AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Power Usage Is Running Measurably Higher On Linux Than Windows

[Raka555]

It would not surprise me if it is the gnome desktop that burns extra power ...

[Venemo]

It's always the same story with new hardware and Linux. You should avoid buying the former or don't use the latter at least for half a year before all the bugs are ironed out.

Right now I have a Ryzen 3000 system and

• I can't get CPU temperature in Linux by default (I manually patched kernel 5.2 to get the k10temp driver working - how many users will do that?)
• lm-sensors doesn't see any sensors on my motherboard (there are two HW monitoring chips: one is detected but doesn't work, the other one is not supported at all)
• CPU temperature is a lot higher than in Linux (I'm talking about idle mode)
• Multicore CPU performance is quite lower than in Windows

And even in Windows 10 Ryzen 3000 is far from what I'd call stable and feature-complete.

Ryzen 7 3700X here. I'm running Fedora 30 with kernel 5.3 and I have NOT experienced any of those problems here.

With regards to the temp sensor, I had to modprobe the chipset driver but after that 'sensors' can show the CPU and motherboard temperatures.

Not sure what you mean about the multicore performance, at least mine can comfortably utilize all 16 threads when I need it.

[nranger]

I see Michael benchmarked with the performance governor. Interestingly Wendell from Level1Techs saw better multicore scores with the ondemand governor. https://youtu.be/B1Cml29Lavw?t=538

[Raka555]

I see Michael benchmarked with the performance governor. Interestingly Wendell from Level1Techs saw better multicore scores with the ondemand governor. https://youtu.be/B1Cml29Lavw?t=538

Thanks for the link.
It was very interesting.

[Raka555]

A scheduler shootout on Ryzen 3000 might be something interesting

[ntropy]

My bet is on the motherboard as well. I only have an old B450 yet the geekbench scores are pretty insane: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/14110048
Running this on the liquorix scheduler makes a difference as well, as it seems.

[George99]

It would not surprise me if it is the gnome desktop that burns extra power ...

No, I don't believe that to be true. Actually I am working on a Ryzen 2200G / ASUS B450M-A / debian SID / Gnome combo and idle load is about 20 Watts. Same with Windows is about 30-35 Watts but this is measured with an HDD instead of the built-in SSD for debian.

Actually 80 Watts idle is just horrific thinking of it running the whole day even 20 Watts are more than necessary from my cheapskate point of view

[kcmichaelm]

It's always the same story with new hardware and Linux. You should avoid buying the former or don't use the latter at least for half a year before all the bugs are ironed out.

Right now I have a Ryzen 3000 system and

• I can't get CPU temperature in Linux by default (I manually patched kernel 5.2 to get the k10temp driver working - how many users will do that?)
• lm-sensors doesn't see any sensors on my motherboard (there are two HW monitoring chips: one is detected but doesn't work, the other one is not supported at all)
• CPU temperature is a lot higher than in Linux (I'm talking about idle mode)
• Multicore CPU performance is quite lower than in Windows

And even in Windows 10 Ryzen 3000 is far from what I'd call stable and feature-complete.

I agree with this too. I built a 3700X system, which is working great in Windows but has crazy limitations on Linux.

Gnome-based distributions have a massive stuttering (like genuinely unusable), the mouse jitters across the screen and it looks like the whole system hangs/unhangs every second.

KDE-based distributions don't have that issue, but do have random full-system hangs which usually show up after 3 minutes, sometimes up to 20. If it hangs, it's not coming back.

The literal only distro I have working right now is an Xfce Endeavor (Arch) install.

I'm guessing this will get better when the big releases get on newer kernels (5.3?)

[amdtesterman]

I had an asus fx705dy that I returned for other reasons, this laptop worked out of the box from linux kernel 5.0, but the power compsumption of the r5 3550H in idle was 7 W more in linux than in windows(4,59W vs 12W) and this ryzen isn't zen 2, but zen 1. AMD need to put the patch of cppc in the kernel fast, because linux is destroying batterys right now with amd cpu's
amd zen with linux has c1 and c2 states in a laptop.. shame

[oiaohm]

It's always the same story with new hardware and Linux. You should avoid buying the former or don't use the latter at least for half a year before all the bugs are ironed out.

Right now I have a Ryzen 3000 system and

• I can't get CPU temperature in Linux by default (I manually patched kernel 5.2 to get the k10temp driver working - how many users will do that?)
• lm-sensors doesn't see any sensors on my motherboard (there are two HW monitoring chips: one is detected but doesn't work, the other one is not supported at all)
• CPU temperature is a lot higher than in Linux (I'm talking about idle mode)
• Multicore CPU performance is quite lower than in Windows

And even in Windows 10 Ryzen 3000 is far from what I'd call stable and feature-complete.

Let be blunt what motherboard. Some are serousally bad.

There is a hard reality here. On general if a chipset has not been on the market for 12 months its support is up to crap on Linux.

I am currently doing up a Ryzen 3000 system.

I am going a MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX . Chipset is over 12 months old and the flash is decent size. It don't have motherboard/chipset fan.

I have a very short list of required features.
1) uses chipset provided hardware monitoring. Don't go into custom crap hardware monitoring because board maker0 want rgb fancy crap.
2) has a bios/firmware flash button for simple firmware updating.
3) No chipset fan or at least simple to replace with standard fan of some form chipset fan. Every motherboard I have had with a chipset fan has died quicker than every board I have not had a chipset fan due to chipset fan failure and with no ability to replace it. Once bitten very shy.
4) Chipset been on the market for at least 12 months to mature in Linux support.

Why in hell do you have to be a first adopter.

lm-sensors not working right due to the fact some motherboard vendors have decided not to use the chipset provide hardware monitoring throws you cpu performance stuff out. So the fact 1 hardware monitoring chip is not working and the other is detecting you have bought a Linux incompatible board.

If you cpu temperature is high you performance will be low this is rizen for you.

I have not found a X470 board that I class as decent and only have one x570 that I class as decent but not affordable. gigabyte x570 aorus xtreme is the one I class as decent. Yes no chipset fan and it uses the chipset provided hardware monitoring on that top gigabyte board.

Yes I really do think on power and so on the new X570 need to be put head to head with the older B450 chipset that MSI is using as for a pure Linux machine the B450 boards are not bad. 12 months time then we should be looking at the x570 if they have sorted out their support.

Really we need a motherboard vendor who clearly goes we have done Linux support and us Linux users buy from them even if the chipset is a year or 2 behind.

Yes I am expecting to have to custom built my kernel to get best out cpu but at least in my up coming build I will not be fighting with chipset or stupidity from board vendors duplicating features.