RTX 4060 pulling 51W when idling

[dvxtawa5lrwb]

MSI Afterburner, GPU-Z, HWiNFO, they all showing it as 51W. It's always around 51-53W when I'm chilling on browser etc.

Palit RTX 4060 Dual.
Latest Windows 11, latest Nvidia drivers.

Two monitors.
Both 1080p.
One is 144Hz, and the other one is 60Hz.
Display Port + HDMI connection.
Consumption rate doesn't change if I turn on/off my second monitor.

Windows power plan: Balanced
Nvidia Power Management Mode: Normal
Nvidia overlay? Off

I don't care if these programs are reporting it wrong because it's not consuming that amount. However, if the GPu is constantly pulling 51W even at idle, then I call it an issue and I will refund it when I still have time.

Please help me figure it out. I only have less than a few hours before I can refund it.

 

[Princess Garnet]

If your browser is hardware accelerated, the your GPU is being utilized by it. Does this idle wattage persist when at the desktop alone?

Multiple monitors/higher refresh rates can play into higher power draw too. What happens if the second display is disconnected and the primary one is set to 60 Hz?

Drivers can also play into this. I haven't used nVidia in a while but I think I remember that some (sort of) older drivers were causing high idle on some nVidia GPUs in some cases (similar was happening on AMD's side with video playback) so I wonder if that's going on here?

 

[GerKNG]

No it does not.
The 4060 doesn‘t have a complete power monitoring system and can only estimate values north of that ~50W under load but not below it at idle.

 

[dvxtawa5lrwb]

If your browser is hardware accelerated, the your GPU is being utilized by it. Does this idle wattage persist when at the desktop alone?

I closed my browser, nothing has changed.

Multiple monitors/higher refresh rates can play into higher power draw too. What happens if the second display is disconnected and the primary one is set to 60 Hz?

I disconnected the second monitor, there was 1-2W difference but it was still peaking around the same. I setted the primary one to 60Hz, Recently around 51.5W.

Drivers can also play into this. I haven't used nVidia in a while but I think I remember that some (sort of) older drivers were causing high idle on some nVidia GPUs in some cases (similar was happening on AMD's side with video playback) so I wonder if that's going on here?

If you check this page's Open Issues section, you can see a note about 4060 cards but the driver is from 2023. Mine is the latest. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/game-ready-drivers/13/522914/-/

No it does not.
The 4060 doesn‘t have a complete power monitoring system and can only estimate values north of that ~50W under load but not below it at idle.

So it is not constantly pulling 50W+ but only reporting it that way. If that is the case, then I won't bother.

 

[CheteriagalenTriagalnik]

I'm having a similar issue with my Asus Prime 5070 Ti. 35-40 watts at idle, some peaks up to 50. Single monitor. I've tried just about anything I can think of, but can't discover the issue.

In any case, if it may help you, have you tried setting the NVCP power setting to "normal" instead of "prefer maximum performance"?

 

[GerKNG]

So it is not constantly pulling 50W+ but only reporting it that way. If that is the case, then I won't bother.

Specifically for a 4060, yes it doesn‘t pull 50W it just can‘t measure anything properly.

 

[BSim500]

Please help me figure it out. I only have less than a few hours before I can refund it.

From the horses mouth:-

Manuel@Nvidia said: "I explained this in the previous Game Ready Driver feedback thread: The graphics card does not have a sensor to report power consumption. The only way to measure it is to physically read the amount of power that is being pulled from the PCI-Express bus. The GeForce RTX 4060 does not report actual idle power so any other GPU utility that shows any idle value for the GeForce RTX 4060 is not giving correct information. The only way to read the idle power is to measure the power it is pulling from the PCI-E bus. The idle power of the GeForce RTX 4060 should be between 11w-12w."
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...read-released-101723/3394114/?comment=3394114

Edit: I knew someone who upgraded from a GTX 1660 to an RTX 4060 and idle power went up by 2w (36w vs 34w whole system idle measured at the wall), so it's just a reporting issue specific to the RTX 4060 lack of sensors (RTX 4060Ti is unaffected and works properly).