Intel invested a crapload of money in laptop CPU's and low idle which is one of the reason they dominated that market for so long - I would guess that it bled over into desktop as well.

Are you talking about last years zen3? That was a common complaint.

From https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/10195/amd-ryzen-5-7600x-ze...

"Power consumption is measured directly from the dual eight-pin connections. At peak, the 7600X pulls an impressive 130W, and during idle, it was down to 18w."

Sounds pretty good, especially considering its at the "dual eight-pin" power supply connection. Not laptop class, but pretty good for a high performance desktop.

Anecdotally, my Zen 3 5900X rated at 105W TDP, sitting kind of idle (with a dozen or so programs open, task manager showing 1% usage) is drawing about 11W.

I do seem to recall a AGESA update (motherboard firmware) that did managed to reduce the IOD power usage when idle. Sad that it was months after most of the reviews came out.

12900K idles at 8.5 watts. 18 watts is awful.

Measured where? At the power supply?

The 8 pin connector goes to the CPU. The big ATX 12V connector goes to everything else.

For idle power consumption, watt usage from wall is better measurement.