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Comment by smolder | Hacker News Reader

Intel desktop cpus do not use less power. The only metric where intel desktop cpus win right now is maximum per-core performance, and not by much. They're worse at performance per dollar, performance per watt, maximum multithreaded performance, and overall power efficiency. (edit: perhaps not idle power efficiency...)

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As a desktop user, my CPU tends to be mostly idle. So overall power efficiency is impacted a lot by idle power consumption; my AMD Ryzen CPU alone draws significantly more power in idle than my previous several-years-old Intel system. In fact, just the IO die alone draws almost as much power as some office PCs.

Ah sorry, I thought I had seen zen2 measuring lower for idle consumption than comparable intel as well, but some searching says to me you're right.

Comparing idle power consumption for desktop parts is kind of a desperation. For laptops it matters, but the Zen2 laptops aren't using an IO die manufactured on the older process. For desktops the difference at idle is something like 10 watts, i.e. ~$10/year in electricity, and even that much only if the machine is both turned on and idle 24 hours a day the whole year, whereas anybody worried about power consumption would put it to sleep.

Between Windows Update and crappy javascript, the theory that modern desktops are usually idle is also increasingly untrue, and under load the power consumption for the Intel parts is worse.

Yes, AMD as a power hog or a space heater is just a weird assumption people make based upon some old chips. It hasn't really been true for any of the Zen architecture chips.

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