Alienware no longer shipping high end gaming PCs to certain US States, citing new power consumption regulations

[Mister Woof]

Summary

Due to new power consumption regulations on consumer computer devices, Dell/Alienware isn't shipping certain high-end gaming PCs to select states. In December 2021, this will also apply to other devices such as high refresh gaming monitors.

 

Quotes

Quote

 Dell is no longer shipping energy-hungry gaming PCs to certain states in America because they demand more energy than local standards allow.

 

Customers seeking to purchase, for example, an Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 Gaming Desktop from Dell's website and have it shipped to California are now presented with a message that tells buyers they're out of luck.

 

"This product cannot be shipped to the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power consumption regulations adopted by those states," the website says. "Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled."

 

My thoughts

 

Updated: as more information has been discovered and revealed, I retract basically all my early assumptions. This isn't the States' issue. This is Dell/Alienware being slow to adapt to modern energy efficiency requirements that have been long coming.

 

 

Sources

 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theregister.com/AMP/2021/07/26/dell_energy_pcs/

[ImAlsoRan]

Law seems to include it under "computers with high-speed networking". Easy solution: ship network card separately

[Mister Woof]

On 7/26/2021 at 9:18 PM, ImAlsoRan said:

Law seems to include it under "computers with high-speed networking". Easy solution: ship network card separately

Just a little miffed. This is the THIRD hobby of mine California has nerfed.

 

I though for sure with silicon valley here tech was a safe bet. Boy was I wrong.

 

Edit: yeah, I WAS wrong. About this. This is a non-issue except for Dell.

[SimplyChunk]

Just now, Mister Woof said:

Just a little miffed. This is the THIRD hobby of mine California has nerfed.

What's that line from that GTA V in game ad?  The place that invented 'counter-culture' then morphed into a 'Nanny State'

[Mister Woof]

On 7/26/2021 at 9:25 PM, YouSirAreADudeSir said:

What's that line from that GTA V in game ad?  The place that invented 'counter-culture' then morphed into a 'Nanny State'

We've got 40 million people here, so I get it, but even the article states only 3% of the total energy expenditure is consumer PCs and monitors as a whole....high end gaming PCs are probably only a very very small fraction of that 3%.

 

There's better ways to address the power issue than banning gaming PCs.

 

Edit: And with that said, they aren't affecting gaming PCs. There are better ways, and they're doing some of it with this.

[SorryBella]

40 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

Due to new power consumption regulations on consumer computer devices, Dell/Alienware isn't shipping certain high-end gaming PCs to select states.

Does it says anything about kits though? Just make the customer assemble it themselves.

[Mister Woof]

1 minute ago, SorryClaire said:

Does it says anything about kits though? Just make the customer assemble it themselves.

Well that's the idea with normal DIY parts builds. But I don't know how to do that with monitors.

[Snail Jerky]

I read through most of the linked source article,  skimmed a few sentences here and there and didn't see anything about what happens.

 

Just curious about what the penalty is(I'm not from the US).  Is it confiscated, and you lose your money basically?  Or seller/buyer fined?

 

Is it specifically a business regulation(for companies)?  Like it is okay if say an individual was on vacation in another state and brought something back to their state with those regulations. So basically a huge inconvenience more than anything.  

[poochyena]

Wasn't there a new power supply standard or something that significantly reduced power usage?

Anything that pushes for lower idle power draw is good if you ask me. PCs are sooooo inefficient compared to laptops

[suicidalfranco]

About time states started to put energy restrictions on gamers. Now attack consoles please I Can't sleep at night when the co2 free world we so desire is being denied by those filthy gamers

Spoiler

/s

 

[Kisai]

5 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

About time states started to put energy restrictions on gamers. Now attack consoles please I Can't sleep at night when the co2 free world we so desire is being denied by those filthy gamers

  Reveal hidden contents

/s

 

Though the intent was sarcastic, you do have to realize that the upper limit in the US has always been 1500w (one 15A circuit.) One gaming PC is between 650 and 1000w, and a HTPC or Workstation with two or more GPU's can easily hit 1500w.

 

Now, as for "oh no-fun california" type of comments. These are the same states that implement green standards first, because they benefit everyone EAST of them. Remember Acid Rain? You know what industries did? They made the smokestacks taller so the pollution would be spread over a wider area. Acid rain in North America has collectively declined by about 75% since 1980 due to such green rules.

 

So why now? Why gaming PC's? 

 

https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/RITR-WEB-version-FINAL.pdf

 

Gaming PC's are collateral damage. This is being sped up by cryptomining, and various other energy-intensive computing, and we're seeing the beginnings of this problem in countries that had not moved swiftly enough to get on top of it, and now they're experiencing power cuts.

 

So by 2040, with no new generation capacity (Western North America's energy grid will be at less of a risk, but continent-wide there is very little room for new generation capacity without destroying some other resource in the process.)

 

Quote

For such devices manufactured after July 1, 2021, the kWh per year limit becomes 50, 60, and 75. The Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition model cited above lists [PDF] a short-idle energy consumption of 66.29 watts and 563.01 watts when stressed.

This is regarding the idle power use, not active, though I suppose PC's with no iGPU probably make that harder to hit, and liquid cooled models have a pump constantly running, and if businesses had to make a choice, they would just buy everyone laptop's that can hit that target.

 

This probably does not apply to DIY builds, at least not self-assembly builds, as no part in a DIY build independently will go over the power budget. 

 

[poochyena]

18 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

Now attack consoles please

I was actually surprised to see there are no such regulations on energy efficiency of consoles, there really should be.
source https://appliance-standards.org/product/game-consoles

and here is more info about this legislation regarding PCs https://appliance-standards.org/product/computers-and-computer-systems

[mariushm]

The Aurora systems are piece of shit.

GamersNexus did a review of them and they're crap systems in fancy cases.  

The motherboard has a weak VRM without heatsinks on it, the CPU is cooled by a cheap cooler with Intel mounting that's similar to Intel stock cooler in performance 

Then you have the big fans consuming lots of power trying to move air through the obstructions in the fancy case.

 

See the teardown below, it starts from around 4:30 

 

They could have made it more efficient with a better VRM on the motherboard and maybe a bit better power supply  - the 650w one they use is OEMed by Huntkey and is gold efficiency - they could have spent 10-20$ more and bundle it with a platinum one or something like that. 

 

Anyway, the regulations are tough, but not hard to achieve with a bit of extra cost.  The 12v0 power supplies make it easier to meet or exceed the requirements because they're more efficient. 

[Elisis]

49 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Wasn't there a new power supply standard or something that significantly reduced power usage?

Anything that pushes for lower idle power draw is good if you ask me. PCs are sooooo inefficient compared to laptops

ATX12VO will significantly decrease loss and therefore raise efficiency, and switching to e.g. burst operational modes and, if needed, bridgeless rectification can reduce standby/low load considerably, which is the main part targeted by the bill.

[TimeTrx]

Kind of a lurker here but.....

 

This feels similar to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations on vehicle emissions and pollution but instead of vehicles, they are forcing electrical standards on computers and components.
I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand I understand what they are trying to do, less electricity = less carbon emissions in theory. On the other there is so many other things they could do to lower electrical consumption and make more of a difference.

I also really don't understand the waiver for large companies, it should be the opposite put consumption restrictions on large and medium businesses/organizations and let consumers and small businesses have little to no restrictions, they aren't the ones using massive amounts of power.

 

A few questions I thought of while writing this:

1. Are manufacturers now going to try and always meet the California standards so that they don't have to sell multiple PC or component sub-models based on location now? i.e. Instead of having a California compliant computer and another one that is sold elsewhere, all computers made going forward in a few years will meet the standard?
2. Are people outside the state going to have to pay more now for PCs to meet these standards for California? And won't this limit supply more now that California has less variety of lets say PSUes?
3. Are they going to put an emphasis on lowering power consumption at the expense of performance, I was told when CARB introduced emissions standards on cars, the first few years after performance really suffered. Will computers follow that trend?
4. Doesn't software also contribute heavily to power consumption? Wouldn't a better solution be getting companies to use/write more efficient software or OSes?
5. I wonder if anyone will bench test the performance and the AC power consumption between the California compliant model and the regular model? Also could this effect voltages and current going through the system and create other issues say: increased coil whine, higher thermals because less power in given to fan motors, etc?

[Moonzy]

yikes, i guess this is good news if it push nvidia, AMD and intel to be less stupid with power hungry chips like those that they've been pushing out recently

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, Mister Woof said:

We've got 40 million people here, so I get it, but even the article states only 3% of the total energy expenditure is consumer PCs and monitors as a whole....high end gaming PCs are probably only a very very small fraction of that 3%.

 

There's better ways to address the power issue than banning gaming PCs.

Unfortunately its low hanging fruit which makes it a perfect target for a meaningless political gesture.

 

Instead of tacking things that will have a real impact (like industrial wastage for one) they'll ban gaming devices because option one is high profile, low cost and low effort where as making factories turn off lights, AC units and power down machines when not needed costs a fuck load of money, needs to be enforced by somebody and won't get the politicians name in the press.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

Unfortunately its low hanging fruit which makes it a perfect target for a meaningless political gesture.

 

Instead of tacking things that will have a real impact (like industrial wastage for one) they'll ban gaming devices because option one is high profile, low cost and low effort where as making factories turn off lights, AC units and power down machines when not needed costs a fuck load of money, needs to be enforced by somebody and won't get the politicians name in the press.

Nah, the problem with targeting industries, is that they employ a lot of people, where as targeting consumer goods that are seemed "discretionary" or luxury in the first place just makes them easier targets because more people have them and can't defend it.

 

Like let's say this energy efficiency rule was mandatory globally. Do you think we'd see a 25% reduction in energy overnight? No we wouldn't. There are still businesses using hardware they bought between 2010 and 2015 out there, which is much less efficient. At an industrial level, there may still be industrial appliances that were bought in the 40's in operation because they still work, despite being energy inefficient.

 

*place joke about some place still using punch cards*

 

 https://www.wecc.org/Reliability/2016 SOTI Final.pdf , California imports significant amounts of energy all year.

 

 

 

 

So if we start seeing mostly EV vehicles by 2030, and all-EV car/light-truck vehicles by 2040, then that energy has to come from somewhere. You can only berate the consumer so much about conserving miniscule amounts of energy before you have to seriously consider new generation sources (solar and wind California, off-shore Wind for everything north of California) , and you can't just tell people to stop using their less-efficient stuff overnight.

 

[Blademaster91]

4 hours ago, Mister Woof said:

Well that's the idea with normal DIY parts builds. But I don't know how to do that with monitors.

I'd be curious if Dell could just sell the power and display cable separately, that would be the easiest way around it.

But i think it would be a lot better if California went after companies selling disposable PC's with soldered in everything, or desktops with non-standard connectors and motherboards because the waste those make is a lot worse than a gaming PC using a few more watts.

[RejZoR]

5 hours ago, Mister Woof said:

We've got 40 million people here, so I get it, but even the article states only 3% of the total energy expenditure is consumer PCs and monitors as a whole....high end gaming PCs are probably only a very very small fraction of that 3%.

 

There's better ways to address the power issue than banning gaming PCs.

Meanwhile miners burning literal coal to make power just to spin absolutely useless numbers that make money, but you can't have a high end gaming PC because it's "consuming too much power". Logic.

[YoungBlade]

At idle, PCs without ATX12VO PSUs still consume only about as much as a conventional lightbulb. For the average consumer, the total bill for lighting a house is easily going to be higher than the bill for a PC. I'm sure most of us here have all jumped on the LED bandwagon, but unfortunately, not everyone has. If someone hasn't replaced all their light bulbs with LEDs or CFLs, the energy consumption for lighting the house is huge. My room has 4 lightbulbs, each is 11W (44W total). They were conventional before I replaced them, each using 75W (300W), so the previous owners would be a good example of the folks I'm talking about. A single room, sucking back 300W when in use, just for the lighting.

 

Forcing the sale of LED bulbs over incandescent at least makes sense from a "we need to save energy" perspective. Yes, LEDs are most expensive on first purchase, but they save a ton of money in the long run. That switch gives a meaningful savings on energy for functionally no difference to the consumer. In fact, it's basically all benefit.

 

However, a high-end PC is functionally different from a low-end one. Not just for gaming, but also for productivity. If someone is buying an Aurora system to do actual work (God help them, but it has happened) then they can't just downgrade to a lower power consumption model and expect to work efficiently. And actually, such computers can end up being less efficient, because their lower-grade components have to operate for longer in order to produce the same output. If a CPU uses 65W and takes an hour to render a video, while another CPU uses 105W and takes 30 minutes, the higher power one actually used less power overall.

 

This seems like another example of politicians trying to solve a problem without consulting people who actually know anything about what they're regulating.

[StDragon]

The solution is to put solar panels around the PC case. Duh! 

 

For those not living in the US, the fact the State of California was mentioned says it all. They take what otherwise are sensible ideas and turn it way past 11 into absurdity!

 

Do they put cancer warnings on keyboards in Cali (Prop 65)? 

[Master Disaster]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

Nah, the problem with targeting industries, is that they employ a lot of people, where as targeting consumer goods that are seemed "discretionary" or luxury in the first place just makes them easier targets because more people have them and can't defend it.

 

Like let's say this energy efficiency rule was mandatory globally. Do you think we'd see a 25% reduction in energy overnight? No we wouldn't. There are still businesses using hardware they bought between 2010 and 2015 out there, which is much less efficient. At an industrial level, there may still be industrial appliances that were bought in the 40's in operation because they still work, despite being energy inefficient.

 

*place joke about some place still using punch cards*

 

 https://www.wecc.org/Reliability/2016 SOTI Final.pdf , California imports significant amounts of energy all year.

 

So if we start seeing mostly EV vehicles by 2030, and all-EV car/light-truck vehicles by 2040, then that energy has to come from somewhere. You can only berate the consumer so much about conserving miniscule amounts of energy before you have to seriously consider new generation sources (solar and wind California, off-shore Wind for everything north of California) , and you can't just tell people to stop using their less-efficient stuff overnight.

 

Oh I totally agree however I think we're discussing different points.

 

You don't have to upgrade anything to do basic stuff like turning off the lights in places where nobody is working, turning off the heating in Summer or the AC in Winter, shutting down equipment while its not in use and at the end of the day, enforcing those policies would be way more efficient than stopping gamers from buying high refresh displays.

 

When I said meaningless I didn't mean it would have no effect or use, only that, for the politicians its the path of least resistance. Its about them trying to look like they care when in fact, as long as the pay cheques keep rolling in they really don't.

 

Also yet again, home consumers get punished for something that's mostly the fault of big business and industry.

 

I wonder if this would explain why Dell are so eager to get 12V PSUs onto the market? Maybe they can get away with selling more powerful peripherals if the PSU is so high efficiency?

[RejZoR]

It's gonna be fun when cars being charged en mass by public start drawing huge wattages from networks. Currently it's few users sprinkled around. When there will be millions of EV's actively charging at the same time, then that will be fun...

[CarlBar]

Okay dug into the article because the thread seemed desperately low on the info of what the regulation actually bans. It's specifically about how a computer must meet a certain maximum power use under certain low power conditions, (two different idle states, sleep, and hibernate are specified). The regulation doesn't from what i can see in the article limit peak power consumption under high load. It's the idle power state values the Dell systems are unable to meet.

 

Not sure how the idle values are measured but i suspect from some recent power monitors i dropped on my PC that my system, (2700X, 2080Ti), would more than double the allowed values and i have a titanium rated PSU. This isn't as simple as weak PSU's. Depending on the system configuration it may be physically impossible to met the standard with some current hardware configurations.

 

Makes Intel's desktop Big-Little approach make a lot more sense, i assume AMD is aware of this and also taking steps.