Question Ryzen idle power consumption

[PingSpike]

What are you guys getting for this? This seems like a weak point for Ryzen to me, my testing shows a Ryzen system uses 14watts more at idle than a coffeelake system when similarly configured. Granted, I'm using a i5-8400 versus a 1700x so its not *exactly* apples to apples but most idle wattage benchmarks I've seen don't show much difference in idle between cpus in their respective platform.

The i5 also has a igpu that seems to use no extra power when idle versus the Ryzen requiring a discrete GPU which makes things even worse. I think the problem is Ryzen cpus just cannot get down there because the infinity fabric is always eating up some watts.

 

[Atari2600]

Yep, that was a recognised weakpoint of the Zen architecture.

Dunno if it improved any going to Zen2... looking around, only kitguru has idle power figures and it looks like Zen2 is similar to Zen1.

 

[mikeymikec]

IIRC you're also comparing a newer mid-range processor to an older upper-range processor. It's to be expected that an upper-range processor is going to have more extreme power requirements.

 

[PingSpike]

IIRC you're also comparing a newer mid-range processor to an older upper-range processor. It's to be expected that an upper-range processor is going to have more extreme power requirements.

Unfortunately, none of the information I can find suggests either Zen+ or Zen2 improves on this figure more than a few watts.

 

[mikeymikec]

Unfortunately, none of the information I can find suggests either Zen+ or Zen2 improves on this figure more than a few watts.

Quite possibly. Idle usage figures are useful (though for me personally I tend to be interested in terms of how well/quietly the processor is cooled, of which idle usage is a relevant factor).

Load usage is also important for the same reasons IMO. I've quickly tried to find some task energy benchmarks (ie. how much energy was consumed to complete a given task), I know either AT or Techreport used to produce this information but I can't find it for the processors in question. My reasoning being that it's one thing to say "processor 1 uses X watts while idle/during load", however another processor might draw more watts at a given moment yet get the same task done quicker and consume less energy (total) in the process.

IMO the idle/load usage figures alone are primarily helpful when planning the most minimal physical footprint, and obviously a processor that doesn't require discrete graphics is at a disadvantage there.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think that it should be noted, too, that Ryzen consumer (AM4) CPUs, are derived from a server-oriented architecture, whereas Coffee Lake consumer CPUs, are derived from a laptop/mobile-oriented architecture. That could well have something to do with that.