AMD Ryzen 7000 & Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs Show Very High Power Draw When Running Idle

AMD Ryzen 7000 & Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs seem to have very high power spikes even when running in idle mode, as discovered by Hardware Busters & Igor's Lab.

Although AMD has discovered the root cause of the burnout issues that are currently affecting several users and their Ryzen 7000 / Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs, some tech outlets started their own investigation and discovered something interesting. The testing done by Hardware Busters and Igor's Lab seems to show that at idle, the latest AM5 chips produce very high power spikes that might not be related to the burnout issue but something that could be addressed by AMD & its partners in future BIOS updates.

The testing was done using the Powenetics v2 system for testing which allows full measurements of power including transients. Transients have been a topic for a long time but the recent ATX 3.0 push made it come to the limelight as most PSU manufacturers showed how the newer standard has been designed to tackle these high transient specs that can be up to 4x the typical usage and power load.

For testing, a variety of AMD Ryzen 7000 & Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs were tested, & the most extreme case of these high transient spikes was seen on the Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU. The CPU sipped an idle power draw of 130.04W (peak) which is above its nominal TDP of 120W and also far above its idle average which sits at around 50W.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU Power Metrics (Image Credits: Hardware Busters):

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X also saw an idle power consumption of 109.005W at the peak which is almost twice its average idle consumption of 63.798W. The Non-X Ryzen 9 7900 also saw a 95W idle peak whereas the average idle draw is around 48W.

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU Power Metrics (Image Credits: Hardware Busters):

AMD Ryzen 9 7900 CPU Power Metrics (Image Credits: Hardware Busters):

I tested the CPUs above in three mainboards from Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte. You will find more details on the test systems in the corresponding reviews, and so far, I didn’t pay great attention to the IDLE readings because I didn’t encounter any issues. But as it seems, some power spikes occurred, and thanks to the Powenetics system, which I have connected 24/7 on my test systems and the logs I keep, I found them now that this problem came to the surface.

I didn’t face any burnt components, though, as the users on Reddit and YT reported, but during the short time, 15-20 minutes, that I measure power consumption in idle, these spikes occur in the 7950X3D processor; there might be even higher spikes during prolonged idle periods. From the moment the mainboard manufacturers started releasing BIOS to cope with this issue, it won’t be anything important if you ask me. I’ve already talked to some of my industry contacts, who told me that the RMA rates of the 7000 series are lower than those of the 5000 series, so don’t let these stories prevent you from getting a new AMD CPU.

via Hardware Busters

Now for those already running an AMD Ryzen 7000 or 7000X3D CPU, this shouldn't be much of a concern as AMD is readying a new AGESA 1.0.0.7 BIOS firmware with lots of power tuning & other optimizations that should address several issues but the specific fix for this issue might have to wait for a while since the memory management, boot times and protection against burnout are more important. Expect more updates in the future.

AMD AGESA 1.0.0.7 BIOS Firmware Changelog (Image Credits: Igor's Lab):