First the EU came for the iPhone charging port, now it's coming for unnecessary CPU packaging — stock coolers may be a thing of the past

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D retail box held in front of a blue cloudy sky

CPU packaging has already been reduced a lot in recent years, but it'll probably keep on going thanks to new regulations in the EU. (Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

Ah, EU regulations. Some love them, some, namely non-EU countries and businesses, tend to loathe them. Nevertheless, they exist, and the latest one will affect, among other products, those wonderful display boxes CPUs have shipped in over the years.

The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) came into effect on February 11 (via TechPowerUp) with the aim to reduce unnecessary and non-sustainable packaging. For CPUs specifically, that probably means even the current boxes will continue to shrink. After all, a CPU isn't very big, is it?

Curiously, some are leaning towards the in-box stock cooler becoming a relic of the past, too.

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now CPU makers will ditch the included fan thanks to EU pic.twitter.com/Rv5vVXrhkCFebruary 11, 2025

It's a fair assumption to make. If the wording stresses that packaging weight and volume needs to come down, would including a stock cooler fall foul of this? After all, you're not buying the cooler, you're buying the CPU inside.

If the stock cooler were to completely go away, I don't think it would be a particularly big deal. The higher-end CPUs from Intel and AMD have already been shipping this way for a little while now. Truthfully, even if you're building a budget PC, if you're building one you're still better off getting a third-party cooler, anyway.

What it will mean is the death of any special edition packaging. It'll likely get to a point where the box is little bigger than the CPU tray. Hell, the box my RTX 4090 Founders Edition review unit came in would probably fall foul, too.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition in boxed packaging — PC hardware companies have been extremely good at shifting to more sustainable packaging in recent years. (Image credit: Windows Central | Ben Wilson)

Packaging will also, not surprisingly, need to be composed of a percentage of recycled materials by 2030 and 2040, as well as being restricted on single-use plastics.

The PC industry has actually been pretty forward-thinking in the last few years, so it's unlikely this will cause any furore. The likes of Acer and Razer, in particular, have really been pushing environmentally friendly packaging, and there are multiple examples of how the boxes your hardware comes in can be reused as an accessory.

It's a good step that I'm not totally convinced the tech industry necessarily needed regulations on compared to, well, a lot of others, but nevertheless, it now exists.

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