{"id":5965,"date":"2021-07-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hdbka.com\/high-end-gaming-pcs-are-exempt-from-the-cec-power-regulations\/"},"modified":"2021-07-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T00:00:00","slug":"high-end-gaming-pcs-are-exempt-from-the-cec-power-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hdbka.com\/high-end-gaming-pcs-are-exempt-from-the-cec-power-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"High-end gaming PCs are exempt from the CEC power regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"
Yesterday we reported that Dell had stopped shipping some of its Alienware PCs<\/a> to California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington due to the machines falling outside of the energy requirements that have recently been imposed in those states. Somewhat confusingly, one particular model did pass muster, while others with almost the same specifications didn’t.<\/p>\n Popular hardware YouTuber JayZTwoCents has posted a video<\/a> exploring what’s happening here, and predictably enough for anything to do with legislation, it’s not entirely straightforward. Essentially though, high-end gaming PCs will be exempt from these regulations and the regulations themselves are a bit weird, as they’re mostly concerned with looking at the power draw when the machine is idle. <\/p>\n That’s right, the new rules are not concerned about how much power your machine draws when you’re using it, but rather when it isn’t. <\/p>\n As we noted in the original story, the way you work out the power draw<\/a>, which includes lots of extras and addons, is complicated. This isn’t helped by the fact that the document that goes into more detail about what is required from these machines is actually missing on the official California Energy Commission site<\/a>. The link simply points to this missing PDF<\/a>.<\/p>\n Essentially though, the more expandable a machine is, the higher the idle power draw can be. This seems odd, as surely the goal here is to encourage people to use more efficient machines.<\/p>\n As far as the criteria for exemption goes, documents on Intel’s website<\/a> explain the details a bit more clearly. If a machine is considered a High Expandability Computer, then it is exempt from the rules that came into effect on July 1. <\/p>\n To fall into that category the PC needs at least a 600W PSU and have a discrete graphics card with a frame buffer of 600GB\/s or greater. Again that covers seriously high-end gaming machines with high-end graphics cards, like the GeForce RTX 3080 (760GB\/s) and RTX 3090 (936GB\/s) but doesn’t include the more power-conscious mid-range cards such as the RTX 3060 (360GB\/s) or Radeon RX 6700 XT (512GB\/s).<\/p>\n Your next machine<\/p>\n Best gaming PC<\/strong><\/a>: the top pre-built machines from the pros
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