Arch Linux

rekt0ro

Member

Registered: 2025-12-13

Posts: 3

AMD GPU Idle power draw regression on Kernel 6.18.1

Hello,

After updating to kernel 6.18.1 (Linux 6.18.1-zen1-2-zen), I noticed that my AMD GPU (RX 6800 XT) idle power draw has increased from ~6–8W to ~20–25W.

This doesn’t happen immediately after a reboot if I leave the system idle, but as soon as I open Firefox, play a video, or run anything that uses the GPU beyond the desktop environment, the issue appears. Even worse, once the power draw goes above ~20W, it seems to “hard lock” at that level, staying elevated even when the system is idle and all applications are closed.

That makes me suspect it could be related to the GPU driver, though I’m not entirely sure. Everything was fine on kernel 6.17.9.

Is anyone else experiencing the same issue?

Last edited by rekt0ro (2025-12-18 22:42:57)

BS86

Member

Registered: 2022-11-03

Posts: 97

Re: AMD GPU Idle power draw regression on Kernel 6.18.1

not the same but something definitely changed in AMD GPU power management with 6.18 (I already saw the change on 6.18.0 in testing)
My 9070XT went from 8-12W idle draw to 2-6W idle draw but even after scaling up and down it always goes down to 2-6W. So no breakage here, only improvement but definitely a change.

Last edited by BS86 (2025-12-17 15:36:22)

Luciddream

Member

From: Greece

Registered: 2014-12-08

Posts: 67

Re: AMD GPU Idle power draw regression on Kernel 6.18.1

Now that you mention it yes, the power management seems more consistent for 9070XT. But there is also at least one serious bug in 6.18.1 so just wait for the reports

rekt0ro

Member

Registered: 2025-12-13

Posts: 3

Re: AMD GPU Idle power draw regression on Kernel 6.18.1

I switched to the default Arch kernel (6.18.1-arch1-2), and so far so good...
Edit: same issue...

Last edited by rekt0ro (2025-12-18 22:43:37)

rekt0ro

Member

Registered: 2025-12-13

Posts: 3

Re: AMD GPU Idle power draw regression on Kernel 6.18.1

This issue only shows up if you go over 120Hz… took me a while to nail it down, so whatever changes they made in kernel 6.18 messed with high refresh rates and now the GPU idle power is higher than usual.

Strauchdieb

Member

Registered: 2024-03-23

Posts: 9

Re: AMD GPU Idle power draw regression on Kernel 6.18.1

Similarities with an AMD RX 6800 here – downgraded to linux 6.17.9-arch1-1 because of some issues (stuck low/high VRAM https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/c … 6/nttvsek/ or GPU clock in different situations).

This may be related to the monitor's featureset (e.g. VRR or high refresh rates, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=305909 ).