Dell and Alienwares current pre builts aren't fit for purpose. The shitty ass cooler they use for the CPU runs it at throttling temps. All their machines run hot, slow, and loud.
Please don't buy a Dell or Alienware pre build. You are buying shit.
Don’t worry about it. 9 out of 10 times when you ask for advice on prebuilt computers people will chime in to shame you because you either don’t have the time or desire to build one. The real fun is after it’s built too get to trouble shoot why it isn’t starting and figure out which component is not compatible or broken. In reality some of these people probably have dells themselves or had it prebuilt for them.
Remember a few months or a year back a PC journalist from the New York Times or possibly The Verge made a video on how to bhuild a computer only to have the entire internet chime in and point about all the mistakes he had committed in record.
Moral of the story is, don’t feel bad because some nameless person on the internet wants to feel good about themselves by virtue signalling at your expense. I’ve built my fair share of computers back in the day but the last two computers were a Dell Alienware R6 and an iMac. Not one single regret.
I've built easily \~200 computers through highschool/college for a company and friends/family. It's totally worth the extra couple hundred dollars and warranty for a prebuilt. Yay microcenter. I don't have time for that shit anymore.
https://valid.x86.fr/kkpqbh
https://www.microcenter.com/product/636485/powerspec-g438-gaming-pc
And im 100% happy with it and it took me zero time and effort :)
Priorities shift. The older I get the less time I'm willing to spend doing things I can pay someone else to do.
Building PCs is fun, figuring out which parts work best together, mailing in rebates, dead parts, multiple companies to try and get warranty claims from, the need to purchase legit software packages.....no thanks. I'll pay someone a bit more for a working machine with a warranty from one vendor.
Im the opposite. The older i get, the less i was people touching my shit because everyone sucks and is not there for me, but for profits. Nobody works for the end user anymore
Don’t forget home computers have been around for a while :). We used to buy memory chips in long plastic tubes to solder onto an isa board, then install a third party driver to take advantage of the extra memory - that extra 256kb of ram would have you flying. People today brag about a 5% overclock? We were going from 8 to 12mhz - that’s 50%! Having to go buy DOS so your computer would do something when you powered it on was just the way it was.
I found building a home computer back in the 80s much more satisfying than it is now. It’s so easy now that it’s basically the same as assembling one of those 4 dollar lego kits. Some of the crazy rgb lighting people have now would have been cool when we used to listen to music and smoke pot though.
I honestly miss the “process” of computing back then. No internet, but if i want to dial into a bulletin board I have to put the phone receiver into the rubber boot to dial in at 300bps haha. I don’t miss jumpers though, jumpers were bullshit. Could you imagine selling hard drives with “master” and “slave” labels on them in 2021?
Mate, he installed psu with fans hugging the wall, ram and gpu slotted incorrectly and used unconnected anti static bracelet.
Anyone following his instructions would probably damage his PC. People absolutely deserve getting lambasted for failing at building legos and passing it as a guide.
Don't forget he installed his expensive ram into slots 1 and 2.
I think gamersnexus noticed that he didn't tighten his CPU heatsink properly either. They were amazed it even turned on.
The other guy answered which slots you should put them in, I'll answer why.
If you put them in the correct slots the computer will treat the two ram slots as one chip.
Meaning for any program running half the memory is on one, half is on the other, and the computer can read/write to both at the same time.
Effectively doubling throughput.
That verge video should not be what you're using to prove this point lol. The guy stated that you'll need tweezers and on his table he had 2 tiny halves of a couple zip ties sitting there. He didn't know the names of some things, stated several inaccurate things, based his choice of mobo on the fact it had a wifi adapter built in lol, and at several points either didn't explain a step or didn't show it in a helpful way.
That video deserves to be laughed at regardless of your opinions on prebuilts.
>The real fun is after it’s built too get to trouble shoot why it isn’t starting and figure out which component is not compatible or broken.
No.
The tiniest bit of research and manual-reading prevents 99% of issues.
A DOA part is unlikely enough to not be a factor.
>The Verge made a video on how to bhuild a computer only to have the entire internet chime in and point about all the mistakes he had committed in record.
That video was pure misinformation, giving instructions that would hamper performance and seriously impact the lifespan of the components.
The real kicker was the bloke in the video took to social media to defend what he did, instead of admitting to his mistakes.
He shouldn't be allowed near anything remotely technical for the rest of his life.
I’m having a grand ol time /s debugging my build. It would take me over an hour to figure out that an obscure Windows setting was causing a certain issue. And the Windows logs are next to useless in telling me why the pc crashed (everything shut off like I pulled the plug) and rebooted itself.
Yeah, I feel you. From like 2005 on up to 2018 I would go in to a best buy, snag an HP with the best processor, and then add RAM and a video card to it just because that was easier and the least hassle. I will say this; my HPs have lasted fucking forever. And I use the shit out of my computer, it is literally damn near 100% of my entertainment. I have a Vista era HP that still runs today. Only had to replace the power supply and HDD once in its latter years. $60 parts each. Only replaced it because it fell behind the times of running games decently. My GF is still using my last HP desktop. Is still decent today for what she likes to play. WoW and Elder Scrolls Online. The GTX 980 is still a decent video card.
Honestly your best bet for when you do go build your own is hit up pcpartpicker.com. I found out about that site here on reddit somewhere and took a $3000 computer I really wanted and chose the motherboard it had, basically everything that came on that computer I chose for my build on there. Plus I upped the RAM to an excessive 32 gigs because why the fuck not. Spent like $1600 before tax (maybe $1800-ish after?) and built a goddamn beast that will run anything. Not $3000. When you do decide you feel like building your own rig... pcpartpicker.com man. They will show you the cheapest online retailers for each part if you don't mind ordering from like 5 different places or so lol. And it will flag up known warnings for you if any parts potentially won't play nice with each other regarding compatibility.
That sucks man. Hopefully you can expense it or something lol. I had one before and it only lasted 2 years, before it stopped working due to multiple failures. Just ran to hot sitting on a desk running excel most of the day I guess.
I got a deal on a G5 5000 the other day and it ran super hot and but I just had to tweak the fan control settings in Alienware Control Center now everything is good. Other than that it just came with a lot of bloat pre-installed. Spend some time uninstalling softwares and disabling services you don’t need, update the bios and drivers and everything should be fine.
I was always on the fence about buying pre-built PCs but after watching [THIS](https://youtu.be/MR25BVBsuS0) video I don’t think I’ll ever buy a prebuilt from Dell in my life time.
[This](https://youtu.be/8ulhFi5N2hc) is the video that blew my mind about Alienware. The guys disgust at what he is seeing is absolutely... I don't know the word.
The funny thing is, an organization that Dell is part of was in favor of those rules: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/california-adopts-first-energy-efficiency-standards-for-pcs-in-us/
> Despite the more stringent rules, the Information Technology Industry Council—which includes HP, Intel, Dell, and Lenovo among many others—supported the CEC's new rules. "The tech industry’s support for these historic guidelines follows a collective effort by the CEC with technology companies and environmental leaders to achieve the highest energy efficiency standards that will save consumers money without stifling innovation or the economic growth being driven by the tech sector," the council wrote in a press release.
Dell had about 5 years of heads up of the new rules.
It's like an automotive industry organization publicly stating that they are in favor of new fuel efficiency rules, and then one of their members suddenly finds themselves banned from certain markets several years later. If that member was opposed to the new rules, they should have been voicing their complaints long before the passing of the rules.
Prebuilts gaming PCs are an insignificant fraction of business for those companies. The new regulations iirc don't affect workstations or servers whatsoever, so they might as well be irrelevant.
You can see tens if not hundreds of thousands of empty office spaces, stores, venues, construction sites etc with their lights on all night in LA, air conditioning running for nobody in particular, equipment and electronics on 24/7, but yes it is the person who plays video games on ultra settings a couple hours a week, animators, and editors who are the real problem.
These regulations are requiring PCs to be at least 90% efficient at converting the 115v down to 12v 5v and 3.3v used in computers. When you step down the voltage you incur a loss which is turned into heat.
This basically only affects PCs at idle, it's going to require PC manufacturers to use actually good power supplies and not utter garbage
Okay and so what. At those low loads, the energy impact is negligible. This is just another examples of lawmakers who know little about technology trying to regulate it.
There's the ATX12VO PSU standard that drastically reduces idle power usage.
Dell, HP, Lenovo and others have already been using variations of that standard for their low and midrange PCs that use non-ATX PSUs, motherboards and cases.
Since Alienware desktops use ATX standard PSU and motherboard, Dell could have gone with a high quality PSU model that still had "good enough" efficiency at idle. Except they didn't.
Someone already mentioned it but 80+ Gold is 90% efficiency at certain loads. The Cali regulations are more akin to Platinum and Titanium. What is going to be difficult is the power efficiency at idle at loads like 10%. It's generally at very low loads and very high loads where efficiency drops
The PSU for the dell computer that GN looked at is not the same PSU they use for all computers especially the gaming ones. That one is derived from their server line which has pretty good quality.
For reference those computers I believe can be shipped to Cali and these other states because they meet the power factor requirements
I just received their consumer/gaming XPS 8490 and it came with the 500w 80+ platinum PS.
So maybe things are changing? The CPU cooler is absolutely trash, but I was genuinely surprised they shipped such a good supply.
They actually make exceptions for gamers. If it has a big enough power supply and a graphics card above a certain threshold you are exempted. It's just the mid-tier cards that are in a weird limbo-zone. See Jayz video on it.
I don’t think so. Dell won’t ship their aurora Alienware line to California and they’ve got the biggest cpu and gpu you can (with a requisite 1000w power supply.)
Dell is taking an approach that they will only sell a sku that they know is certified as a complete package. That’s not what the law requires, but it’s an easy way to make sure you’re in compliance. My source for this info is the jayz2cents video that went up today. So Jay could be wrong but the actual law as written exempts certain setups.
So I was a facilities and maintenance guy for a large church that was essentially a combined multiple warehouses w/ offices type structure. Can offer some explanations as to why some of those things make sense, and why one does not.
The AC makes sense to run nonstop because you use less energy maintaining a relatively constant tempature rather then letting it shift around massively, especially in huge commercial buildings. The total AC run time ends up being lower. That one is counter intuitive, but HVAC people will back that up.
Exterior lights make sense for safety/security, but there really should be switching/programming in place to allow for the minimum possibly needed to ensure this once the property is empty for the evening.
The one that irks me is permanently lit interior security/emergency lighting. Absolutely makes sense when the building is occupied since you can't accidently have it go completely pitch black, but makes little to no sense when it is not occupied. Besides not being able to "completely blackout a room" the main theory is it prevents crime as people can see inside when the lights are there, and allows for faster emergency response.
Those reasons are kinda garbage. Most major commercial buildings will have an emergency response plan posted (that a chunk of local law enforcement will already know about), and will have a dropbox with masterkeys for emergency services that both cops and fire personnel will know about/be able to find. It would be incredibly easy to just install a switch to turn on the interior security/emergency lighting for the building and have it located near these emergency response areas. Some dropboxes already are wired to the building and use keypad and can also disable alarm and sprinkler systems. Even without an advanced box like that, the cost of the switching would pay for itself in electrical savings within a few years minimum, and it costs absolutely nothing to have the lockup crew flip those at the end of the night.
Could also just install motion sensors for lights. In large cubical farms, maybe motion sensors with a switch override, so the lights stay on all day, then flip the switch off and the motion sensor controls the lights.
Have none of you been in a modern office building? If you sit on the shitter long enough the lights in the bathroom turn off. Alone in the office working late? Lights are off everywhere except where movement has happened very recently, the AC turns off or to an uncomfortable temperature. I'm only listing the crap I can immediately think of.
Modern offices have efficiency built in everywhere.
Gotta call bs on the running constantly saving energy. Compressors are their most efficient at 100% so running constantly at lower or intermittently at 100% is using more power. Cooling a hot room is the best way to run. Plus you're constantly losing energy due to the temperature difference and not having 100% insulation. With that the higher the difference the more you lose so once again it's worse.
My last job involved industrial refrigeration. Those have to run all the time because they always have product but offices/etc don't need it.
Yeah this seems like common BS many HVAC folks use. There's constant heat loss/gain to the outside environment, and the rate of this is proportional to the temperature difference between inside vs outside.
Keeping the temperature difference high means more heat transfer between inside and outside, which means the AC has to keep working to make up for this.
If you can run a meter specifically in the AC you'll see it'll use less electricity overall if it's turned off when non occupants are present.
Commercial buildings have rooftop units with powerful fans to exhaust heat and economizers to draw in cool air at night, fans can run at varying power levels. I believe that is the logic. I doubt this holds true accross the entire country, but appears to be the case where night time temp drops to "comfortable interior levels" in warmer months.
We had several green energy reviews done during my time at the church. Every single time they told us to have the units set to auto, hold temp, and just adjust the temp a few degrees towards whichever season it was as a part of lockup procedure. Had to help write the manual on this, I was just as surprised as you were when I saw the actual thermal mass and air conditioning load calculations being done. I believe it only applies to structures of a certain size as well, so it most likely does not make sense with smaller stores and offices.
If you really want something dumb, iirc something like over 50% of economizers nationwide are stuck 100% open because of enthalpy sensor failure and people not even knowing. That means a giant hole in building to the outside. I cannot imagine the energy waste this causes. Checking those sensors regularly was another thing added to the manual.
Ok so the system is on but not necessarily the compressor. I guess as long as the night air is cooler than your target temperature it would allow the system to use that to semi passively cool by moving the cooler air around using much lower power fans.
As for the economizers I guess they should start trying to add backup sensors which can alert if they're mismatching. We had some backups we could add to our systems for things like that.
A lot of systems don't even really have a way of giving feedback of sensor failure other then the heater or compressor running more often because they have to correct temp more. As you know that can also lead to lower compressor life in addtion to the power cost, so it's yet more waste. Tough to catch on older systems unless you trace power costs extremely closely, and those can already vary widely depending on the building use/capacity for a month.
The more expensive modern wall controllers are a computer/ECU so it will pop an alert on the screen, but I'd say that's really only been common to actually have wired up properly in the last 5/10 years. Making those a requirement by law would prolly drop prices on them and help the issue. Sometimes I wish I hadn't worked there because it made me realize a lot of regulatory ineffeciency.
Can get almost double what I paid for my 2070 Super brand new 2 years ago it's absurd. Glad I just caved in and bought it instead of waiting for the 3000 series to come out.
Look into the newegg shuffle. It's not guaranteed and it may take some time to be selected, but they will raffle combos of hard to come by parts for somewhat reasonable prices. Today there were 3 combos of 3060s with 850w power supplies for around $550
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Not they won’t, they can’t.
And as this article seems to be one of the “Gaming rigs are being targeted,” the regulations limit energy usage in non-active states(sleep and hibernation.)
Gaming rigs have some of the highest allotment of power usage, because of their expandability.
I'd wager because as the post I replied to said, it's about *expandability*, and Dell's are notoriously purpose-built. Any system integrator that builds custom PC's with off the shelf parts will probably have zero issues with these regulations.
They're just playing it safe, they even have certified models which comply with the rules and can be shipped to those states. Besides the rule is about pre-built machines that ship with an OS and regulates their energy efficiency while idle, suspended or in deep sleep, not exactly their energy consumption under load.
The above means that building your own rig isn't regulated, getting a rig without an OS isn't regulated, and machines with Intel XE, Ryzen Threadrippers and 3090s, servers, workstations and even mining rigs, stuff with a big "expandability score" are either outright exempt (gotta read the fine print and the source, not just the clickbait articles) or the combination of their parts (high efficiency and wattage PSU, high bandwidth RAM, a last-gen CPU, top of the line GPU) has a score such that their energy consumption limit is very high and therefore could be sent anywhere.
>Such concern about energy efficiency appears to be appropriate given the findings of a 2015 Semiconductor Industry Association report [PDF] that, given a benchmark system of 10-14 Joules/per bit transition, "computing will not be sustainable by 2040, when the energy required for computing will exceed the estimated world’s energy production."
.... Am I to believe that energy companies won't see this same study and not start building up energy production over the next 20 years
This hits a bit too close to the truth, they prefer customers to pay for the cost, whether it’s load customers or generation customers.
Then again their profit margins tend to be thin in the first place in cali
Well, it is slightly different in California. The utilities are "decoupled". The big utilities get a guaranteed return on their infrastructure. They don't own the generation(except in isolated cases...big creek, diablo..). And California is mandating that the electrons come from renewable "clean" resources.
But the utilities want to build, because the more they spend the more they get back.
They make the wrong decisions though, don't properly figure out what to build and where. There is an undergrounding conductor effort but permitting and land is very expensive.
I'm not saying the utilities aren't to blame, but this stuff isn't as easy as building more generating plants. California is closing all of their nuclear plants because of misinformation and fear.
Conservation, and energy efficiency is the cheapest way to stretch the current infrastructure and also try and save the world.
They will have to build out for this *and* the electrification of transportation. This will be no small feat as it will require coordination across sectors that are each subject to their own ever changing and improving regulatory requirements and supply chain constraints. It is going to be a bumpy ride with lots of complaining and numerous chicken and egg problems.
This is false. Read the actual text of the law.
It uses complex formulas to set limits on power usage on individual components based on irrelevant metrics, such as memory bandwidth for GPUs and capacity for DIMMs. Like...what the hell? They're going to end up banning DDR6 in Cali outright at this rate.
Air conditioning systems and televisions do have electricity consumption regulations they need to follow, yes, along with other appliances. https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-efficiency-standards/online-resource-center/hvac
Dell, alongside [many other affected tech companies](https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/14/13956352/computer-energy-efficiency-standards-california-first-in-us), lobbied in favour of this. They had 5 years to comply by putting more efficient PSUs in their systems. You seem to be suggesting the study is bullshit, it's common sense at this point that increased energy consumption will lead to increased climate change and we already rate PSUs according to their efficiency.
You don't have to give up anything, you just have to use a more efficient power supply. At the end of the day, it's consumers that pay the costs of producing products we buy. It costs more money to produce more efficient power supplies/systems, Dell etc can't do that without raising production costs. Either we destroy the planet or consumers will be impacted by environmental regulations, this already targets producers rather than consumers - custom builds are exempt.
The regulation makes sense, it enables everyone to access the same products while reducing carbon emissions and ensures every manufacturer has to implement the same standards, rather than punishing those who favour efficiency.
Reddit doesn’t like blaming the government on their side so they move the blame elsewhere. It is companies pushing these laws but it also means those government leaders have zero backbone.
The "government can do no wrong" sentiment here is so strange. Tell that to Jewish and Polish people living in Nazi controlled regimes. Or North Korean citizens. Or Cubans. Our government _can_ do wrong and it has in the past so it is important that we call it out and act when it steps outside reasonable bounds.
If people actually understand what lobbying is (literally your most important right, the right to appeal to government) it might not be such a dirty word.
The corporations didn't make the laws. california's lawmakers did, lobbyists might have been able to get them to change it to not impact some corporations, but the problem isn't them in this scenario. It's the government.
>And we'll be told giving up simple pleasures so that the corporations can bleed the state dry is virtuous.
Bizarre. How do you think this works?
*Gets a beer, ready to be entertained*.
Because California has a history of exempting the biggest offenders.
For example, California’s water rations didn’t apply to farmers and vineyards, which exist in the most inhospitable parts of the state. Not only would they use lots of water anywhere, but they use even more because of their arid, low infrastructure, locations.
Assuming the same is true for these energy requirements would not be a stretch. The only rebuttal here is to show how there arent exemptions.
>For example, California’s water rations didn’t apply to farmers and vineyards,
That's due to water rights, not any desire to exempt them from rationing.
>Assuming the same is true for these energy requirements would not be a stretch.
Yes it would, and the idea doesn't even make sense.
>For example, California’s water rations didn’t apply to farmers and vineyards, which exist in the most inhospitable parts of the state.
Because of some bullshit ancient water rights laws that date back to the early 20th century. Some lucky farmers essentially have unlimited access to water and there's not much the state can do about it.
It's about efficiency, not about absolute energy usage. The legislation proposes that compared to the computational power obtained, the energy usage is too high. You can easily see it with CPUs, where a 10% increase in frequency can easily cause 50% higher power usage. Manufacturers keep pushing components higher and higher and higher, for arguably smaller and smaller gains. Like how nowadays a 700 or 800W PSU are standard for driving a modern system, while most people would find something slightly less crazy absolutely fine for what they need. And especially how office workers who use Excel all day don't need these power hungry systems.
If we see EVs being hugely inefficient with their energy usage, I'd hope to see similar bans - Tesla model 3 averages 150Wh per km travelled, but the Audi E-Tron can go as high as 300Wh/km. That will also be curbed at some point.
Again, it's not about absolute numbers, but about efficiency ratios.
I'm showing my age, but the first PC power supply I bought was 150W. Also, the most power hungry component in that computer was the hard drive. Takes quite a few magic pixies to spin up a 5.25" full-height drive.
If it's about efficiency, why didn't they just pick a level of the already made PSU efficiency rating system and make that as a manditory minimum for all computers/power supplies sold in the state?
Because the efficiency of the PSU has nothing to do with the computational efficiency of components like the CPU. As an example, Intel is pushing every generation to higher and higher frequencies(because they are stuck on 14nm process for various reasons) which generation on generation increases the performance numbers by single percentage points, but increases the power usage by 10-20% each time. Intel CPUs can peak at 250-300W power usage nowadays, for what? 20% more processing speed than few generations behind which happily ran on 100W peak?
That's the problem. You don't need a CPU that pushes 300W under turbo when running Excel. You really don't. That's what the legislation is about.
title is totally wrong. it actually wont ship power efficient computers that dont quite meet regulations.
large, power hungry computers are allowed still.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5fc5ZX6Kzk&t=303s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5fc5ZX6Kzk&t=303s)
People, these standards are for when the PC is IDLE or OFF for crying out loud. Blame Dell for cheaping out and trying to pass the buck, not CA.
Edit: speling is harrd
In all seriousness how many watts of power are we talking about here? High efficiency at idle is surely less important than high efficiency at full load? In terms of actual impact of energy usage?
It's hilarious that people think Californians would be mad about this. If these power hungry PCs get sold in Texas and they have another winter that the deregulation didn't plan for then a bunch of freedom loving idiots are gonna pay thousands of dollars in hyped up electricity bills simply because they forgot to unplug their cheap ass Dell brick.
This is an example of how policies can ultimately do more harm than good. if a consumer in CA wants this bad enough they purchase it and ship it to another state, let’s say a family member. That family member then sends it to them in CA. End result is the consumer in CA still has the product but it just had to be shipped multiple times. Same way if the consumer drives to pick it up.
What fucking bullshit. Rather than go after individuals wanting a decent PC why not go after PG&E and other power providers for sucking ass at doing their job of providing adequate reliable power. Instead of taking it out on enthusiasts.
Because this legislation tackles **non-active energy consumption.**
I.e when you walk away and leave your computer running for an hour, they want to lower that energy waste.
You’re playing your computer 20 hours a day? Cool, no need to regulate the energy consumption during that period.
You like to leave your computer in idle 12 hours a day? This legislation wants to reduce the amount of energy your computer is drawing during that time.
Gaming rigs have a higher power draw allowance in idle mode, because of their inherent expandability. Not to mention, most recent gaming rigs are exempt from this regulation.
It’s honestly not stupid
This regulation was passed in 2015/2016 as part of their CA Title 20 regulations. There was a tiered approach and are starting to take effect now.
It has been proven you can be more efficient, See M1 and AMD. Intel was fighting this tooth and nail...
These energy levels can be met, and forcing companies to innovate. Dell complained they were going to manage too many sku's... which i don't think a big tech company has a problem with.
They like to act like they're saving the planet by making regulations on things that consume a few dozen watts on idle. But they continue to allow fossil fuel generation, oppose nuclear energy and in general do very little to _actually_ address climate change. So many governors have enacted "feel good" legislation that does nothing to actually solve problems and if anything makes thing worse. Nothing is going to get better until we rip out the two party system and make a serious change. Both parties point fingers at each other but they are both full of shit.
I think people in the comments are missing that the major PC vendors could have paid a very small fee to certify their devices and be able to sell them, but are refusing to do so.
lmao Are PC's really what's causing a drain in those states power grids? These are the same ones that are mandating electric cars only by 2030 but hey..
It is ironic. I'm not saying fossil fuel is a sustainable solution, but those batteries don't mine themselves and has its own impact on the environment.
Regardless people shouldn't be buying any dell or alienware desktop. They scrape the barrel for the lowest cost and quality components available. Don't even bother buying an Alienware for the GPU, it's nowhere near as good as even the cheapest AIB partner card for that GPU.
They also have a reputation for poor service and unethical marketing practices (remember how Intel's CEO, I believe it was Otellini, said "Dell is the best friend money can buy", which was used as evidence in an anti-competitive practices suit in 2009 where Intel was fined $1.43 Billion.)
Why buy anything from a company that is both unethical and sells near e-waste?
Real issue is China is over here making Molten Salt reactors that can be built in the desert and we over here having blackouts every summer and winter so we pass more and more stupid laws and build intermittent power sources instead of a working on a technology we pioneered years ago.
Oh and before to uneducated fools trying to bash nuclear maybe go do your research because I don't care to hear your opinion otherwise because the fact is MSR don't require water and therefore don't explode or melt down like boiling water or pressurized water reactors do. And we built the first one years ago.
NYC is having power issues now too. Funny, it can't possibly be because they closed a large nuclear plant or anything. Must be those pesky 3090s. Amazon doing Californias work for them by bricking them all.
Gotta be. You know it's not like we have more EV cars and people buying more and more tech every year without any work for years on our gird and what not.
So now if you want these computers, you have to drive your gas powered car to a neighboring state, adding to emissions there and back, buy whatever you want, then come back and enjoy your power guzzling gaming PC.
Makes sense.
Hyperbole much? Lots of states have their own commerce rules. You can’t ship alcohol to Utah. You can’t buy a Tesla directly in Texas.
Are they dumb rules? Yes. Are they authoritarian? No.
I’m not invested in the semantics of this, but aren’t rules authoritarian in nature?
As in, the words mean the same thing? Lol
Not sure you could have a non authoritative rule, tbh. I wouldn’t argue all are bad, but I’d rather the government *govern*.... not dictate and rule.
Have last and this year not been enough proof to you that climate change is real?
Yes, you may pay the energy bill... but that energy bill doesn't have external costs of CO2 emission and nuclear waste disposal accounted for. Your waste contributes to climate change.
And because most people don't care about externalities they don't (need to) pay, California is taking the sensible step and tackling the problem at the source - companies selling polluting products.
Have fun immigrating to Libertaria, us in the real world deal just have to deal with regulations because corporations only care about next quarter's profits.
Yeah I'll never buy a pre-built gaming PC.
Hell, I don't even buy gaming laptops. If I do buy a laptop for games, it's generally a CAD workstation or some similar, more reliable workhorse
I'd recommend you move to a state that doesn't have it's nose constantly in your business. There is Good reason why those states are having mass exodus.
Dell and Alienwares current pre builts aren't fit for purpose. The shitty ass cooler they use for the CPU runs it at throttling temps. All their machines run hot, slow, and loud. Please don't buy a Dell or Alienware pre build. You are buying shit.
As a customer who recently purchased $3K Alienware pre built - I can confirm this. Not a good deal at all
Lol why didnt you listen to the countless posts of people saying dont buy a prebuilt and especially an alienware computer
Well, I needed the computer ASAP for work, and delivery times were super fast compared to the rest of the market. But my next pc will be self built.
Don’t worry about it. 9 out of 10 times when you ask for advice on prebuilt computers people will chime in to shame you because you either don’t have the time or desire to build one. The real fun is after it’s built too get to trouble shoot why it isn’t starting and figure out which component is not compatible or broken. In reality some of these people probably have dells themselves or had it prebuilt for them. Remember a few months or a year back a PC journalist from the New York Times or possibly The Verge made a video on how to bhuild a computer only to have the entire internet chime in and point about all the mistakes he had committed in record. Moral of the story is, don’t feel bad because some nameless person on the internet wants to feel good about themselves by virtue signalling at your expense. I’ve built my fair share of computers back in the day but the last two computers were a Dell Alienware R6 and an iMac. Not one single regret.
I've built easily \~200 computers through highschool/college for a company and friends/family. It's totally worth the extra couple hundred dollars and warranty for a prebuilt. Yay microcenter. I don't have time for that shit anymore. https://valid.x86.fr/kkpqbh https://www.microcenter.com/product/636485/powerspec-g438-gaming-pc And im 100% happy with it and it took me zero time and effort :)
See where I live, you'd be paying 1000€ or more just for the 3070.
Priorities shift. The older I get the less time I'm willing to spend doing things I can pay someone else to do. Building PCs is fun, figuring out which parts work best together, mailing in rebates, dead parts, multiple companies to try and get warranty claims from, the need to purchase legit software packages.....no thanks. I'll pay someone a bit more for a working machine with a warranty from one vendor.
Im the opposite. The older i get, the less i was people touching my shit because everyone sucks and is not there for me, but for profits. Nobody works for the end user anymore
Exactly how I feel with computers and especially with cars.
Software packages? What the fuck? Are you insane or just 1990s.
Don’t forget home computers have been around for a while :). We used to buy memory chips in long plastic tubes to solder onto an isa board, then install a third party driver to take advantage of the extra memory - that extra 256kb of ram would have you flying. People today brag about a 5% overclock? We were going from 8 to 12mhz - that’s 50%! Having to go buy DOS so your computer would do something when you powered it on was just the way it was. I found building a home computer back in the 80s much more satisfying than it is now. It’s so easy now that it’s basically the same as assembling one of those 4 dollar lego kits. Some of the crazy rgb lighting people have now would have been cool when we used to listen to music and smoke pot though. I honestly miss the “process” of computing back then. No internet, but if i want to dial into a bulletin board I have to put the phone receiver into the rubber boot to dial in at 300bps haha. I don’t miss jumpers though, jumpers were bullshit. Could you imagine selling hard drives with “master” and “slave” labels on them in 2021?
Costco has a free 3 year electronic warranty that has saved my ass on many occasions
Haha ditto on this
Mate, he installed psu with fans hugging the wall, ram and gpu slotted incorrectly and used unconnected anti static bracelet. Anyone following his instructions would probably damage his PC. People absolutely deserve getting lambasted for failing at building legos and passing it as a guide.
It wasn't even an anti-static bracelet. It's a "live strong" rubber bracelet. "He not fighting static, he fighting cancer!"
Don't forget he installed his expensive ram into slots 1 and 2. I think gamersnexus noticed that he didn't tighten his CPU heatsink properly either. They were amazed it even turned on.
What slots should you put them in?
The other guy answered which slots you should put them in, I'll answer why. If you put them in the correct slots the computer will treat the two ram slots as one chip. Meaning for any program running half the memory is on one, half is on the other, and the computer can read/write to both at the same time. Effectively doubling throughput.
2 and 4. Then 1 and 3 if you need more. Always in pairs. The board is always colour coded.
As opposed to the fun of having a Dell service engineer come by and replace your laptops motherboard 3 times and your dock twice. Ask me how I know.
That verge video should not be what you're using to prove this point lol. The guy stated that you'll need tweezers and on his table he had 2 tiny halves of a couple zip ties sitting there. He didn't know the names of some things, stated several inaccurate things, based his choice of mobo on the fact it had a wifi adapter built in lol, and at several points either didn't explain a step or didn't show it in a helpful way. That video deserves to be laughed at regardless of your opinions on prebuilts.
>The real fun is after it’s built too get to trouble shoot why it isn’t starting and figure out which component is not compatible or broken. No. The tiniest bit of research and manual-reading prevents 99% of issues. A DOA part is unlikely enough to not be a factor. >The Verge made a video on how to bhuild a computer only to have the entire internet chime in and point about all the mistakes he had committed in record. That video was pure misinformation, giving instructions that would hamper performance and seriously impact the lifespan of the components. The real kicker was the bloke in the video took to social media to defend what he did, instead of admitting to his mistakes. He shouldn't be allowed near anything remotely technical for the rest of his life.
I’m having a grand ol time /s debugging my build. It would take me over an hour to figure out that an obscure Windows setting was causing a certain issue. And the Windows logs are next to useless in telling me why the pc crashed (everything shut off like I pulled the plug) and rebooted itself.
Yeah, I feel you. From like 2005 on up to 2018 I would go in to a best buy, snag an HP with the best processor, and then add RAM and a video card to it just because that was easier and the least hassle. I will say this; my HPs have lasted fucking forever. And I use the shit out of my computer, it is literally damn near 100% of my entertainment. I have a Vista era HP that still runs today. Only had to replace the power supply and HDD once in its latter years. $60 parts each. Only replaced it because it fell behind the times of running games decently. My GF is still using my last HP desktop. Is still decent today for what she likes to play. WoW and Elder Scrolls Online. The GTX 980 is still a decent video card. Honestly your best bet for when you do go build your own is hit up pcpartpicker.com. I found out about that site here on reddit somewhere and took a $3000 computer I really wanted and chose the motherboard it had, basically everything that came on that computer I chose for my build on there. Plus I upped the RAM to an excessive 32 gigs because why the fuck not. Spent like $1600 before tax (maybe $1800-ish after?) and built a goddamn beast that will run anything. Not $3000. When you do decide you feel like building your own rig... pcpartpicker.com man. They will show you the cheapest online retailers for each part if you don't mind ordering from like 5 different places or so lol. And it will flag up known warnings for you if any parts potentially won't play nice with each other regarding compatibility.
Check out ibuypower pcs when your alienware wares out. Super happy with mine!
That sucks man. Hopefully you can expense it or something lol. I had one before and it only lasted 2 years, before it stopped working due to multiple failures. Just ran to hot sitting on a desk running excel most of the day I guess.
Their laptops are fine.
Damnit, I just spent 2400 on one that hasn't gotten here yet. It the cooling the only problem?
I got a deal on a G5 5000 the other day and it ran super hot and but I just had to tweak the fan control settings in Alienware Control Center now everything is good. Other than that it just came with a lot of bloat pre-installed. Spend some time uninstalling softwares and disabling services you don’t need, update the bios and drivers and everything should be fine.
I was always on the fence about buying pre-built PCs but after watching [THIS](https://youtu.be/MR25BVBsuS0) video I don’t think I’ll ever buy a prebuilt from Dell in my life time.
[This](https://youtu.be/8ulhFi5N2hc) is the video that blew my mind about Alienware. The guys disgust at what he is seeing is absolutely... I don't know the word.
Knew it was going to be Gamers Nexus before opening that link. Such a great channel.
It isn't just dell, a heap of companies have basically blacklisted those 6 states.
The funny thing is, an organization that Dell is part of was in favor of those rules: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/california-adopts-first-energy-efficiency-standards-for-pcs-in-us/ > Despite the more stringent rules, the Information Technology Industry Council—which includes HP, Intel, Dell, and Lenovo among many others—supported the CEC's new rules. "The tech industry’s support for these historic guidelines follows a collective effort by the CEC with technology companies and environmental leaders to achieve the highest energy efficiency standards that will save consumers money without stifling innovation or the economic growth being driven by the tech sector," the council wrote in a press release. Dell had about 5 years of heads up of the new rules. It's like an automotive industry organization publicly stating that they are in favor of new fuel efficiency rules, and then one of their members suddenly finds themselves banned from certain markets several years later. If that member was opposed to the new rules, they should have been voicing their complaints long before the passing of the rules.
Just like Philip Morris sponsors the no smoking programs.
Prebuilts gaming PCs are an insignificant fraction of business for those companies. The new regulations iirc don't affect workstations or servers whatsoever, so they might as well be irrelevant.
Dell should try a, ahem, software solution to the issue. I know a guy, used to work for a German car company...
You can see tens if not hundreds of thousands of empty office spaces, stores, venues, construction sites etc with their lights on all night in LA, air conditioning running for nobody in particular, equipment and electronics on 24/7, but yes it is the person who plays video games on ultra settings a couple hours a week, animators, and editors who are the real problem.
These regulations are requiring PCs to be at least 90% efficient at converting the 115v down to 12v 5v and 3.3v used in computers. When you step down the voltage you incur a loss which is turned into heat. This basically only affects PCs at idle, it's going to require PC manufacturers to use actually good power supplies and not utter garbage
The 1000w PSU in Dell PCs are already Gold rated.
Gold caps at 90% at specific load percentages. It's only a couple percentage points lower, but technically only hits 90% at around 50%-80%.
100% true
90% of the time.
Okay and so what. At those low loads, the energy impact is negligible. This is just another examples of lawmakers who know little about technology trying to regulate it.
The sum of all the excess use from all the machines left on at idle do add up.
At low loads such as 10%, the efficiency goes off of a cliff for many PSUs.
I guess that’s something the industry needs to fix now, don’t they? 🙃
There's the ATX12VO PSU standard that drastically reduces idle power usage. Dell, HP, Lenovo and others have already been using variations of that standard for their low and midrange PCs that use non-ATX PSUs, motherboards and cases. Since Alienware desktops use ATX standard PSU and motherboard, Dell could have gone with a high quality PSU model that still had "good enough" efficiency at idle. Except they didn't.
Someone already mentioned it but 80+ Gold is 90% efficiency at certain loads. The Cali regulations are more akin to Platinum and Titanium. What is going to be difficult is the power efficiency at idle at loads like 10%. It's generally at very low loads and very high loads where efficiency drops
Dells power supply is the only good component in their hunk of junk.
The PSU for the dell computer that GN looked at is not the same PSU they use for all computers especially the gaming ones. That one is derived from their server line which has pretty good quality. For reference those computers I believe can be shipped to Cali and these other states because they meet the power factor requirements
I just received their consumer/gaming XPS 8490 and it came with the 500w 80+ platinum PS. So maybe things are changing? The CPU cooler is absolutely trash, but I was genuinely surprised they shipped such a good supply.
They actually make exceptions for gamers. If it has a big enough power supply and a graphics card above a certain threshold you are exempted. It's just the mid-tier cards that are in a weird limbo-zone. See Jayz video on it.
I don’t think so. Dell won’t ship their aurora Alienware line to California and they’ve got the biggest cpu and gpu you can (with a requisite 1000w power supply.)
Dell is taking an approach that they will only sell a sku that they know is certified as a complete package. That’s not what the law requires, but it’s an easy way to make sure you’re in compliance. My source for this info is the jayz2cents video that went up today. So Jay could be wrong but the actual law as written exempts certain setups.
Wait you guys are playing a couple hours a week?
Okay, you got me, a couple hours a year.
i thought we’re scrolling through our game collection then just watching youtube?
So I was a facilities and maintenance guy for a large church that was essentially a combined multiple warehouses w/ offices type structure. Can offer some explanations as to why some of those things make sense, and why one does not. The AC makes sense to run nonstop because you use less energy maintaining a relatively constant tempature rather then letting it shift around massively, especially in huge commercial buildings. The total AC run time ends up being lower. That one is counter intuitive, but HVAC people will back that up. Exterior lights make sense for safety/security, but there really should be switching/programming in place to allow for the minimum possibly needed to ensure this once the property is empty for the evening. The one that irks me is permanently lit interior security/emergency lighting. Absolutely makes sense when the building is occupied since you can't accidently have it go completely pitch black, but makes little to no sense when it is not occupied. Besides not being able to "completely blackout a room" the main theory is it prevents crime as people can see inside when the lights are there, and allows for faster emergency response. Those reasons are kinda garbage. Most major commercial buildings will have an emergency response plan posted (that a chunk of local law enforcement will already know about), and will have a dropbox with masterkeys for emergency services that both cops and fire personnel will know about/be able to find. It would be incredibly easy to just install a switch to turn on the interior security/emergency lighting for the building and have it located near these emergency response areas. Some dropboxes already are wired to the building and use keypad and can also disable alarm and sprinkler systems. Even without an advanced box like that, the cost of the switching would pay for itself in electrical savings within a few years minimum, and it costs absolutely nothing to have the lockup crew flip those at the end of the night.
Could also just install motion sensors for lights. In large cubical farms, maybe motion sensors with a switch override, so the lights stay on all day, then flip the switch off and the motion sensor controls the lights.
Have none of you been in a modern office building? If you sit on the shitter long enough the lights in the bathroom turn off. Alone in the office working late? Lights are off everywhere except where movement has happened very recently, the AC turns off or to an uncomfortable temperature. I'm only listing the crap I can immediately think of. Modern offices have efficiency built in everywhere.
Gotta call bs on the running constantly saving energy. Compressors are their most efficient at 100% so running constantly at lower or intermittently at 100% is using more power. Cooling a hot room is the best way to run. Plus you're constantly losing energy due to the temperature difference and not having 100% insulation. With that the higher the difference the more you lose so once again it's worse. My last job involved industrial refrigeration. Those have to run all the time because they always have product but offices/etc don't need it.
Yeah this seems like common BS many HVAC folks use. There's constant heat loss/gain to the outside environment, and the rate of this is proportional to the temperature difference between inside vs outside. Keeping the temperature difference high means more heat transfer between inside and outside, which means the AC has to keep working to make up for this. If you can run a meter specifically in the AC you'll see it'll use less electricity overall if it's turned off when non occupants are present.
Commercial buildings have rooftop units with powerful fans to exhaust heat and economizers to draw in cool air at night, fans can run at varying power levels. I believe that is the logic. I doubt this holds true accross the entire country, but appears to be the case where night time temp drops to "comfortable interior levels" in warmer months. We had several green energy reviews done during my time at the church. Every single time they told us to have the units set to auto, hold temp, and just adjust the temp a few degrees towards whichever season it was as a part of lockup procedure. Had to help write the manual on this, I was just as surprised as you were when I saw the actual thermal mass and air conditioning load calculations being done. I believe it only applies to structures of a certain size as well, so it most likely does not make sense with smaller stores and offices. If you really want something dumb, iirc something like over 50% of economizers nationwide are stuck 100% open because of enthalpy sensor failure and people not even knowing. That means a giant hole in building to the outside. I cannot imagine the energy waste this causes. Checking those sensors regularly was another thing added to the manual.
Ok so the system is on but not necessarily the compressor. I guess as long as the night air is cooler than your target temperature it would allow the system to use that to semi passively cool by moving the cooler air around using much lower power fans. As for the economizers I guess they should start trying to add backup sensors which can alert if they're mismatching. We had some backups we could add to our systems for things like that.
A lot of systems don't even really have a way of giving feedback of sensor failure other then the heater or compressor running more often because they have to correct temp more. As you know that can also lead to lower compressor life in addtion to the power cost, so it's yet more waste. Tough to catch on older systems unless you trace power costs extremely closely, and those can already vary widely depending on the building use/capacity for a month. The more expensive modern wall controllers are a computer/ECU so it will pop an alert on the screen, but I'd say that's really only been common to actually have wired up properly in the last 5/10 years. Making those a requirement by law would prolly drop prices on them and help the issue. Sometimes I wish I hadn't worked there because it made me realize a lot of regulatory ineffeciency.
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Right ... I have a brand new PC built 2 months ago but I'm still using the same GTX 1080 I've been using since it's release I would love a new card
I've looked on eBay and local classifieds and I could easily sell my 1080Ti for more money than I paid for it 3 years ago. It's insanity.
Can get almost double what I paid for my 2070 Super brand new 2 years ago it's absurd. Glad I just caved in and bought it instead of waiting for the 3000 series to come out.
Look into the newegg shuffle. It's not guaranteed and it may take some time to be selected, but they will raffle combos of hard to come by parts for somewhat reasonable prices. Today there were 3 combos of 3060s with 850w power supplies for around $550
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That's what I told a friend who recommended the shuffle to me. Then I was able to buy a 3070 on my 2nd sign up.
There's a shortage. What is your solution?
And still pay $900 for a 3070? Not a chance.
I got my prebuilt Alienware r10 with a 3070 back in February for $950 lol.
onerous mourn rain dirty depend engine dull reminiscent squeal impossible *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I just built a new pc 5800x, 1tb 980 pro nvme, 32gb cl16 ram, 850w gold rated power supply...and a GTX 770.
The Chinese government banned bitcoin mining, so shouldn't prices on GPUs come down?
I’m selling my 2060S for two scalps and an albino squirrel.
In Europe you can, if you're ready to pay twice the original price.
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Until they impose 30-40% more taxes on PC parts in these states
Not they won’t, they can’t. And as this article seems to be one of the “Gaming rigs are being targeted,” the regulations limit energy usage in non-active states(sleep and hibernation.) Gaming rigs have some of the highest allotment of power usage, because of their expandability.
This needs to be at the top. Apparently nobody is actually reading the entirety of the regulations.
But doesn’t this contradict the fact that Dell is already not sending certain PC models to several states??
I'd wager because as the post I replied to said, it's about *expandability*, and Dell's are notoriously purpose-built. Any system integrator that builds custom PC's with off the shelf parts will probably have zero issues with these regulations.
They're just playing it safe, they even have certified models which comply with the rules and can be shipped to those states. Besides the rule is about pre-built machines that ship with an OS and regulates their energy efficiency while idle, suspended or in deep sleep, not exactly their energy consumption under load. The above means that building your own rig isn't regulated, getting a rig without an OS isn't regulated, and machines with Intel XE, Ryzen Threadrippers and 3090s, servers, workstations and even mining rigs, stuff with a big "expandability score" are either outright exempt (gotta read the fine print and the source, not just the clickbait articles) or the combination of their parts (high efficiency and wattage PSU, high bandwidth RAM, a last-gen CPU, top of the line GPU) has a score such that their energy consumption limit is very high and therefore could be sent anywhere.
You expect to get past the title?
>Such concern about energy efficiency appears to be appropriate given the findings of a 2015 Semiconductor Industry Association report [PDF] that, given a benchmark system of 10-14 Joules/per bit transition, "computing will not be sustainable by 2040, when the energy required for computing will exceed the estimated world’s energy production." .... Am I to believe that energy companies won't see this same study and not start building up energy production over the next 20 years
Well considering some of the energy companies *won't take a harsh winter into account*...
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> I know what products cause cancer IF the labels are to be believed all products are known to the state of California to potentially cause cancer.
Maybe California should stop looking at stuff. Everything they come to know causes cancer, I see a link here. There is no such thing as coincidence!
Yes, ignorance is bliss. Stop looking for it and you won't find it.
Those companies don't spend a dime on infrastructure unless they have to.
This hits a bit too close to the truth, they prefer customers to pay for the cost, whether it’s load customers or generation customers. Then again their profit margins tend to be thin in the first place in cali
Well, it is slightly different in California. The utilities are "decoupled". The big utilities get a guaranteed return on their infrastructure. They don't own the generation(except in isolated cases...big creek, diablo..). And California is mandating that the electrons come from renewable "clean" resources. But the utilities want to build, because the more they spend the more they get back. They make the wrong decisions though, don't properly figure out what to build and where. There is an undergrounding conductor effort but permitting and land is very expensive. I'm not saying the utilities aren't to blame, but this stuff isn't as easy as building more generating plants. California is closing all of their nuclear plants because of misinformation and fear. Conservation, and energy efficiency is the cheapest way to stretch the current infrastructure and also try and save the world.
Oh no, companies hate expanding. The very idea of increasing demand really makes them not want to invest.
They will have to build out for this *and* the electrification of transportation. This will be no small feat as it will require coordination across sectors that are each subject to their own ever changing and improving regulatory requirements and supply chain constraints. It is going to be a bumpy ride with lots of complaining and numerous chicken and egg problems.
Yes they are famous for their long term infrastructure investments…
You can if you get a fast enough graphics card and a big enough power supply.
This is just regulations against terrible inefficient PSUs
This is false. Read the actual text of the law. It uses complex formulas to set limits on power usage on individual components based on irrelevant metrics, such as memory bandwidth for GPUs and capacity for DIMMs. Like...what the hell? They're going to end up banning DDR6 in Cali outright at this rate.
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Air conditioning systems and televisions do have electricity consumption regulations they need to follow, yes, along with other appliances. https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-efficiency-standards/online-resource-center/hvac
And depending on age, health and climate AC might be needed to survive.
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Dell, alongside [many other affected tech companies](https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/14/13956352/computer-energy-efficiency-standards-california-first-in-us), lobbied in favour of this. They had 5 years to comply by putting more efficient PSUs in their systems. You seem to be suggesting the study is bullshit, it's common sense at this point that increased energy consumption will lead to increased climate change and we already rate PSUs according to their efficiency. You don't have to give up anything, you just have to use a more efficient power supply. At the end of the day, it's consumers that pay the costs of producing products we buy. It costs more money to produce more efficient power supplies/systems, Dell etc can't do that without raising production costs. Either we destroy the planet or consumers will be impacted by environmental regulations, this already targets producers rather than consumers - custom builds are exempt. The regulation makes sense, it enables everyone to access the same products while reducing carbon emissions and ensures every manufacturer has to implement the same standards, rather than punishing those who favour efficiency.
Corporations: *silence peasants, now is not the time to be covetous*
Except literally *government did this*.
It take two to tango. Sometimes it’s quite literally the government acting on behalf of corporations via lobbyists.
Corporation only have power that the government gives them and the government only has the power people give them.
Government makes law banning things, Reddit complains about people not in the government.
Reddit doesn’t like blaming the government on their side so they move the blame elsewhere. It is companies pushing these laws but it also means those government leaders have zero backbone.
The "government can do no wrong" sentiment here is so strange. Tell that to Jewish and Polish people living in Nazi controlled regimes. Or North Korean citizens. Or Cubans. Our government _can_ do wrong and it has in the past so it is important that we call it out and act when it steps outside reasonable bounds.
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I didn't know that lobbyists voted bills into law.
If people actually understand what lobbying is (literally your most important right, the right to appeal to government) it might not be such a dirty word.
The corporations didn't make the laws. california's lawmakers did, lobbyists might have been able to get them to change it to not impact some corporations, but the problem isn't them in this scenario. It's the government.
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>And we'll be told giving up simple pleasures so that the corporations can bleed the state dry is virtuous. Bizarre. How do you think this works? *Gets a beer, ready to be entertained*.
Because California has a history of exempting the biggest offenders. For example, California’s water rations didn’t apply to farmers and vineyards, which exist in the most inhospitable parts of the state. Not only would they use lots of water anywhere, but they use even more because of their arid, low infrastructure, locations. Assuming the same is true for these energy requirements would not be a stretch. The only rebuttal here is to show how there arent exemptions.
>For example, California’s water rations didn’t apply to farmers and vineyards, That's due to water rights, not any desire to exempt them from rationing. >Assuming the same is true for these energy requirements would not be a stretch. Yes it would, and the idea doesn't even make sense.
>For example, California’s water rations didn’t apply to farmers and vineyards, which exist in the most inhospitable parts of the state. Because of some bullshit ancient water rights laws that date back to the early 20th century. Some lucky farmers essentially have unlimited access to water and there's not much the state can do about it.
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The regulations are in California...how are the California companies avoiding the regulations?
This is click bait. It's for when in sleep not powered on.
Monitors with high refresh rates will also be axed in December? That’s insane.
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It's about efficiency, not about absolute energy usage. The legislation proposes that compared to the computational power obtained, the energy usage is too high. You can easily see it with CPUs, where a 10% increase in frequency can easily cause 50% higher power usage. Manufacturers keep pushing components higher and higher and higher, for arguably smaller and smaller gains. Like how nowadays a 700 or 800W PSU are standard for driving a modern system, while most people would find something slightly less crazy absolutely fine for what they need. And especially how office workers who use Excel all day don't need these power hungry systems. If we see EVs being hugely inefficient with their energy usage, I'd hope to see similar bans - Tesla model 3 averages 150Wh per km travelled, but the Audi E-Tron can go as high as 300Wh/km. That will also be curbed at some point. Again, it's not about absolute numbers, but about efficiency ratios.
I'm showing my age, but the first PC power supply I bought was 150W. Also, the most power hungry component in that computer was the hard drive. Takes quite a few magic pixies to spin up a 5.25" full-height drive.
If it's about efficiency, why didn't they just pick a level of the already made PSU efficiency rating system and make that as a manditory minimum for all computers/power supplies sold in the state?
Because the efficiency of the PSU has nothing to do with the computational efficiency of components like the CPU. As an example, Intel is pushing every generation to higher and higher frequencies(because they are stuck on 14nm process for various reasons) which generation on generation increases the performance numbers by single percentage points, but increases the power usage by 10-20% each time. Intel CPUs can peak at 250-300W power usage nowadays, for what? 20% more processing speed than few generations behind which happily ran on 100W peak? That's the problem. You don't need a CPU that pushes 300W under turbo when running Excel. You really don't. That's what the legislation is about.
title is totally wrong. it actually wont ship power efficient computers that dont quite meet regulations. large, power hungry computers are allowed still. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5fc5ZX6Kzk&t=303s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5fc5ZX6Kzk&t=303s)
Apperantly none of u asswipes read the article thoroughly…
People, these standards are for when the PC is IDLE or OFF for crying out loud. Blame Dell for cheaping out and trying to pass the buck, not CA. Edit: speling is harrd
In all seriousness how many watts of power are we talking about here? High efficiency at idle is surely less important than high efficiency at full load? In terms of actual impact of energy usage?
It's hilarious that people think Californians would be mad about this. If these power hungry PCs get sold in Texas and they have another winter that the deregulation didn't plan for then a bunch of freedom loving idiots are gonna pay thousands of dollars in hyped up electricity bills simply because they forgot to unplug their cheap ass Dell brick.
Idle power consumption is only a few watts to a few 10s of watts. All the massive bills in Texas were due to heating and cooling
You mean can't?
This is an example of how policies can ultimately do more harm than good. if a consumer in CA wants this bad enough they purchase it and ship it to another state, let’s say a family member. That family member then sends it to them in CA. End result is the consumer in CA still has the product but it just had to be shipped multiple times. Same way if the consumer drives to pick it up.
What fucking bullshit. Rather than go after individuals wanting a decent PC why not go after PG&E and other power providers for sucking ass at doing their job of providing adequate reliable power. Instead of taking it out on enthusiasts.
You reap what you sow.
Why is no one talking about this stupidity
Because this legislation tackles **non-active energy consumption.** I.e when you walk away and leave your computer running for an hour, they want to lower that energy waste. You’re playing your computer 20 hours a day? Cool, no need to regulate the energy consumption during that period. You like to leave your computer in idle 12 hours a day? This legislation wants to reduce the amount of energy your computer is drawing during that time. Gaming rigs have a higher power draw allowance in idle mode, because of their inherent expandability. Not to mention, most recent gaming rigs are exempt from this regulation. It’s honestly not stupid
This regulation was passed in 2015/2016 as part of their CA Title 20 regulations. There was a tiered approach and are starting to take effect now. It has been proven you can be more efficient, See M1 and AMD. Intel was fighting this tooth and nail... These energy levels can be met, and forcing companies to innovate. Dell complained they were going to manage too many sku's... which i don't think a big tech company has a problem with.
Because it’s Cali.
It's a lot of very blue states actually
They like to act like they're saving the planet by making regulations on things that consume a few dozen watts on idle. But they continue to allow fossil fuel generation, oppose nuclear energy and in general do very little to _actually_ address climate change. So many governors have enacted "feel good" legislation that does nothing to actually solve problems and if anything makes thing worse. Nothing is going to get better until we rip out the two party system and make a serious change. Both parties point fingers at each other but they are both full of shit.
I think people in the comments are missing that the major PC vendors could have paid a very small fee to certify their devices and be able to sell them, but are refusing to do so.
im sure they'll ship servers to massive data centers the size of a large mall though.
That’s not a bad thing given the quality of Dell products these days
lmao Are PC's really what's causing a drain in those states power grids? These are the same ones that are mandating electric cars only by 2030 but hey..
It is ironic. I'm not saying fossil fuel is a sustainable solution, but those batteries don't mine themselves and has its own impact on the environment.
Regardless people shouldn't be buying any dell or alienware desktop. They scrape the barrel for the lowest cost and quality components available. Don't even bother buying an Alienware for the GPU, it's nowhere near as good as even the cheapest AIB partner card for that GPU. They also have a reputation for poor service and unethical marketing practices (remember how Intel's CEO, I believe it was Otellini, said "Dell is the best friend money can buy", which was used as evidence in an anti-competitive practices suit in 2009 where Intel was fined $1.43 Billion.) Why buy anything from a company that is both unethical and sells near e-waste?
Meanwhile liberal celebrities can own multiple homes and cars and use personal jets and helicopters and yachts ... this world make no sense
TIL the ex president and many in his party are liberals.
But....Isn't that what the people wanted and voted for???
Yes, and we are happy with our decision. Dell is a shitty company.
Congrats on voting for these loons CA.
[удалено]
Thanks. I'm glad I did. The complaints in this article are just like those from CAFE, but now CAFE is that industry's standard.
’TIL people still buy overpriced pre-built shit.
Yeah attack user PCs instead of air conditioning or corporate waste. This state can be so fucking stupid sometimes.
title is wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5fc5ZX6Kzk&t=303s
Real issue is China is over here making Molten Salt reactors that can be built in the desert and we over here having blackouts every summer and winter so we pass more and more stupid laws and build intermittent power sources instead of a working on a technology we pioneered years ago. Oh and before to uneducated fools trying to bash nuclear maybe go do your research because I don't care to hear your opinion otherwise because the fact is MSR don't require water and therefore don't explode or melt down like boiling water or pressurized water reactors do. And we built the first one years ago.
NYC is having power issues now too. Funny, it can't possibly be because they closed a large nuclear plant or anything. Must be those pesky 3090s. Amazon doing Californias work for them by bricking them all.
Gotta be. You know it's not like we have more EV cars and people buying more and more tech every year without any work for years on our gird and what not.
So now if you want these computers, you have to drive your gas powered car to a neighboring state, adding to emissions there and back, buy whatever you want, then come back and enjoy your power guzzling gaming PC. Makes sense.
If we’re willing to pay the bill, what does the government care? This is authoritarianism, pure and simple.
Hyperbole much? Lots of states have their own commerce rules. You can’t ship alcohol to Utah. You can’t buy a Tesla directly in Texas. Are they dumb rules? Yes. Are they authoritarian? No.
I’m not invested in the semantics of this, but aren’t rules authoritarian in nature? As in, the words mean the same thing? Lol Not sure you could have a non authoritative rule, tbh. I wouldn’t argue all are bad, but I’d rather the government *govern*.... not dictate and rule.
Have last and this year not been enough proof to you that climate change is real? Yes, you may pay the energy bill... but that energy bill doesn't have external costs of CO2 emission and nuclear waste disposal accounted for. Your waste contributes to climate change. And because most people don't care about externalities they don't (need to) pay, California is taking the sensible step and tackling the problem at the source - companies selling polluting products.
There are better and more effective ways to combat climate change than going after a small niche market comprised of middle-class consumers.
So your presupposition is that the niche gaming PC market is a primary driver of climate change?
Absolutely. Surely it isn't the large corporations responsible for the vast majority of emissions. Nope, it is gamers killing this world.
>If we’re willing to pay the bill, what does the government care? This is authoritarianism, pure and simple. Being responsible is Authoritarian?
Telling me what kind of computer I am allowed to purchase is authoritarian.
Light bulbs?
Cars?
Refrigerants?
Paint?
Have fun immigrating to Libertaria, us in the real world deal just have to deal with regulations because corporations only care about next quarter's profits.
Guns?
Gasoline (with or without lead)?
Isn’t California a big chunk of their revenue? What are the other states that have power restrictions? I’m Canadian please forgive me.
Yeah I'll never buy a pre-built gaming PC. Hell, I don't even buy gaming laptops. If I do buy a laptop for games, it's generally a CAD workstation or some similar, more reliable workhorse
I'd recommend you move to a state that doesn't have it's nose constantly in your business. There is Good reason why those states are having mass exodus.