Will EU Regulations Effectively Ban High-End Video Cards? 303
New submitter arun84h writes "An update to an energy law, which will apply in the European Union, has the power to limit sale of discrete components deemed 'energy inefficient.' GPU maker AMD is worried this will affect future technology as it becomes available, as well as some current offerings. From TFA: 'According to data NordicHardware has seen from a high level employee at AMD, current graphics cards are unable to meet with these requirements. This includes "GPUs like Cape Verde and Tahiti", that is used in the HD 7700 and HD 7900 series, and can't meet with the new guidelines, the same goes for the older "Caicos" that is used in the HD 6500/6600 and HD 7500/7600 series. Also "Oland" is mentioned, which is a future performance circuit from AMD, that according to rumors will be used in the future HD 8800 series. What worries AMD the most is how this will affect future graphics cards since the changes in Lot 3 will go into effect soon. The changes will of course affect Nvidia as much as it will AMD.' Is this the beginning of the end for high-end GPU sales in the EU?"
The report in question. Each performance category of hardware has a power draw ceiling; in this case, regulators are increasing the minimum bus bandwidth for the highest performance category, bumping all hardware on the market into the next lowest. Unfortunately, no current hardware or planned hardware on the high end will come under the power draw ceiling for that category.
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
Is this for real? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, the actual, public regulations have very little similarity to the fear-mongering (and certainly click-generating) article on nordichardware. You can check it out yourself: here (pdf) [eup-network.de].
Also, note, that these regulations are about idle power - and that's an area where some real advancements were made - if AMD's claims are to be believed (3 W in idle with ZeroCore Power), their top-end 7970 GPU's idle power draw is about 10% of the maximum allowed.
The claim that GPUs over a certain bandwith will be banned seems to be absolutely fabricated - it's not something that the regulation's wording or intent or whatever would even hint about.
Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:5, Insightful)
Betteridge's Law of Headlines [wikipedia.org] states the following: Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'.
Nine times out of ten there has been scaremongering about EU regulations, the disastrous consequences haven't occurred. Maybe it's because the regulations weren't as bad in the first place, maybe it's because of the public outbreak, I really don't know... but these sort of issues tend to get fixed. Maybe certain sections are reworded, maybe technology companies are given a special permission to sell their latest models even if they break the limit, acknowledging that it's needed for the technologies to kick off so they can later be optimized (Latest Intel processors require a lot less energy than they used to). Then again... maybe it isn't such an issue even if this does come to effect. I'm not saying "Graphics will never get better than they're now!" but I'm saying that they've been stagnating and the sacrifice that I, as a gamer, might be forced to do wouldn't be that bad.
As for the parent post, the customer who installs a driver wouldn't be breaking the law. This - even if it came to effect - would limit the sales, not criminalize the components.
Nobody read the source? (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the actual document people.
This is not policy.
This is not even draft policy.
THIS IS NOT EVEN RESEARCH INTO POLICY.
This is a PRELIMINARY REPORT that looks at potential solutions to rising energy costs and e-waste within the EU by helping people use less power. It merely outlines a variety of means through which this can be achieved in the EU. What is outlined in the shambolic article above is merely one part of this large, well sourced report.
Yet more BS made up by Europhobes.
Not to defend it but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably my bigger gripe is that it would be simpler, and likely more effective, to tax power use rather than try and legislate what is/isn't allowed in various electronic devices. A generic tax would increase uptake and development of efficient devices and encourage people to be less wasteful while still allowing them to buy some inefficient items (gfx cards if required) and pay accordingly. They're going to tax us anyway so it might as well be focused on discouraging unsustainable behaviour instead of, for example, having an income.
Re:Just ship with a low-draw driver (Score:2, Insightful)
Since no graphics cards are manufactured in the EU, you end up paying the same customs duties indirectly even if you buy the card from an EU-based retailer. That is unless the retailer got the card through a black market smuggling operation, which is quite unlikely.
Re:Just ship with a low-draw driver (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing. A lot of things are exempt. And this isn't law at all, and certainly not law in all EU countries yet (that takes years to happen).
And, at the end of the day, RoHS regulations, CE testing / FCC certification (only one of which is necessary for any one country but BOTH of which are passed for almost every device, even if that means limiting the device in a way not required by local law!), etc. put a MILLION times more constraints and restrictions on things that you have in your PC and you haven't once moaned about that. Because, by and large, you won't notice and won't care. I bet your PC has a "spread spectrum" option in the BIOS and, if it doesn't, it's because it's on by default.
In the same way that nobody cares about energy ratings on their fridge or freezer (I don't even know what mine is), nobody would care about a voluntary system. So, over time, the ratings move to mean that any fridge has to have a basic minimum criteria in order to work and be sold as a fridge. As a result, almost all the fridges in shops nowadays are A-rated because people DIDN'T care (like you don't care about the reason behind the proposed legislation, you just want to run your unnecessarily-powerful-when-idle graphics card), so they made the manufacturer's care instead.
You didn't complain about your car needing to have electronic engine management to pass EU emissions tests. That's basically the whole point of catalytic convertors and ECU's in cars - to allow you to pass the emissions tests. They actually severely limit the car's capabilities for the sake of an environmental concern that only affects things when scaled up by millions of units. Yet every year the tests get more stringent.
What's different? Because it touches your PC? PC's are somehow magically exempt from regulation because you're a geek? I'm sorry to tell you that they aren't. They are already the subject of lots of changes that were enforced upon them by both EU and US laws (and where most manufacturers target the lowest common denominator, losing you even more) and so cost more than they theoretically need to, perform less than they theoretically could and aren't allowed to be sold if they don't.
P.S. your graphics card doesn't need to consume 200W on idle. It really doesn't. And, nowadays, that's the equivalent of a houseful of light bulbs. You were just the next highest-energy user on the list of home products that doesn't involve heating (a necessary expense if you don't want millions to die from the cold / undercooked food).
Re:Not to defend it but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes making electricity more expensive knocks onto hundreds of other things but so does making fuel more efficient and it hasn't stopped us implementing some of the highest taxes on fuel. There's also a reason why average MPG for cars in Europe are so high compared to the US.
If the issue is that certain high power consumption industries would cease to be viable because of the increased costs and risk of imports then bring in tariffs for imports that charge the balance. It already makes no sense that we require EU producers to manufacture products with high taxes on unsustainable behaviour and then allow the market for products to go to importers who don't have to follow those regulations.
Re:That's a bit beyond a 'performance machine' (Score:4, Insightful)
Which would be bad while tossing in a hexacore CPU and a kilowatt PSU isn't that hard, it's generally not necessary even with the hottest graphics card on the market today. A lightly loaded kw psu will waste more than a smaller, moderately loaded but well designed supply. A 750W power supply that isn't lying about it's ratings and a quadcore works well for games.
Thus creating the dilemma of making a machine consume MORE power in order to be exempt. Much like how MPG requirements made cars less attractive to consumers and helped spark the SUV craze, because SUVs didn't have the same requirements.
Re:Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:4, Insightful)
I really don't see the big deal with regulation attempting to steer PCs towards efficiencies too which obviously includes integrated or discrete graphics processors. I could see that it could impact sales of high end cards but it might also act as the incentive manufacturers need to produce more efficient cards in the first place. I'm sure there is a correlation between energy draw and performance but its not exactly 1.0 and I expect that a lot of things a card could do to reduce its power draw aren't being done because the incentive wasn't there for manufacturers to pursue it. Now it is.
Re:Just ship with a low-draw driver (Score:5, Insightful)
GPU's are already far more energy efficient than CPU's, and thats using the term correctly. GPU's that use a lot of power do so because they do an enormous amount of computation per second.
In your fantasy world, the power consumption is limited by a desired computational capacity.
In the real world, the computational capacity is limited by a desired power consumption.
There is no limit to desired computational capacity. We always benefit from more. Laws which artificially restrict power consumption beyond market forces are laws which artificially restrict your access to computation. "You are calculating way too fast! By law you must slow down!"
The way that some of you progressives get things backwards is quite amusing.
Re:Just ship with a low-draw driver (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, they invented it "for Apple". Never mind that other laptops have been using it since way before Apple switched from PPC to Intel.
Damn fanboys and their revisionism.
Re:Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:4, Insightful)
Nine times out of ten there has been scaremongering about EU regulations, the disastrous consequences haven't occurred. Maybe it's because the regulations weren't as bad in the first place, maybe it's because of the public outbreak, I really don't know... but these sort of issues tend to get fixed. Maybe certain sections are reworded, maybe technology companies are given a special permission to sell their latest models even if they break the limit, acknowledging that it's needed for the technologies to kick off so they can later be optimized (Latest Intel processors require a lot less energy than they used to).
What are the chances that flawed legislation would get these kinds of revisions if people didn't speak up? If the constituency hadn't voiced their concerns would SOPA have just died a quiet death too? Yes, crying wolf at every little thing loses its effectiveness after a while but when the criticism is justified you'd better speak loudly while you still can because when the law gets signed its over.
Re:Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:1, Insightful)
Agreed, honestly, I think graphics cards are too fucking energy inefficient in all honestly, they churn out so much heat and draw so much power that it's become silly. Why the fuck do I need a 1kw PSU to run a fucking computer in this day and age?
Power consumption and hence PSU requirement of gaming PCs has gone up, against the trend of some components, such as processors, that have gone down.
If this kicks the likes of video manufacturers to start concentrating on things other than simple raw performance then I'm not sure it's really the worst thing. It's not like computer games have been pushing the limits of current technology like they used to anyway. Honestly, my now 4 year old PC can happily still run many brand new games in full detail at my monitor's maximum resolution (1920x1200), when I was younger even a brand new PC couldn't do that, let alone one 2 years old, and definitely not one 4 years old.
I think it IS time to increase efficiency, reduce power consumption, reduce heat wastage. The only people who will be upset are the epeen crowd who like to brag about how many hundreds of frames per second beyond any perceivable difference they can achieve anyway, or in other words, nothing of value will be lost.
Re:It's okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Because he wasn't George W. Bush.
Re:Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:2, Insightful)
My new 7870 idles at about 40W LESS than my previous 4870. It is also more powerful, and uses less power under load as well.
Not sure why people are ignoring all the advancements in GPU efficiency lately.