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News New EC regulations could kill off high-end graphics boards

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 15 Oct 2012.

  1. Bogomip

    Bogomip ... Yo Momma

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    I dont know about how the specifications relate to the power consumption but tbh its not a bad idea. Energy usage does need to be curbed and the best way to do this is make things better at running. Sure there are other, better ways of saving energy but why the hell not try this approach?
     
  2. Benneb-

    Benneb- What's a Dremel?

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    I can see the Daily Mail headlines already...
    512-bit bus running at 5,0002MHz linked to rise in cancer!

    What nonesense.

    Just a thought; Is there anything about high performance servers/clusters? Surely they would fall afoul of some EU efficiency limit thing? (Provided they don't ONLY measure by bus width and speed?)

    Not that I am for any of this (I have not read enough about any of it) but wouldn't power at the plug be a better measurement?
     
  3. LordPyrinc

    LordPyrinc Legomaniac

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    I'm all for energy efficiency, provided that it doesn't prohibit the sale of cutting edge graphics cards that may not yet meet the standards. If they do meet the efficiency standards, then slap a smiley face EU sticker on them. Make it like the EnergyStar sticker that they put on monitors, tvs, and other appliances over here. If your ECO concious, look for the smiley face... if you want gaming performance, buy whatever you like.
     
  4. [PUNK] crompers

    [PUNK] crompers Dremedial

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    man, theres a helluvalotta things to worry about before graphics cards! what a ludicrous idea this is, thank god its still just an idea.
     
  5. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Efficiency of a gpu = performance you get per watt consumed.

    Techpowerup has been making charts for that for a while, example:
    http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_7970_Toxic_6_GB/29.html

    The 7970 for example is actually more efficient than the 7750, so based on common sense the 7970 would get the better energy efficiency rating than the 7750, yet the EU wants to take memory bandwidth as an indication of efficiency and slap the 7970 with the worse rating than the 7750 due to the higher memory bandwidth?
     
  6. Zener Diode

    Zener Diode User Title

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    In any case, why not just limit the amount of power each person can use per day or week etc. I mean, if you want one big power hungry PC but you choose not to use heating, lighting, washing machine etc. that's your business. Also, a person can buy a medium power card and use it 24/7, but you can't get a slightly more powerful card even if you use it once a week?

    Power consumption would become another selling point, because lower power consumption would use less of your quota, so you can have more things. Anyways, as Guinevere pointed out, it's probably not happening.
     
  7. SirFur

    SirFur PC Gamer and LAzy B0nes

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    Ridiculous.....just plain bare-brained bollocks.....is there no way we can challenge this regulation? I mean surely this regulation is still in the 'planning' phase and still open to discussion...??

    If they had a clue what the hell they were talking about then they may have implemented this method...which is far more understandable, and I'd be reasonably happy with that! Or even if they imposed an extra 'tax' like they do with CO2 efficiency ratings for car tax.....but this 'memory bandwidth' idea is like saying cars with more seats or a larger boot are less efficient.....I mean come on!!!!!
     
  8. dolphie

    dolphie What's a Dremel?

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    I can just see it now, walking down the road and some shady hooded guy steps out of an alley, "Yo wanna get high bro?" Sorry I don't do drugs. "Nah man, I mean like, high framerates."
     
  9. unrealone1

    unrealone1 What's a Dremel?

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    Did u know that the cole power stations are 80% loss when the power finally reaches your house!!
    Yes only 20% of the power reaches your house the rest is lost in waste!!
    Did u know that 15 of the biggest shipping cargo ships produce the same polution as all the cars in the world put together for 1 year.
    1 millin tons of sulfer goes up every year because of these ships!!
     
  10. faxiij

    faxiij Minimodder

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    This. Except this does not only apply to the UK Government as well, but also my own (German Government) and quite likely many others too.
     
  11. Deders

    Deders Modder

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    Here's the relevant documentation, not had a chance to study it but it seems that higher banded graphics cards may be exempt.
     
  12. uz1_l0v3r

    uz1_l0v3r What's a Dremel?

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    Good. This will encourage manufacturers to produce more energy efficient cards.
     
  13. ssj12

    ssj12 Minimodder

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    Sorry, you are wrong. They made reference to the report. NordicHardware got a recent tip from an AMD exec that states they are worried. They state in their article that they are using those documents as an example on the regulations the person who leaked the info was worried about.
     
  14. dolphie

    dolphie What's a Dremel?

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    Is the power drawn from graphics cards really a big and common problem? Compared to the rest of the stuff in your house I mean? I would be willing to bet my mum uses far more power when she puts on the dishwasher, washing machine, tumble drier, and then sits down to watch the x factor and read the paper with several lights on.

    So really, graphics cards are not a big problem, clearly they should be regulating the x factor.
     
  15. siliconfanatic

    siliconfanatic Johny-come-Lately

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    they really need to get off their collective a$$ imo, and invest in a more effective, less jerk-move like alternative nrg solutions like my country should:grr:. they actually do seem like that a**ho** jock in every school that thinks that everyone doesnt care about what he doesnt. hey, ii have a new name for laws like this! ROMNEY LAWS!!!:hehe:
     
  16. dolphie

    dolphie What's a Dremel?

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    Yeah. Canada did that with their big hydro power station that generates more power than they know what to do with.
     
  17. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    It's not ridiculously unfair. You checked a pdf which nordic hardware now state is not the source of the article. I have looked at it also (albeit a couple of skims) and it seems to be a report on the environmental and energy impact of various computing devices and monitors. It doesn't seem to contain any information which lends credence to or can act as a basis for the article. So I don't know how you can say that it seemed to backup nordics claims. Neither article provides any context that this is a very small part of what seems to be a massively encompassing initiative on energy reduction across many devices. This gives the impression that the eurocrats decided to pull graphics cards out of their arses as something that wastes energy. Nor do either of you state at what stage "lot 3" is at. Which seems to be a working documents/consultation forum. This looks like basically a drafting/consultation with various experts and industry types as well as creating the documents. There are documentssuch as this on the web which does describe constraining graphics card power. However it also says

    Frankly who knows what impact the directive will have. But including things like its in a draft and consultation phase or that laws may not have a significant impact on a graphics card functionality don't stir up as much controversy or clicks.

    So I maintain that you saw or were pointed to a sensationalist and narrow scoped article, did little fact checking, re-purposed it for bit-tech and didn't bother to wait for the only bit of fact checking you did do. Also so what if it takes weeks, I'd rather see something that has been substantiated than read what is essentially a roumour from some guy at AMD (the head cleaner for all we know) that says he's worried about a new law that doesn't exist yet.
     
  18. Psytek

    Psytek What's a Dremel?

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    I agree. I don't usually subscribe to conspiracy theories, however when it comes to unneeded legislation, it's often clear that we're seeing the fruits of lobbying efforts at work.

    Big energy companies are the only ones who stand to benefit from forcing consumers to use low-energy devices. They still get to charge their 'standing charges' (essentially an arbitrary payment simply for the privilege of being a customer), while having to expend less money to actually make electricity, and having to invest less heavily in expansion of their capacity or transition to renewable sources.
     
  19. Bogomip

    Bogomip ... Yo Momma

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    Whilst I realize the bias at work (this is a hardware forum) you are surely deluding yourselves as to why this is an issue above a lot of other things.

    For example:

    a 42 inch LCD TVs power consumption is 120 Watts when ON (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007IYVU...de=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B007IYVUBY).
    The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GBs power consumption is 115 when IDLE, and up to 468 Watts when in Futuremark (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1921/12/)

    Whats more is these massive high end cards really are not required at all. They are nice to have sure, but when it comes to energy efficiency im afraid the first thing you are going to focus upon is the ridiculously inefficient luxury item.

    Now whether they are targeting the right cards is another matter, but the fact they are targeting graphics cards is of absolutely no surprise whatsoever to me. Its good that they are trying to reduce the energy people waste because frankly not alot of people give a damn, and if it wasn't for people doing things like this we might not have awesomely efficient TVs or Fridges like we do now.

    Sorry to say it but the tech we use really is the one of the final frontiers in terms of wasting energy :) The alternative is for them to put a massive tax on these graphics cards I guess which they could use to fund green initiatives.

    edit: oh, and whilst performance is related to power, essentially the planet doesnt care about how powerful your pc is :)
     
    Last edited: 18 Oct 2012
  20. Bogomip

    Bogomip ... Yo Momma

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    BTW that GFX card mentioned above is around 13 pence to run per two hours at current prices :) Thats about £7.80 to run per month. For reference, this is only 0.1p per kWh cheaper than an equivalent amount of energy gained from petrol. Cars manufacturers are looking at making their products more eco friendly, why shouldn't chip manufacturers? :)

    http://www.confusedaboutenergy.co.uk/index.php/domestic-fuels/fuel-prices
     

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