


Using a PS5 Off-Grid

If you’re planning to use your PS5 in an off-grid situation, like a power outage or RV, the information above is important. It enables you to select the correct size power equipment and work out the run time.

You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to produce the required AC electricity. 

To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity. 

Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your PS5. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To play next gen video games, you will need at least 400W power capacity. This will give you enough to run your console and a large HD TV without overloading your equipment.

Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the PS5 for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use upto 200Wh electricity every hour. This is the equivalent to 16.6Ah on a 12V battery.


How Many Watts Does a PS5 Use Summary

I hope you now clearly understand how many watts a PS5 uses.

With such awesome performance and speed, the overall power consumption of the PlayStation 5 is surprisingly good. It’s certainly no worse than the PS3 or PS4. You won’t notice too much difference in your electric usage when upgrading to the latest console. Plus it’s certainly possible to hook up a power inverter portable power station to do some off-grid gaming.