High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States
nichegamer.com
nichegamer.com
The top comment explains why this is probably a good thing.
...I feel like this topic is oddly confusing.
Personally I think that's good. Replies that agree rarely add new information, but they drown out other more informative comments and can create an echo chamber.
There's some uncertainty with various forms of idle and sleep but that's a much smaller worry.
For more see:
> They list consoles with taking a bulk of the emissions at 66%, and desktop computers at 31%. In spite of this, consoles are seemingly exempt from the bill.
My guess is the exemption is to tend to corporate interests? Absurd.
This bill does nothing to target Bitcoin mining (these people custom-build machines anyway).
Thoughtless bill through-and-through.
Perhaps this will make more kids build their own PCs, and thus fall in love with computing. Pointless hurdles like this kickstart a hacker's journey. A silver lining at last.
Its a law about how much energy PCs can use. Consoles aren't exempt; they're just not PCs.
They'd probably be allowed anyway because the law is about how much energy is used when the machine is idle, and consoles are pretty efficient when they're not doing much.
I don't understand what distinction you're making -- the Earth is getting polluted all the same. It's still an exemption.
Consoles would likely still be allowed -- but that's more fair and future-proof.
That's not how laws work. For something to be exempt there would need to be a clause that specifically states "Consoles can pollute as much as they like". There isn't such a clause.
Saying they're exempt is like saying cars are exempt from the EPA's Cleaner Trucks Initiative (https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engin...). They're not exempt, they're just not trucks.
Under the hood consoles use the same chips and technologies as PCs and so do servers.
Does it? If the other comment is to be believed, this law bans high end PCs which use more than 11W while in sleep mode. This is an absurd amount of power to draw. Most devices use less than 1W in sleep mode. Using so much power shows extremely inefficient design.
If this law can cause companies to fix their buggy firmware this could result in a massive power savings with virtually no effect to consumers since these devices never should have been using so much power anyway.
There is nothing stopping me from buying a PC and running it on my own off grid solution.
If the power companies don't like my power consumption, they should simply implement solutions on their end, like charging me more money proportional to my usage.
You have x energy credits as part of the package, if you don't want to pay over that then your energy will, of course, be throttled.
However from December 2021, "computers with high-speed networking capability, multi-screen notebooks, notebooks with cyclical behavior, and monitors with high refresh rates" will be covered by the rules" under tier 2 requirements.
That is ridiculous.
What's high speed?
10mbps was high speed once, then it got obsolete. Now 1Gbps is standard, and while it's not lightning fast, it can be considered fast.
10Gbps ethernet is becoming bog standard in our servers, and they'll trickle down to consumers systems then.
What's next? MIMO wireless adapters?
Few PCs draw much power when idle. A dual-monitor flat screen setup probably draws more than most idle computers (but yet not in power saving state).
If you want to disable core parking when not idle, that's fine, but it wouldn't even affect the measurements taken by this law.
I was asking how it was determined, but it seems you read half of a proper explanation?
Idle PCs consume roughly 0% of the country's energy. If they wanna reduce it anyway, they should put an energy star sticker on computers so people can save money with more efficient machines.
WOL and similar features do not change power consumption and this is not where the listed PC's fail. They fail on idle/standby power consumption and to be clear - there is NO reason they have to. Similar spec'd PC's can be purchased that meet these requirements.
I'm sure similar PCs meet the requirements, and I'm also sure they're more expensive on average because they are newer. Too bad consumers are not allowed to make choises for themselves.
This law will get mobo vendors to fix their products causing power savings world wide.
Would leaving the state explicitly to purchase a high powered gaming PC be illegal? A federal crime?
This just feels nominal and designed to send a message, but I genuinely don't understand that message. Gaming is bad because it hurts the environment? That's not right...
So many questions, and I'm suspecting there are fewer answers.
This law is stupid, a single EV recharge consumes 100x more than a HPC every single second.
If we can legislate less environmentally harmful ways of doing commerce, why can't we legislate less environmentally harmful forms of entertainment? This is simply the logical conclusion of that line of reasoning.
I would imagine kids that are exposed to violent video games at an early age may not understand it initially. It's very possible they will emulate it. But continuous exposure to it will help a smart kid understand and control it.
RTX 3080 consumes 250W when mining, so it would hit those limits in 10 days?
https://www.wired.com/story/xbox-playstation-cloud-gaming-en... https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/11/video-games-...
We need to ban gaming if we want to solve the climate emergency.
- Low quality parts
- Bad build quality
- Incompatible & proprietary motherboards, coolers and power supplies
- Bizarre part choices, like severely underpowered cooling and power delivery or using just 1 stick of RAM when 2 sticks would be significantly faster with about the same amount of money
- Windows installation filled with unwanted software and/or outright malware, like McAfee, which can have a double-digit % effect on game performance.
- The purchase process can involve dark patterns, like cleverly hidden support contracts with a monthly fee
The PC hardware channel Gamers Nexus has been reviewing prebuilt systems for past few months [1]. None of the reviewed computers have been great, and the ones from big manufacturers (namely Dell and Alienware) have been the worst of the bunch.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsuVSmND84QuM2HKzG7ip...
But also critically the people buying pre-builts are obviously not interested in doing it themselves. That is why the market exists, right? So like its fun for more serious people to dunk on them in Youtube videos or whatever but I think its something pretty overblown.
Also if you're really willing to spend some money, there are plenty of Boutique vendors (Falcon Northwest) that will gladly sell you a capable and well-built computer.
Pointless vote-grabbing bills are pushed to get headlines and signal the lawmakers virtuosity. Makes me think of the plastic bag "tax" in LA.
Like, serious question. I didn't do it until I had to but I can fit more crap in my own bags, and they're not going to break on me when I carry them up the stairs. Its kind of just better.
The amount of carbon dioxide I exhale from being a living human while shopping is roughly the same as the shopping bags would emit if I burned them when I got home from the store. (which is much much less than if I drive even a short distance to the store)
The plastic in the supply chain getting things to the store is of ridiculously larger magnitude.
I reuse a fraction of the bags I get for various extra jobs usually revolving around waste or odds and ends uses which I otherwise would have to purchase bags for specifically.
In short, bringing my own bags is usually more of a hassle (though I do on occasion for one reason or another) and by every metric I can think of, not using disposable plastic bags is a meaningless gesture.
I’d understand if that’s the viewpoint but this sounds a bit contrived. I find bringing my bags is same or less effort as dealing with the ones I have to get rid of at the end of the trip plus the tax included. And I hate throwing away things that are single use when I could easily use something that doesn’t have that lifecycle.
The bigger problem is attempting to modify behavior through an open market by way of legislation. As opposed to using legislation to prevent damaging behavior directly.
Also, is there any data that backs this? Like what % of total grid load goes to such PCs?
Wait, what about people who already own the high end gaming pc?
What about air conditioning, heaters, houses without insulation…. All banned?