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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.
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'
Yes.
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).
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.
Real life is overrated.
Betteridge's Law of Headlines 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.
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.
1.1.3. Category D desktop computers and integrated desktop
computers meeting all of the following technical parameters are
exempt from the requirements specified in points 1.1.1 and
1.1.2:
(a) a minimum of six physical cores in the central processing
unit (CPU); and
(b) discrete GPU(s) providing total frame buffer bandwidths
above 320 GB/s; and
(c) a minimum 16GB of system memory; and
(d) a PSU with a rated output power of at least 1000 W.
So the high end cards in high end systems are not banned but exempt. Anyone who is a lawyer care to comment on my interpretation?
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.
Why is Snark Required?
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).
Because he wasn't George W. Bush.