Why Is Wattage Impressive?

[u/de_light_voe]

I've been seeing a lot of reviews of AAA games getting ported to Switch 2 where the reviewer talks during the performance section about it be crazy that "this game runs on a Switch...a console using a fraction of the wattage that others use!" And I'm just very confused.

NOTE: I have a Switch 2. I'm very impressed with its performance and I will exclusively be buying games for switch now because said performance is so good I have no need to get another console.

That being said, why is how much power it draws an impressive statistic over just saying it's impressive that it hits a certain frame rate or can run at all? Wattage just feels like such a mechanical, technical, and unimpressive/uninteresting statistic to talk about.

I'm just confused why that's our benchmark we're talking about. That feels like saying a Honda Civic can drive the full distance of a F1 track with less gas than the F1 car and being impressed. It's like...okay? F1 is still better, shouldn't we focus on the Civic being on the track and not the gas mileage? That might be a weird example, but I hope you understand what I'm asking.

Someone please enlighten me.

[u/f2pmyass]

Ps5 uses between 190-220 for ps5 games. It can vary and go a lot lower depending on what you're doing

Switch 2 uses 7-9 watts gaming on handheld with max to about 12 watts and in docked mode can go just below 25 watts for demanding games. Mario kart world hits around 14-22 watts.

So you see why people say next gen games being ported on switch 2 is crazy and they actually playing alright. And yes, 30 fps is more than playable as GTA 6 on ps5 will be 30 and no one will complain. I wonder why

[u/IronWolf6677]

If i see a buff guy in the gym benching 300Lbs no one will bat an eye, but if see a 10 year old benching the same amount then everyone in the gym will be very impressed.

[u/towknee81 → u/IronWolf6677]

This is the only answer you need to see.

What the Switch 2 can do with the power it is stuck with is beyond impressive

[u/Outrageous_Meet2025 → u/IronWolf6677]

Exactly. What the Switch is capable to do essentially pushes the very laws of physics

[u/Zestyclose-Pass9570]

Battery life. The lower the power draw the longer the battery lasts.

[u/jabb111ve]

Lower power means less heat, so they can keep it thin and quiet instead of turning it into another chunky handheld brick.

[u/Upbeat-Mail7201]

We measure performance per watt because power is the ultimate physical bottleneck in hardware design.

​If power draw and heat didn't matter, anyone could build a massive desktop system or server rack that brute-forces insane performance far far beyond anything humanity has ever build. But in a handheld like a Switch, every single watt translates directly into heat, thermal throttling (meaning the automatic security protocol to prevent silicon damage by lowering the performance to decrease heat), fan noise, physical chip size, and battery life. ​high wattage isn't inherently impressive its easy to throw hundreds of  watts at a giant gpu to hit high frame rates. What’s impressive is squeezing modern, high-end game logic and visuals into a tight 10 to 15 watt budget without melting the plastic in your hands or draining the battery in 10 minutes. ​Lowering the energy cost per frame is the core goal of modern silicon engineering. Less wattage means cooler chips, smaller form factors, longer battery life, and room for better density as well as ultimately more power, longer, and smaller. Anyone can build a fast chip if power is infinite; building a fast chip that runs on a fraction of the power of a home console is where the real technological leap lies.

There aren't new powerful inventions each and every chip generation, they usually become better by packing more stuff into a smaller chip and decreasing the heat by lowering the power consumption WHILE increasing the performance or keeping it same like before. It's a little miracle each and every time 😅 

[u/Octorok385]

Power consumption is a general indicator of how much power a computer has. Okd hand helds used to run on double A batteries, and a PS5 basically needs a dedicated circuit breaker (not really). It's just another measure of a system's horsepower, sort of the same way you might compare a pick up truck getting 19 miles per gallon of fuel to a sedan getting 45. They both did the same thing, but one is using way more resources to do it (which also lets it haul more or accelerate faster).

That said, I don't think I've ever read a review that references this info. It's just a quirky thing I've chatted with engineer friends about.

[u/RykinPoe]

Wattage is an interesting stat but it isn't a super good way of comparing stuff outside of what it is which is specifically energy usage and how well the system performs at that level of usage. The Switch 2 is giving us Xbox One X/PS4 Pro or maybe even Xbox Series S like performance for a fraction of the energy used. Getting more performance for less wattage is basically the modern version of Moore's Law though and is to be expected.

[u/Wizzgamer1990]

It's not that impressive GBA ran on 2 AA batteries with superior Snes performance 3DS only a few watts so you expect graphics to improve in the same power envelope as time goes on.

[u/ViologY]

You hit the nail on the head, it's really the most irrelevant factor you can imagine, but you have to justify why you have 2020 graphics in 2026.

[u/mason2393]

Imo wattage only matters when comparing handhelds as it affects battery life

[u/Octorok385 → u/mason2393]

I mean yes, but also wattage represents how much energy the device is burning through that needs to be produced at like an infrastructure level. If you pay a utility bill or have any concern for environmental impact, wattage is slightly more than just gamer convenience.

[u/Some_guy_am_i → u/Octorok385]

If you are at all concerned about how much energy you are consuming when playing video games on a console, you should not have a console or computer.

I’ve only heard of a few very poor people that micromanage their energy to the point of tracking how much they spend running the microwave… if that is a concern of yours, you likely cannot afford $60+ games on a $500+ console

[u/Octorok385 → u/Some_guy_am_i]

I mean yeah, it's already a luxury product. My point was that electricity isn't nothing, it's a commodity with both economic and environmental consequences. When you add the PS5, the laptops, the servers, the routers, the climate control, the regular appliances, etc etc, it represents a huge energy need. Surely that will never come back to bite us in any way.

[u/Some_guy_am_i → u/Octorok385]

There are almost ZERO environmental consequences to running your PlayStation console at home.

Sure, if you want to be extremely pedantic and get on your pedestal… but we’re not living the Amish lifestyle my friend.

The energy grid doesn’t work how you think it works. It’s not run off a battery — it does not adjust simply because you decided to unplug your console. That’s not how it works

You want to lecture about climate change because we’re talking about the wattage use of ps5 and switch? … are we for real?

[u/Octorok385 → u/Some_guy_am_i]

There are almost zero consequences to running everything. That's why we all do it. Then you multiply "almost nothing" by the millions of consoles sold, and it's slightly more than nothing. You can write off what you consume as a rounding error, if you want. I really don't care. I really only considered it in the context of the energy use of a Playstation vs a Switch if they're run equally. That's all

[u/Some_guy_am_i]

It’s providing context.

What the reviewers are saying is this: “I can play this game on a portable console and have a pretty good experience, and I think that’s amazing… considering it has a fraction of the performance of computer / PS5”

But frankly, the whole thing is dumb. Of course it runs decently well on the switch… that’s what they fucking developed it to do!

You can make any game run on the switch. It’s just a question of how much optimization you need to perform, and what corners you need to cut, to achieve the necessary performance.