7 ms·

US States Banning Gaming PCs? Here's What's Going On

32 points by anticensor 5y ago

chmod775 5y ago
Here's some perspective: If every single person in the US ran a computer consuming 100W on idle for an entire year, that would add up to around 300 terawatt hours, or about one tenth of the US' electricity consumption that year.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  Is that perspective? Refrigerators use like 200-300W an hour, and every family has one of those. And computers sleep when not in use. Should we prohibit more than one fridge per household?
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    Refrigerators had this kind of regulation applied to them decades ago, which is why they only use a restively necessary amount of power instead of the nightmare of waste that they used to be.
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      *relatively
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    This budget-brand fridge averages 17W over a year of use, and it only manages an "F" rating for energy use. The EU regulated refrigerator power use decades ago. https://www.beko.co.uk/tall-larder-fridge-lsp3671d-black-silver-white https://www.beko.co.uk/tall-larder-fridge-lsp3671d-black-sil...
  - brnt 5y ago
    Our house uses about 4-5 kWh/day (excl. heating). Other than making sure we replace broken appliances with power efficient ones, we have not made any particular effort.
  - errantspark 5y ago
    You're using the wrong units and you're off by more than an order of magnitude. A decent large fridge will use like 500Wh/day.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- teruakohatu 5y ago
  That is an exaggeration. Computers sleeping with 11.5w of power draw are banned (100kw/y depending on configuration), not 100w. That is more or less pushing a high end graphics card for 20 minutes. So a drop in the bucket for a workstation or gaming pc. But regardless I agree these regulations are a good thing. These computers should be shipped in a low power configuration.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    It's not like all the banned computers are barely over the threshold of ~10 watts. A lot of them using 50-100 watts to idle.
  - chmod775 5y ago
    > Computers sleeping with 11.5w "Sleeping" is not the same as idle. > Computers sleeping with 11.5w of power draw are banned (100kw/y depending on configuration), not 100w. That is more or less pushing a high end graphics card for 20 minutes. So a drop in the bucket for a workstation or gaming pc. Even assuming those units are watt hours, I have no idea where you're going with this. Specifically the second sentence. What is a drop in the bucket for a workstation or gaming pc? Is what the power draw during sleep compared to total power draw, or are you comparing some of the other quantities you brought up? > But regardless I agree these regulations are a good thing. That's not what I was trying to say or did say. My post was supposed to give people an idea of the general magnitude we're dealing with.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
shrike 5y ago
Good reference - https://processormatch.intel.com/Resources/Program%20for%20CEC%20Friendly%20MB%20Guidelines%20June%202020%20Public.pdf https://processormatch.intel.com/Resources/Program%20for%20C... The regulations seem reasonable. They are limited to regulating the amount of power used while desktop systems are at idle, not while "in use". They take into account the potential for accessories to be added by the end user, the "Expandability Score". This means "bigger" computers can consume more power at idle. The CEC defines 4 idle states; short-idle, long-idle, sleep and off. Each state is well defined - * Short Idle is system in S0 state, display on, no applications loaded or running, after a fresh re-boot. * Long Idle is the same as Short Idle except the screen is off. * Sleep is Power State S3 (or equivalent if the system doesn't directly implement S3). The regulations also specify the required default timeouts for transitioning between idle states, e.g. the screen should be turned off after 10 minutes without user input, it should enter S3 after 15, etc. These don't apply if the system ships without an OS installed, they explicitly say that an end-user is free to change the defaults.
- nradov 5y ago
  There's nothing reasonable about these regulations. If we want people to use less electricity then raise taxes on electricity and the free market will sort it out. Power is fungible.
  - mr_toad 5y ago
    They probably wasted more energy while drafting these laws than they’re going to save.
  - bko 5y ago
    Taking a step back, I don't see how we got from a government's role is to protect citizens from foreign invasion to determining what kind of computers gamers can buy through some byzantine energy scoring system. If you mentioned this as a possibility ten or twenty years ago as a slippery slope argument, most people would have thought you're crazy.
    - 5y ago
908B64B197 5y ago
What's interesting is that, depending on how a house is heated and how power is generated in an area, having a low power PC might be worse for the environment. I'm thinking older houses heated with natural gas but where electricity is mostly supplied by renewables. In this case, it's better to heat less and have the PC act as a heater, that performs computations as a side effect!
- sideshowb 5y ago
  But better still to get a more efficient pc and a heat pump
jeffchien 5y ago
For actual numbers motivating this change, refer to [0]: > Systems used for computer gaming in California consumed 4.1 terawatt-hours/year in 2016 or $700 million in energy bills, with emissions of 1.5 million tons carbon dioxide-equivalent allocated 66 percent to consoles, 31 percent to desktop personal computers, 3 percent to laptops, and less than 1 percent to emerging media streaming devices. [0] https://www.energy.ca.gov/publications/2019/plug-loads-game-changer-computer-gaming-energy-efficiency-without-performance https://www.energy.ca.gov/publications/2019/plug-loads-game-...
GhostVII 5y ago
I really wish the government would just let me make my own decisions about how I spend my money... If I want to buy a car that gets bad mileage and an inefficient computer, let me do that. Just make me pay for the negative externalities of that. Maybe make some optional "energy efficient" certification so if people want to, they can buy a more efficient computer.
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  It might be your money but it’s not your planet- we have to share an atmosphere after all. The negative externalities effect us all, and you can’t really buy a spare ozone layer.
  - GhostVII 5y ago
    That's why I think people should pay for their negative externalities - it doesn't matter if someone emits a tonne of CO2 if they pay enough to fund more clean energy (for example). Some kind of cap and trade system would allow us to specify exactly how much emissions we are OK with each year, and let's people who want to emit more do so if they pay for it.
    - b0tzzzzzzman 5y ago
      I have seen many different factories, running many processes. The main thought I always have is, how much power is being consumed here? They have 100s of 500w to 1000w lights alone. It is not the end consumer running consumer grade PCs who is killing the planet. How much energy, toxic byproducts, and external third party impacts are being produced to make any electronics? Micro$oft preeches about the planet, yet just made so much hardware obsolete with the Draconian Win11 plan. List goes on and on..
    - gregable 5y ago
      Unfortunately it's never that easy. Should you be able to blast music at high volume outdoors if you pay a nuisance tax? If your wood burning stove heater makes the nearby aqi shoot up, is that ok if you pay for someone else to upgrade to a efficient furnace? What about embedded manufacturing energy? Should the government not only tax CO2 within it's borders but also somehow audit CO2 for the entire supply chain? If not, some nation will make the call that fossil fuel burning is an externality that they can avoid paying. Let's also admit that none of us can build an computer or a car from raw materials. Even if you would pay a premium for an efficient machine, most consumers don't understand what the future energy costs to them are going to be, will not demand efficiency, and thus suppliers will not build it. Apartments are rarely well insulated because the renters are rarely willing to pay more in rent to save more on energy costs. As much as we'd like everyone to make rational decisions about complex transactions, most people will not. Im not arguing for stupidity even. At the level of the individual, the savings available by analyzing the options are smaller than the cost of the analysis. Its not worth much of my research time save $1 / yr in extra power efficiency. But across an industry it is.

32 points by anticensor 5y ago

Here's some perspective: If every single person in the US ran a computer consuming 100W on idle for an entire year, that would add up to around 300 terawatt hours, or about one tenth of the US' electricity consumption that year.

thatguy0900 5y ago
Is that perspective? Refrigerators use like 200-300W an hour, and every family has one of those. And computers sleep when not in use. Should we prohibit more than one fridge per household?
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  Refrigerators had this kind of regulation applied to them decades ago, which is why they only use a restively necessary amount of power instead of the nightmare of waste that they used to be.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    *relatively
- Symbiote 5y ago
  This budget-brand fridge averages 17W over a year of use, and it only manages an "F" rating for energy use. The EU regulated refrigerator power use decades ago. https://www.beko.co.uk/tall-larder-fridge-lsp3671d-black-silver-white https://www.beko.co.uk/tall-larder-fridge-lsp3671d-black-sil...
- brnt 5y ago
  Our house uses about 4-5 kWh/day (excl. heating). Other than making sure we replace broken appliances with power efficient ones, we have not made any particular effort.
- errantspark 5y ago
  You're using the wrong units and you're off by more than an order of magnitude. A decent large fridge will use like 500Wh/day.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
teruakohatu 5y ago
That is an exaggeration. Computers sleeping with 11.5w of power draw are banned (100kw/y depending on configuration), not 100w. That is more or less pushing a high end graphics card for 20 minutes. So a drop in the bucket for a workstation or gaming pc. But regardless I agree these regulations are a good thing. These computers should be shipped in a low power configuration.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  It's not like all the banned computers are barely over the threshold of ~10 watts. A lot of them using 50-100 watts to idle.
- chmod775 5y ago
  > Computers sleeping with 11.5w "Sleeping" is not the same as idle. > Computers sleeping with 11.5w of power draw are banned (100kw/y depending on configuration), not 100w. That is more or less pushing a high end graphics card for 20 minutes. So a drop in the bucket for a workstation or gaming pc. Even assuming those units are watt hours, I have no idea where you're going with this. Specifically the second sentence. What is a drop in the bucket for a workstation or gaming pc? Is what the power draw during sleep compared to total power draw, or are you comparing some of the other quantities you brought up? > But regardless I agree these regulations are a good thing. That's not what I was trying to say or did say. My post was supposed to give people an idea of the general magnitude we're dealing with.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

shrike 5y ago

Good reference - https://processormatch.intel.com/Resources/Program%20for%20CEC%20Friendly%20MB%20Guidelines%20June%202020%20Public.pdf https://processormatch.intel.com/Resources/Program%20for%20C... The regulations seem reasonable. They are limited to regulating the amount of power used while desktop systems are at idle, not while "in use". They take into account the potential for accessories to be added by the end user, the "Expandability Score". This means "bigger" computers can consume more power at idle. The CEC defines 4 idle states; short-idle, long-idle, sleep and off. Each state is well defined - * Short Idle is system in S0 state, display on, no applications loaded or running, after a fresh re-boot. * Long Idle is the same as Short Idle except the screen is off. * Sleep is Power State S3 (or equivalent if the system doesn't directly implement S3). The regulations also specify the required default timeouts for transitioning between idle states, e.g. the screen should be turned off after 10 minutes without user input, it should enter S3 after 15, etc. These don't apply if the system ships without an OS installed, they explicitly say that an end-user is free to change the defaults.

nradov 5y ago
There's nothing reasonable about these regulations. If we want people to use less electricity then raise taxes on electricity and the free market will sort it out. Power is fungible.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  They probably wasted more energy while drafting these laws than they’re going to save.
- bko 5y ago
  Taking a step back, I don't see how we got from a government's role is to protect citizens from foreign invasion to determining what kind of computers gamers can buy through some byzantine energy scoring system. If you mentioned this as a possibility ten or twenty years ago as a slippery slope argument, most people would have thought you're crazy.
  - 5y ago

908B64B197 5y ago

What's interesting is that, depending on how a house is heated and how power is generated in an area, having a low power PC might be worse for the environment. I'm thinking older houses heated with natural gas but where electricity is mostly supplied by renewables. In this case, it's better to heat less and have the PC act as a heater, that performs computations as a side effect!

sideshowb 5y ago
But better still to get a more efficient pc and a heat pump

jeffchien 5y ago

For actual numbers motivating this change, refer to [0]: > Systems used for computer gaming in California consumed 4.1 terawatt-hours/year in 2016 or $700 million in energy bills, with emissions of 1.5 million tons carbon dioxide-equivalent allocated 66 percent to consoles, 31 percent to desktop personal computers, 3 percent to laptops, and less than 1 percent to emerging media streaming devices. [0] https://www.energy.ca.gov/publications/2019/plug-loads-game-changer-computer-gaming-energy-efficiency-without-performance https://www.energy.ca.gov/publications/2019/plug-loads-game-...

GhostVII 5y ago

I really wish the government would just let me make my own decisions about how I spend my money... If I want to buy a car that gets bad mileage and an inefficient computer, let me do that. Just make me pay for the negative externalities of that. Maybe make some optional "energy efficient" certification so if people want to, they can buy a more efficient computer.

FractalHQ 5y ago
It might be your money but it’s not your planet- we have to share an atmosphere after all. The negative externalities effect us all, and you can’t really buy a spare ozone layer.
- GhostVII 5y ago
  That's why I think people should pay for their negative externalities - it doesn't matter if someone emits a tonne of CO2 if they pay enough to fund more clean energy (for example). Some kind of cap and trade system would allow us to specify exactly how much emissions we are OK with each year, and let's people who want to emit more do so if they pay for it.
  - b0tzzzzzzman 5y ago
    I have seen many different factories, running many processes. The main thought I always have is, how much power is being consumed here? They have 100s of 500w to 1000w lights alone. It is not the end consumer running consumer grade PCs who is killing the planet. How much energy, toxic byproducts, and external third party impacts are being produced to make any electronics? Micro$oft preeches about the planet, yet just made so much hardware obsolete with the Draconian Win11 plan. List goes on and on..
  - gregable 5y ago
    Unfortunately it's never that easy. Should you be able to blast music at high volume outdoors if you pay a nuisance tax? If your wood burning stove heater makes the nearby aqi shoot up, is that ok if you pay for someone else to upgrade to a efficient furnace? What about embedded manufacturing energy? Should the government not only tax CO2 within it's borders but also somehow audit CO2 for the entire supply chain? If not, some nation will make the call that fossil fuel burning is an externality that they can avoid paying. Let's also admit that none of us can build an computer or a car from raw materials. Even if you would pay a premium for an efficient machine, most consumers don't understand what the future energy costs to them are going to be, will not demand efficiency, and thus suppliers will not build it. Apartments are rarely well insulated because the renters are rarely willing to pay more in rent to save more on energy costs. As much as we'd like everyone to make rational decisions about complex transactions, most people will not. Im not arguing for stupidity even. At the level of the individual, the savings available by analyzing the options are smaller than the cost of the analysis. Its not worth much of my research time save $1 / yr in extra power efficiency. But across an industry it is.