New setup involves significant energy use and a problematic GPU component
New setup involves significant energy use and a problematic GPU component
Upgraded with an i7 6700K and RTX 2070, still using the same 4K@60 screen. Playing games at lower settings. Older machines used to draw 50W or more from the wall; this one is much quieter. Bare minimum power use was around 65W for browsing, 175-215W when GPU was active, and 310W when both were running. Maximum temperature stayed at 68°C. Compared to my previous setup, the new one seems to consume almost nothing from the wall now. Idle temperatures are significantly higher. It’s hard to say if this is the newest standard, as old systems have better data on idle and everyday use.
New system: 7800X3D 7900XTX with two 16GB GDDR5 RAM modules, MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk, Wi-Fi, Windows 11. Recent upgrades include PCIe 4.0, SSDs, SATA HDD (same as before but newer ports), and a Dark Rock Pro 4 CPU cooler. Display remains at 4K@60. Latest BIOS, no manual tuning or EXPO enabled.
Idle power is around 80W from the wall and jumps to 120W+ when idle. Browsing one tab or watching a YouTube video uses 110-135W. Both CPU and GPU stay near 50°C or higher during rest. Software readings show modest usage—CPU 24W, GPU 15-20W idle/35-65W during normal use—but from the wall it’s 80W+ with no activity and 100W+ for regular tasks. The 7900XT appears unstable, especially under light work, often spiking to over 100W briefly.
Resizing the Adrenalin software causes the card to draw 100W+ and reach about 70% usage. The biggest mystery is that the iGPU in the 7800X3D draws 22-28W when idle—more than the CPU’s consumption. Turning off the iGPU in BIOS doesn’t change overall power use. (Uncertain if this applies to the 7000X3D series, since it’s unclear if it’s chip, board, or BIOS issue.)
This seems unreal compared to my old machine, which used far more power. It feels like a design flaw in how minimum power is managed and how workloads affect consumption.
You've switched to a more advanced system and noticed increased power consumption. That's expected. If it bothers you, consider lowering the clock speed and voltage. Otherwise, it's just part of the upgrade process. The newer parts tend to run hotter and draw more power naturally. It's not unusual.
I believe my setup runs around 200W when idle, but exceeds 700W when under load. I think the Ryzen 7000 might be undercounting the iGPU power usage, possibly including the entire I/O die rather than just the iGPU. By doing some calculations, I can check if these reported values match what my hardware monitoring tools and a watt meter actually show at idle. The 7900XTX is often cited for its high idle draw, and there’s talk that AMD could be addressing this with RDNA3+ technology.
At full power it would be understandable to use more since new system might do 5 times the calcs. But at idle, or low load, the better efficiency (fewer Watt per calculation) should reduce power draw, or at least keep it similar OP: The temps are meaningless here, different design due to tiny chiplets (more power density) and different heatsink. So don't worry about temps as long as they are low enough under load. And good on you for actually measuring power. This is a valid complaint.
It appears the iGPU remains active and consumes power regardless of the situation. In all tests I performed, the system maintained the same idle power level whether a display was connected with the iGPU enabled or not. The 7800X3D consistently uses the same amount of energy in each case. Note: The overall system power was slightly reduced because the dGPU was on but not actively used, which further lowered its idle consumption. This difference in idle usage compared to total usage remains consistent across scenarios.
I tried the same setup, turning off the iGPU in UEFI to check for 0W output in HWinfo. This suggests it might be reporting more than just the iGPU—possibly including the I/O die and other components like PCIe and memory controllers. It should be around 40W according to Google.
You can still retrieve data for hardware that was turned off in BIOS/UEFI using HWinfo. When you disabled the iGPU in the BIOS, it disappeared as expected. This is why I’m checking power usage between the PSU and the wall outlet for overall system consumption. I’m not very technical on this topic. I noticed the iGPU power sensor in HWinfo fluctuating significantly when I ran Cinebench with my dedicated GPU, showing spikes from 6W to 64W shortly after.
I reviewed the recent discussions on increased idle temperatures linked to new designs. Thanks for sharing this update.