High idle GPU power draw

[TheWonderfulPie]

As you can see in the screenshot, the GPU is using 43W while idle (no apps in the background), which is really a lot. It makes my GPU go at around 50°C, which is way too much for idle. I linked the system report in the post

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this might have caused you. 

 In order to assist you, can you please help us with the following information: 

• What tool are you using to measure the power delivery and temperatures?
• Download and install the Intel System Support Utility (Intel SSU): https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/Intel-System-Support-Utility-for-Windows- Open the application and select "Everything" click on "Scan" to see the system and device information. By default, Intel SSU will take you to the "Summary View". Click on the menu where it says "Summary" to change to "Detailed View".  Click on "Next", save the report and attach it to your response.
• The power consumption and temperatures seem to be withing range. Do you have any performance issues?

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[TheWonderfulPie]

I'm using HWiNFO64, which is known to be an accurate tool. No I'm not having performance issue, and it's normal that the power consumption are within range, look at the post's topic, the screenshot has been taken when the card is idle, because this is where the issue happens, it's normal that the card won't be at 90°C and 225W when idle, but the power consumption I'm having at idle is still too high compared to what it should do

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie

 Thank you for the information. I completely understand. I will proceed to check some information internally and post back soon with more details.

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie,

Thank you for your time. We would like to say there is no ideal power draw at IDLE, only max power at typical workload, which is 225 W. The temperature is also within specification as the max threshold is 90 C before GPU throttling.

We recommend following this article to control the power draw on you card:

• https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000092564/graphics.html

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie, 

Were you able to check the previous post? Let us know if you still need assistance.  

Best regards,  

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[TheWonderfulPie]

Yes I was able to see it
You're saying that there is no ideal power draw at idle, which is true, but you cannot say that 43W is not abnormal for idle, and even less about the card being at 50°C
Of course the card isn't thermal throttling, I don't even know why you're mentioning this. How can the card be thermal throttling, at IDLE ???
The link you're giving me basically says to lower the max power draw of the card, and turn on power saving, but I should not have to do that in order for my card to not draw this much. This is clearly a problem, because I know that other people don't have such power draw at idle

[HoHein]

Hi,

I played around alot with my A770 to get the lowest Idle Power draw as posible and found some points.

Specs: 1440x3440@144hz over DP AMD3900x ECO mode 16gb ram.

At 60Hz and 100Hz all the BIOS/Windows settings do work and I could get my A770 Idle as low as 3 Watt. Where this is only the reported GPU power. Total board power is a bit higher as the RAM chips and rest still draws power too. But without hardware tinkering there is no way to display it as far as I know.

However at 120Hz and 144Hz it never goes below 40 Watts :(. Tryed days to get it work, but found no automated solution for this :(.

But to get to the low Idle draw you realy need to set

BIOS ASPM = L1

Windows PCIe = max power saving

! Windows Desctop refrash rate less or equal 100Hz !

Where the last point is most ennoying. While working or browsing 100Hz are fine. But I explicit bought the 144hz display for gaming. And having to switch all the time isn't cool :(.

[grugru]

Bonjour , le taux de rafraichissement dans le bureau et dans les jeux sont diffèrents .

Tu peux jouer aux jeux video  à 144 htz en le choississant  dans les options du jeu et laisser le bureau en 60 htz.

[HoHein1]

First of no idear why the Forum software doesn't let me use my HoHein :(.

@grugru this is only true if you play in full-screen mode. But not in full-screen window or window mode.

Which I do most of the time at my wide screen 1440x3440 as I use one half to play and one half to watch Twitch/YouTube or have written game infos open at the other half. I bought the wide screen to get ride of 2 monitors to save energy by using just 1.

@Carlos_L_Intel from 100Hz to 144Hz is just 44% increase in refresh rate. From 3 idle Watt to 40 are 1233% increase in idle power draw.

Yes in specs ... but for real ... hard to understand (or justify) with no further information.

Does your engineers know what is going on? Do they try to find a solution? Is all hope lost? Will Battlemage and Calestial have the same behavior?

No idear for the rest of the world. But here in Germany we pay 0,40€ peer KWh. With 40 Watts thats easy 300,-€ in 2 years if not more. 379,- I payed + 200,- I could save > good reason to look elseware next time :(. Sorry.

[grugru]

Ok, merci de préciser.oui ,la consommation au repos est excessive et ils en ont conscience.le prix de l'électricité ne cesse d'augmenter , il est certain que trente watts de plus ce n'est pas rien.

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie, 

Thank you for your post. In this case, yes I completely understand where you're coming from, however this is within the card's specification. I mentioned power throttling as an example. Please let me know if you have any other concern or if you would like me to close this thread.

Best regards,  

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[TheWonderfulPie]

As you can see with HoHein's post, this is not normal. Yes, 40W+ is within card's specifications, but even if it drew 220W, this would be within specs, so I believe that saying "This is within specs" isn't enough. If the card draws 3W, like HoHein says but 40W+ as soon as 144Hz is enabled, which is the case for me, isn't normal, it should draw at most 5W more than what it draws under 100Hz. This is a real issue, and I am not the only one reporting it, go on the r/IntelArc subreddit and you will see plenty of people having the same issue as me

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie,

 Thank you for your post. Let me check internally again to see if there is anything else we could do in this case. 

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie,

 Thank you for your time. We can confirm the card is working within specifications, and it is expected to see higher power draw when using higher pixel count/refresh rates/multi-monitors or any combination for the card to require more power, even at idle.

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[TheWonderfulPie]

I understood that it it's working within specs! But do you understand that, even if it drew 220W at idle, you could say that it works within specs ?
I'll relay what HoHein replied a few minutes ago, as I think you won't see it because they didn't replied to you directly : "from 100Hz to 144Hz is just 44% increase in refresh rate. From 3 idle Watt to 40 are 1233% increase in idle power draw.".
"here in Germany we pay 0,40€ peer kWh. With 40 Watts that's easy 300,-€ in 2 years if not more. [...] good reason to look elsewhere next time :(" which is pretty much the same situation here in France
Saying "It performs within specs" is not enough. It is normal for a GPU to draw a lot of power at load, but it isn't at idle. Saying this is just you dodging the problem. Given the actual situation on Intel cards and the efforts needed to make them attractive, I honestly thought you would put more effort into solving issues like these

[TheWonderfulPie]

It's been a week, any updates about the issue ?
There are already 2 other people on your thread stating that they have the same issue as me, and going into the r/IntelArc subreddit, it seems like it's a known issue
This issue cannot be overlooked by acting like it does not exist, when in addition it's very likely that this is a software/driver issue, and not an hardware one, meaning that it's something that can actually be fixed

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie,

 Thank you for your time. I apologize for the delay. There is no problem with high power consumption as there is no ideal target for power consumption, however, future drivers and firmware updates might optimize the hardware power draw.

 As reference, there is also this forum on the same topic: https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-ARC-Graphics/consommation-%C3%A9lectrique-arc-a770/m-p/1481517

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @TheWonderfulPie,

Were you able to check the previous post? Let us know if you still need assistance.  

Best regards,  

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hello TheWonderfulPie, Since we have not heard back from you, we are closing the case, but if you have any additional questions, please post them on a new thread so we can further assist you with this matter.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician