Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

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Pyperkub
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Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Pyperkub »

Alienware can no longer sell their top gaming systems in multiple states:
For the time being, Dell is no longer shipping certain Alienware Aurora R12 and R10 gaming PC configurations to half a dozen US states because those product lines potentially fall out of bounds of newly adopted energy efficiency requirements.
Missing from the article is how much energy these systems use.

These are the States:

California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, or Washington

For the time being, it may be that build your own may be the only option.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by jztemple2 »

From the article:
In 2016, California became the first US state to approve energy efficiency standards for PCs and monitors. At the time, it was anticipated that the new standards would save 2.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year and significantly reduce carbon pollution arising from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
Maybe it would better if the country would get over its phobia about nuclear power and start building plants that use newer, much safer designs.
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UsulofDoom
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by UsulofDoom »

Does this mean E sport competition will not be played in those states. This hinders amatures that have dreams to go pro.

Funny how they are asking people not to charge their electric cars too.
Last edited by UsulofDoom on Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by jztemple2 »

UsulofDoom wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 8:49 pm Does this mean E sport competition will not be played in those states. This hinders armatures that have dreams to go pro.

Funny how they are asking people not to charge their electric cars too.
Desperately trying to not make a joke about "armatures"... Enlarge Image

I'm guessing you can still get a computer from out of state and bring it in, although in any public event those machines would be obvious. Maybe they could get an exemption for the event.

Meanwhile the wife and I have decided to supplement our retirement income by smuggling top end gaming computer into Hawaii :D
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Anonymous Bosch
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

jztemple2 wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 3:42 pm From the article:
In 2016, California became the first US state to approve energy efficiency standards for PCs and monitors. At the time, it was anticipated that the new standards would save 2.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year and significantly reduce carbon pollution arising from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
Maybe it would better if the country would get over its phobia about nuclear power and start building plants that use newer, much safer designs.
Yeah, good luck with that…

Study: China's New Coal Power Plant Capacity in 2020 More Than 3 Times Rest of World's
voanews.com wrote:SHANGHAI - China put 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity into operation in 2020, according to new international research, more than three times the amount built elsewhere around the world and potentially undermining its short-term climate goals.

The country won praise last year after President Xi Jinping pledged to make the country "carbon neutral" by 2060. But regulators have since come under fire for failing to properly control the coal power sector, a major source of climate-warming greenhouse gas.

Including decommissions, China's coal-fired fleet capacity rose by a net 29.8 GW in 2020, even as the rest of the world made cuts of 17.2 GW, according to research released on Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a U.S. think tank, and the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

"The runaway expansion of coal-fired power is driven by electricity companies' and local governments' interest in maximizing investment spending, more than a real need for new capacity," said Lauri Myllyvirta, CREA lead analyst.

The country's National Energy Administration (NEA) didn't immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

China approved the construction of a further 36.9 GW of coal-fired capacity last year, three times more than a year earlier, bringing the total under construction to 88.1 GW. It now has 247 GW of coal power under development, enough to supply the whole of Germany.
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Brian
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Brian »

JayzTwoCents has a video that does a pretty good job breaking this down.

Spoiler Alert: There is at least one Alienware system that meets the requirements to be sold under these regulations.

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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by LawBeefaroni »

jztemple2 wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 10:09 pm
UsulofDoom wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 8:49 pm Does this mean E sport competition will not be played in those states. This hinders armatures that have dreams to go pro.

Funny how they are asking people not to charge their electric cars too.
Desperately trying to not make a joke about "armatures"... Enlarge Image

I'm guessing you can still get a computer from out of state and bring it in, although in any public event those machines would be obvious. Maybe they could get an exemption for the event.

Meanwhile the wife and I have decided to supplement our retirement income by smuggling top end gaming computer into Hawaii :D
I'm sure you can own/possess/use one of these PCs. They just can't be sold or shipped to these states by the manufacturer.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Blackhawk »

Brian wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:39 am JayzTwoCents has a video that does a pretty good job breaking this down.

Spoiler Alert: There is at least one Alienware system that meets the requirements to be sold under these regulations.
That's not nearly as bad as the hubbub makes it sound.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Blackhawk »

Related to that video, I honestly wish I could have my gaming PC set to use sleep mode, but it also serves files to the other PCs on my network. If I am sitting on my laptop (or on the TV, or am using the bedroom computer) and need to check a document, or watch a video file, or grab an installer, or back something up, I do so opening the shared folder on my PC. If I set it to sleep, say, every hour, then I have to get up and walk over there every hour.

I've yet to find a way to wake it up automatically that wasn't incredibly convoluted (and designed for network techs with more acronyms than the federal government), and was reliable. Hell, Windows likes to drop into sleep mode even if somebody is actively working with files in a shared folder. It's a lot of fun when you're watching a video file with the family on the TV that's in the shared folder and the PC goes to sleep, cutting off access.

So, the PC lives in 'always on' mode, and I waste a ton of power, all because Microsoft likes things to work the way Microsoft thinks you should be doing them and doesn't like people deviating from The Plan.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Isgrimnur »

It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by hitbyambulance »

low power usage (in GPUs, CPUs and PSUs) has been a serious requirement of mine for my last two PC builds. i've excluded more powerful video cards from consideration in my most recent build due to horrific wattage requirements.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Victoria Raverna »

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:03 pm Related to that video, I honestly wish I could have my gaming PC set to use sleep mode, but it also serves files to the other PCs on my network. If I am sitting on my laptop (or on the TV, or am using the bedroom computer) and need to check a document, or watch a video file, or grab an installer, or back something up, I do so opening the shared folder on my PC. If I set it to sleep, say, every hour, then I have to get up and walk over there every hour.

I've yet to find a way to wake it up automatically that wasn't incredibly convoluted (and designed for network techs with more acronyms than the federal government), and was reliable. Hell, Windows likes to drop into sleep mode even if somebody is actively working with files in a shared folder. It's a lot of fun when you're watching a video file with the family on the TV that's in the shared folder and the PC goes to sleep, cutting off access.

So, the PC lives in 'always on' mode, and I waste a ton of power, all because Microsoft likes things to work the way Microsoft thinks you should be doing them and doesn't like people deviating from The Plan.
Buy a low power NAS device. To further minimize power usage, use SSDs in that NAS.

Something like this:

https://www.storagereview.com/review/qn ... nas-review
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by evansalexxia »

A spamming computer requires somewhere between 300 – 500 watts per hour to operate.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Carpet_pissr »

I've also worried about this, and am pretty paranoid about my computers hibernating (vs sleep), and when I find out the've been on all night or more? Minor freak out. :D SO many things that can keep them awake, even when you think you have things corrrectly set up for them to hibernate on inactivity.

In fact I think I have the CMD line request for Windows memorized I've used it so much: powercfg -requests

That's from a 2012 (!) Lifehacker article...still works to let you know what's keeping the computer awake.

With a monthly power bill around $265, it bothers me when stuff doesn't power down or working on low power unless otherwise needed. I'm shocked when I read about people just leaving their gaming computers on constantly, like ACTIVELY on. That's crazy to me.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Isgrimnur »

A Slack friend of mine bought a new rig and is using it to crypto mine while she’s not gaming to offset the cost.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Gaming PC's and Energy Consumption

Post by Jeff V »

Carpet_pissr wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:10 am With a monthly power bill around $265, it bothers me when stuff doesn't power down or working on low power unless otherwise needed. I'm shocked when I read about people just leaving their gaming computers on constantly, like ACTIVELY on. That's crazy to me.
Yikes. We had a very warm August and September. I'm on hourly pricing and there were a few times I wasn't able to shut everything down when there was a high price alert. We were rewarded with our highest electric bill in 5 years -- $130.

My gaming laptop is pretty much on all of the time, although if I think of it, I'll close the lid at night so it hibernates.

You might want to look into subsidized solar, if your average is that high, the math should work out. Our annual average comes out to about $80/month, well below the $100 minimum for consideration.
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