Dell cancels some Alienware shipments to six states because the gaming rigs are too powerful

Alienware denied

Gamers looking to get their hands on certain Alienware gaming systems may find that they are out of luck depending on where they live in the US.

Residents of six states -- California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont and Washington -- are having their purchasing options limited by power regulations. Legislation that came into force at the beginning of the month means that certain versions of the Alienware Aurora R10 and R12 are simply too powerful to be sold in these six states and Dell is unable to ship them there.

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In a statement given to the Register, Dell said: "This was driven by the California Energy Commission (CEC) Tier 2 implementation that defined a mandatory energy efficiency standard for PCs -- including desktops, AIOs and mobile gaming systems. This was put into effect on July 1, 2021. Select configurations of the Alienware Aurora R10 and R12 were the only impacted systems across Dell and Alienware".

The news was shared by PC Gamer, having been first spotted by Marie Oakes on Twitter:

A note on the listings for certain configurations of the Alienware Aurora R10 and R12 gaming desktops read:

This product cannot be shipped to the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power consumption regulations adopted by those states. Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled.

Conversely, systems that are not problematically power-hungry bear the note:

Complies with CEC power consumption regulations.

Ships to ALL states.

The new legislations presents a serious issue for computer manufacturers. The range of different configurations and system customizations option that tend to be offered means that the power consumption of every possible variant needs to be tested in order to ensure compliance.

There is, of course, nothing to stop an eager gamer from ordering a powerful system and having it shipped to a friend or family member elsewhere in the country before then transporting the computer across state lines themselves. Equally, there are no barriers to buying a system that meets energy legislation and then upgrading it to make it more powerful.

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