High System agent power draw of Intel 14th gen CPU, what may be the cause?

[StepanPepan]

Hello, I just finished installation of a new PC and I noticed, that the CPU reports system agent to draw around 8W all the time, I have never seen such a thing with any of the12th, 13th and 14th gen Intel CPus I owned.

What may be the cause for this?

 

[StepanPepan]

Any idea? Is there any way how to see what System agent part of the CPU is doing?

 

[StepanPepan]

I found out, that the power draw of SA depends on RAM frequency, at 6000MHz it draws about 8W, at 2400 MHz just 4.5W.

Is it possible that SA power draw has so far not been reported correctly and on this brand new Asus board ( ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-F GAMING WIFI II, 90MB1FM0-M0EAY0 ) it finally works?

I mean - RAM controller probably should have non zero power draw.

BTW I expected worlds best hardware experts being present on this forum, and so far I speak just to myself...

 

[Martin]

It should also depend on Gear Mode.

 

[StepanPepan]

Thanks for the reply, I must admit I do not know much about RAM tuning, I tried to set the RAM frequency ratio to 1:1 (this should be gear 1?) and the system did not boot up.

So far I believed that the recent Intel CPUs use just total of 4 W while idling, but if the consumption was reported correctly, it should be around 12W? Do I understand it well?

What is the reason for reporting only 4W?

 

[Martin]

I don't see a reason why it should report wrong. SA is responsible also for other blocks like PCIe ports.

 

[StepanPepan]

Well, at least on Gigabyte boards the total CPU power draw was reported only 4W, now I have a first Asus board - it may be some error related to Gigabyte boards.

 

[Martin]

And are all parameters the same? You need to compare apples to apples.

 

[StepanPepan]

I do not even know (or understand) all the parameters possible to set in BIOS and also have no idea what settings of these parameters each manufacturer considers default.

I am not an expert and tend to just choose predefined RAM profile and limit power draw and frequencies, because the current Intel CPUs need that badly. I do not change anything else.

But I feel that something with reporting power draw of the CPUs on Gigabyte boards may be wrong - I am talking about last year boards, not the completely new refreshed ones. I also have no idea how last year Asus boards worked.