Will EU Regulations Effectively Ban High-End Video Cards?

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.

Comments

Just ship with a low-draw driver

[FireballX301]

Have the driver that ships with the card be designed to stay under the draw cap so the card is still in regulation, and the manufacturer can just offer the normal drivers on the site for people to download.

Naturally anyone who cares will install the real driver, so the law-breaking is on the part of the consumer, not AMD or Nvidia. Seems like a simple workaround as long as you can say 'it's the consumer breaking the law, not us'

Re:Just ship with a low-draw driver

[Miamicanes]

As a practical matter, most laws like this are only directly relevant to companies importing more than a single item for resale -- particularly large corporations like Asda importing items by the shipping crate. The EU doesn't have the resources to go out and inspect the inventory of every Chinese immigrant selling goods straight from Shenzhen from his crowded store in outer London or Amsterdam, let alone scrutinize every item purchased from the US. As a practical matter, it doesn't... it just requires companies like Asda to certify the compliance of the goods they sell, and knows that it can keep 99.9% of noncompliant goods out of most consumers' hands without lifting a finger or paying the salary of a single customs agent.

Here's an easy experiment: go find a small, independent store that sells imported computer parts purchased from Shenzhen. Say, ATX tower cases or USB hubs, owned by a guy who emigrated from China and has family members purchasing for him back in China. Buy the coolest-looking case with a brand name you've never heard of, and a random USB hub. Take them home, and scrutinize the legal compliance of each. If you see a FCC ID (or its European equivalent) etched into the circuit board, look it up... and feign surprise when you discover that it's either associated with some item that hasn't even been sold in 3 years, or was completely made up. Don't forget to check the compliance of things like the power supply, too. More likely than not, both items are technically illegal in the EU, US, or both... and nobody really cares, unless they're a retailer the size of Amazon or Walmart/Asda. Then, they care a lot.

That said, a law that sets standards that aren't already achievable on the assumption that consumers can just ignore it if necessary is a bad law.

No!

[nospam007]

'Will EU Regulations Effectively Ban High-End Video Cards?'

"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_Law_of_Headlines

This is a right wing troll

[Required Snark]

Whoever is stupid enough to make this a topic on Slashdot: this is a right wing troll. The big bad evil government is not going to rip your high end gaming machine from your cold dead hands. Stop wasting our bandwidth and time with this dumb ass crap.

I think this is deliberate counter propaganda that shows up more often when there is some big scandal about business doing something stupid that screws a lot of people. In this case I guess it is the compounding pharmacy that caused the meningitis epidemic. The corrupt criminal organization calling itself the "International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists" successfully lobbied Congress to defeat attempts to regulate their industry. Now there are over 200 meningitis cases and 15 deaths, and the number of exposed patients may be higher because more drugs were tainted.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444657804578052972230404046.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

If you want to be paranoid about something, worry about corrupt politically connected businesses risking your life for profit. It actually happens. Not that it often ends up on Slashdot, as opposed to right wing scare tactics.

Regulate idle power instead

[Alkonaut]

Regulating idle power draw would actually be good, and a lot more clever than regulating the power ceiling. Saying that desktop computers can't use more than 10W in idle, and no component sold discretely can use more than 5W idle would make a huge difference. In reality, those of us running these 300W graphics cards only run them for a fraction of the day, and if they were 150W instead would make much difference, whereas a difference between 20W and 10W for the idle power would make a bigger difference over a week or a year.