Alienware systems fail to meet power consumption requirements in several US states

Dell cannot ship their Alienware Aurora R12 and R10 gaming PCs to several states in the US, due to them not meeting newer energy efficiency requirements. The new regulations pertains to updated idle power consumption standards, in a bid to meet environmental goals.

The only Alienware Aurora R12 and R10 PCs to meet the requirements in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont and Washington are apparently the second-cheapest configurations of them. This means the Aurora R12 with the Core i5-11400F, GTX 1650, 8GB DDR4-3200 RAM and a 256GB SSD+1TB, or the Aurora R10 with the Ryzen 5 5600X, Radeon RX 5600 and the same single-channel RAM and storage configuration.

Interestingly, the lower-end variant without the SSDs are banned from said states. This is apparently due to the California Energy Commission taking into account the “expandability score” that has variables that take into account the number of storage devices, where two storage devices allowed the system to make the cut, but not one. The overall calculations are somewhat convoluted, but you can check them out here.

It seems like Dell’s other pre-built desktop PCs are unaffected, which is great news for those needed to get new PCs for their office. These regulations also seem to only apply to system integrators, and don’t affect DIY PC builders, which is probably a great relief to many gamers out there.

Tighter Tier 2 regulations will be coming on 9th December, and that will include more systems including notebooks, multi-screen notebooks and also high refresh rate monitors.

Source

Pokdepinion: More efficient gaming systems is definitely a good idea.