New California Energy Commission Regulation Threatens Pre-built Gaming Desktops

[TheGuruStud]

You work on live 120V systems? if that is without the correct protection gear that is idiotic. As long as you have the correct equipment there is no problem working on live 230V systems, or for that mater 6.6 kV systems.

I don't wear anything. You can't use your hands with gloves on. 120V will just give you a little scare from the shock (funny how the brain has no idea how to interpret it, it just panics). 240 is going to hurt (or worse if sweaty).

 

[Rockarola]

I don't wear anything. You can't use your hands with gloves on. 120V will just give you a little scare from the shock (funny how the brain has no idea how to interpret it, it just panics). 240 is going to hurt (or worse if sweaty).

I really...like really really...hope that you speak as an amateur, because any professional with your attitude will either be fried or responsible for frying someone else.
Here's a little hint for you, Ohm's Law takes no prisoners (If you lower the voltage in a closed system, the amperage rises), and your body doesn't really care about 110 or 230, it's all a question of the amperage and how fast the fuses are.

 

[TheGuruStud]

I really...like really really...hope that you speak as an amateur, because any professional with your attitude will either be fried or responsible for frying someone else.
Here's a little hint for you, Ohm's Law takes no prisoners (If you lower the voltage in a closed system, the amperage rises), and your body doesn't really care about 110 or 230, it's all a question of the amperage and how fast the fuses are.

Not really since your skin has very high resistance under normal conditions.

Amateur? I'm paid to do it, so w/e lol.
This isn't dangerous at all. It doesn't even register on the danger meter of the jobs I've done.

 

[Rockarola]

Not really since your skin has very high resistance under normal conditions.

Amateur? I'm paid to do it, so w/e lol

So you are Electrician/Electrical Engineer (high voltage)?
If so, you are a disgrace to your profession, spreading ignorance and being proud of it...but w/e it's only lives we are talking about, lol.
/sarcasm off

 

[Blueberries]

Good, I'd like to see more intelligent and economical designs. Pic related: I'm only using 3W to make this post from a desktop PC.

EDIT: Actually, what we really need is desktop-oriented higher power AIOs. Instead of "Surface Pros" with batteries and detachable keyboards, have full-powered desktop CPU/monitors with power supplies and wireless keyboard/mice. Simple enough. It's very easy to package typical productivity use within a 100W envelope. The PC I built for my parents caps out ~80W, streams 4k, and can play 1080p games. Add an OS and a few apps (Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, etc) and you have a marketable and affordable product that people actually want. Hell, hire me and I'll build them for you!

 

[TheGuruStud]

I hate to break it to you, but human lives aren't worth much (see history). There's over 7 billion shits on this planet, too. We are not special.

I work solo, so bfd. Feel free to whine to every fat ass, smoker, drinker, bad driver, etc, b/c they're the ones in danger and endangering others.

 

[Rockarola]

I hate to break it to you, but human lives aren't worth much (see history). There's over 7 billion shits on this planet, too. We are not special.

I work solo, so bfd. Feel free to whine to every fat ass, smoker, drinker, bad driver, etc, b/c they're the ones in danger and endangering others.

Oh, I'm sorry...I thought I was speaking to an adult, but I guess "w/e" and "lol" should have tipped me off. Could you please hand over the keyboard to a responsible adult, since you have proven yourself to be unreliable around any electrical devices.

Please leave any voltage above 40v to the professionals, no amount of hipster cynicism will protect you from the laws of physics!

 

[eidairaman1]

I've been here for almost 63 years and the only time I've been shot at was when I was in the army.

I lived in California for many years and the outrageous rules and regulations are the reason I left for Virginia. (and the high cost of living)

Guns and bullets dont kill on their own, people kill people @Vayra86

 

[Mussels]

Pic related: I'm only using 3W to make this post from a desktop PC.

i would LOVE to hear more about how you think you're only using 3W.

Unless you're on a smartphone/tablet, you've heavily mis-interpreted something.

 

[Blueberries]

i would LOVE to hear more about how you think you're only using 3W.

Unless you're on a smartphone/tablet, you've heavily mis-interpreted something.

The screenshot doesn't lie. That's the power of Skylake, Infineon MOSFETs, Samsung ICs, and a H170 chipset. CPU temp is at 28C right now with an NH-L9i spinning at 50%.

Just for you I downloaded PCMark Vantage and ran it. Maximum board power while benchmarking was 32W, although I have gotten it higher. Maximum draw by the CPU was 26W. These numbers are retrieved using sensors on the motherboard itself.

Score of 25290 with i3-6320

Try comparing the results with your outdated Sandy Bridge architecture.

I've actually slightly revised this PC, if I were to build it again, mostly because pricing / availability changed but also because I intentionally pushed the envelope the first time. Here's the part list ($700 USD) if you want to build something similar. If 256GB isn't enough storage I recommend an 850 Pro in its place.

https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?Source=MSWD&WishListNumber=25048571

 

[wiak]

meybe they should just make it mandatory to have Gold or Platinum Power Supplys and call it a day, ban the cheap ass crap that all the oems use

still one of the stupid ideas for computers yet came out

 

[Mussels]

The screenshot doesn't lie. That's the power of Skylake, Infineon MOSFETs, Samsung ICs, and a H170 chipset. CPU temp is at 28C right now with an NH-L9i spinning at 50%.

Just for you I downloaded PCMark Vantage and ran it. Maximum board power while benchmarking was 32W, although I have gotten it higher. Maximum draw by the CPU was 26W. These numbers are retrieved using sensors on the motherboard itself.

Score of 25290 with i3-6320

Try comparing the results with your outdated Sandy Bridge architecture.

I've actually slightly revised this PC, if I were to build it again, mostly because pricing / availability changed but also because I intentionally pushed the envelope the first time. Here's the part list ($700 USD) if you want to build something similar. If 256GB isn't enough storage I recommend an 850 Pro in its place.

https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?Source=MSWD&WishListNumber=25048571

whatever you're reading that from, is inaccurate mate. Try a wall meter for the whole PC.

 

[yotano211]

The entire state of California is a dump. I was charged with theft in Oxnard California when I went to a Fry's electronic store, the person I was with decided to steal about $900 is hard drives by stuffing them down his pants.

When we both entered the store, I went my own way to the back to check out some new laptop models, he went to the right side to check out hard drives. We meet up at the front of the store at the check out line since he was buying some stuff, I was not, I was only looking and providing the transportation. When we both were walking out of the store, we both were stopped by store security, they called the police and took us away to jail.

I was served 3 days in jail and got 3 years probation for theft, only because I came in with the person and left with him, even though I went my own way when we both step inside. I had no idea he was going to steal things, if I knew I would have not gone with him since I was 500 miles from home and didnt want to get into any trouble. After the 1st year the charges will drop to petty theft and after the probation period is over I can have it deleted from my record.

I was only in California on a business trip to the local convention center in Oxnard, CA. I used to go every 4 months to that sales convention. I dont go anymore and I stopped doing any kind of business with California. I run a small ebay business, so when ever someone from California buys something from me and they provide a CA address, I refund their money back. I always put it down on all of my listings but some people dont read.

To me CA can take a dump into the pacific and i would not care, the entire state can burn like the Cajon pass did some weeks ago.

 

[xvi]

meybe they should just make it mandatory to have Gold or Platinum Power Supplys and call it a day, ban the cheap ass crap that all the oems use

still one of the stupid ideas for computers yet came out

@wiak for president 2016.

There's a bit of a price premium making high enough quality PSUs to achieve those ratings, but I'm sure that price premium is WAY less than whatever manufacturers will be doing to legally circumnavigate laws like this.

Today's high-end graphics cards such as the GeForce GTX 1080, only feature 320 GB/s, and it's expected that by 2018, mid-range GPUs will have the kind of processing power (and importantly memory bandwidth) of the GTX 1080. So you'll see mid-range GPUs with wastefully expensive memory to meet those bandwidth requirements. High-end GPUs will have moved on to faster memory standards such as GDDR6 and HBM2.

I'd expect, in this example, that nVidia's legal team would find a way to shut this down as this would take their flagship card out of the option list for California residents.

 

[Blueberries]

whatever you're reading that from, is inaccurate mate. Try a wall meter for the whole PC.

Wall will always be different because no power supply is 100% efficient, I'm measuring wattage using the built in sensors on the motherboard.

Regardless, even if the power supply is only 50% efficient, 3/.5 is only 4.5W.

I don't know why you're being so stubborn. I'm not even using 1% of CPU or memory allocation to browse TPU. The TDP of the CPU is 51W, SSD is ~1.7W, there are two fans that draw less than 1W each, even if I cranked the absolute maximum power draw from all my hardware (which would be dumb at idle) it would be less than 90W.

As you can see above, while benchmarking the board reached a maximum of 32W which simulates typical stress levels, and a maximum potential of 42W if all the components were running at max simultaneously (they don't because different tasks stress different parts of the board).

Note that stress load =/= to max load.

I'm not sure what you don't understand. Out of curiosity how many watts do you think I should be drawing to do simple web browsing?

 

[Blueberries]

Mussels take a look at this article on Tom's, even the much higher power envelope 6600k/6700k only draw 4W at idle.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skylake-intel-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k,4252-11.html

I hope this was educational
​

 

[Mussels]

Mussels take a look at this article on Tom's, even the much higher power envelope 6600k/6700k only draw 4W at idle.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skylake-intel-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k,4252-11.html

I hope this was educational
​

That is just the CPU. Add in the ram, the fans, the hard drives/SSDs, the motherboard, the network card(s), the USB devices, the PSU inefficiencies...

I get that you are giving me accurate numbers - but they're nowhere near the wattages of a total system, even if you ignore peripheral devices (monitor, mouse, speakers etc)

As someone who actually does measure the wattages of his systems, trust me when no standard desktop is going to be under 40W - the inefficiencies of the PSU keep even the best desktop systems around 55-75W at idle, before monitor/screen.
(mITX hardware can go as low as 15W, which is also normal for many laptops at idle)

 

[Blueberries]

Well I've gone to great depths to explain this entirely simple concept to you, board power isn't wall power, I was never mentioning peripherals, etc.

Can't be assed to keep repeating myself.

You're also very wrong.

 

[R-T-B]

You're also very wrong.

For wall power, he really isn't. Believe me when I say we've tested this around here.

 

[Blueberries]

For wall power, he really isn't. Believe me when I say we've tested this around here.

So you're telling me my power supply (a platinum rated Seasonic) is 12% efficient or less.

I'm sure you have tested this as many people have. Take a look here, lots of systems idle at 5W and peak at 30W:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10121/intel-nuc6i5syk-skylake-ucff-pc-review/6

Or

http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-nuc-nuc6i5syk-skylake-mini-pc-review_181093/4

We found the the entire system was consuming 9.9 Watts of power from the wall outlet at idle and just 1.5W at sleep. When watching Youtube 1080P videos we averaged 13.5 Watts of power draw. When running the AIDA64 System Stability test the system power consumption topped out just over 45 Watts and when playing BF4 at 1920×1080 with medium image quality settings we hit 47.8 Watts.

(Both measure from the wall)

You're vastly overestimating the power usage of modern hardware if you think <10W at idle is impossible. A 2C Skylake i3 @ 1.8 GHz hardly draws even 2W. M.2 SSDs use less than 2W peak. Fans use ~0.5W. It's not complicated.

 

[R-T-B]

So you're telling me my power supply (a platinum rated Seasonic) is 12% efficient or less.

I'm sure you have tested this as many people have. Take a look here, lots of systems idle at 5W and peak at 30W:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10121/intel-nuc6i5syk-skylake-ucff-pc-review/6

Or

http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-nuc-nuc6i5syk-skylake-mini-pc-review_181093/4



(Both measure from the wall)

You're vastly overestimating the power usage of modern hardware if you think <10W at idle is impossible. A 2C Skylake i3 @ 1.8 GHz hardly draws even 2W. M.2 SSDs use less than 2W peak. Fans use ~0.5W. It's not complicated.

I think the issue comes down to definitions. I don't consider "at idle" when crunching figures such as these, I generally go by at load and max power draw. That, and I would not consider a dual core standard for a desktop in this day and age, but it's certainly suitable for some uses. I also would never consider a NUC a "standard" system.

Although it is worth noting that even platinum rated PSUs fall way lower in efficiency when you run them dirt low like that.

 

[Mussels]

measure your system at the wall blueberries, with an actual meter instead of going by theory and software readings.

Because its very clear you're not including 80% of the power draw of your actual system.

 

[Blueberries]

I think the issue comes down to definitions. I don't consider "at idle" when crunching figures such as these, I generally go by at load and max power draw. That, and I would not consider a dual core standard for a desktop in this day and age, but it's certainly suitable for some uses. I also would never consider a NUC a "standard" system.

Although it is worth noting that even platinum rated PSUs fall way lower in efficiency when you run them dirt low like that.

98% of applications fall into 2C or less, and even so, an i3-6320 performs 4 threads faster than a 2500k, which was considered "great" just a few years ago. I have a 3570k Z97 system clocked at 4.4GHz and the i3-6320 is 95% or better at 4T tasks and faster at 2T. If you're not using any professional applications (i.e., standard use) an i3 is perfect. IPC and a strong single / dual thread are much more important than core count.

You're right that PSUs reach their maximum efficiency at around 50% load and any outlying load beyond that comes with a cost. They're also much less efficient at 20% of their maximum load. Regardless, a platinum PSU like this one will be over 75% efficient even at a 5W load. 5W/0.75 = 7W at the wall.

measure your system at the wall blueberries, with an actual meter instead of going by theory and software readings.

Because its very clear you're not including 80% of the power draw of your actual system.

It's very clear I'm not. Perhaps you should research M.2 and the 14nm FinFET process, times have changed.

 

[Captain_Tom]

What stupid and utterly useless laws. I wonder how enforceable these laws will be considering any business can just order a bunch of PC's minus one component like RAM so they can claim they weren't pre-assembled.



Hey maybe it will force Nvidia to stop gimping bandwidth

 

[R-T-B]

98% of applications fall into 2C or less

Considering a lot of people game on PCs now, I'd contest that point and request citation.

Honestly though, this is just semantics and not worth arguing about. I accept your claim that energy efficiency as a whole, is going up. I just don't agree it should be a legal mandate.