If we're talking about idle power, it is mostly that the power management hasn't been tuned for power saving as much as for stable performance, and that there is more power-hungry hardware in the system. The presence of a discrete GPU rather than the typical iGPU. A chipset with more external controllers, most of which may not be properly powered down at idle. Often more than one storage device. And finally, a RAM configuration that is also more power hungry at idle due to the type and quantity of chips, and the high-performance configuration.
I have a Xeon E5-1650v3 6-core workstation in my office with 64GB of RAM, two 7200 RPM disks running constantly, two SATA SSDs, and a GeForce GTX Titan X GPU. According to UPS self-reporting, it is drawing ~80W when essentially idle. The powertop utility reports ~90% C6 idle state for the CPU cores and ~55% C6 idle state for the package.
I have an i3-8100 4-core PC at home with 16GB of RAM, two 5400 RPM disks which are set to spin down, one nvme SSD, and the iGPU. According to UPS self-reporting, it is drawing under 15W. The powertop utility reports ~97% C7 idle state for the CPU, ~99% RC6 for the iGPU, and doesn't report a package idle state.
I have an older i7-4700MQ 4-core Thinkpad with 16GB of RAM, one SATA SSD, and a discrete GeForce GT 730M GPU alongside the iGPU. It is drawing about 13W off the battery with screen active but at low brightness so I can query it locally and write this post. The powertop utility reports ~95% C7 idle state for the CPU, ~99% RC6 for the iGPU, and ~60% C2 plus ~23% C3 for the package.
I have a Xeon E5-1650v3 6-core workstation in my office with 64GB of RAM, two 7200 RPM disks running constantly, two SATA SSDs, and a GeForce GTX Titan X GPU. According to UPS self-reporting, it is drawing ~80W when essentially idle. The powertop utility reports ~90% C6 idle state for the CPU cores and ~55% C6 idle state for the package.
I have an i3-8100 4-core PC at home with 16GB of RAM, two 5400 RPM disks which are set to spin down, one nvme SSD, and the iGPU. According to UPS self-reporting, it is drawing under 15W. The powertop utility reports ~97% C7 idle state for the CPU, ~99% RC6 for the iGPU, and doesn't report a package idle state.
I have an older i7-4700MQ 4-core Thinkpad with 16GB of RAM, one SATA SSD, and a discrete GeForce GT 730M GPU alongside the iGPU. It is drawing about 13W off the battery with screen active but at low brightness so I can query it locally and write this post. The powertop utility reports ~95% C7 idle state for the CPU, ~99% RC6 for the iGPU, and ~60% C2 plus ~23% C3 for the package.