AndersWSP

*Also, scrub your pc clean of anything it doesn't need to run at startup.


 
Full task bar + Mozilla with 4 tabs open as of writing this and above post.

TL;DR ~15w idle 3600 (according to HWInfo).
 
Mobo:
ASRock Phantom Gaming 4.
2x sticks of 3600, cl16 memory where I immediately turned off the RGB.
 
Before you bring out torches and pitchforks yelling at me for having unreasonable numbers, I won the silicon lottery big and my 3600 is a beast.
 
I'm running a static, all core overclock. 4.3 ghz @ 1.2v. (4.275 is p95 small stable, but I never run p95 anyway so 4.3 it is).
4.2ghz runs p95 stable @ 1.1625v which was my setting for the past 6 months.
 
Infinity fabric locked to 1800, to match 3600 cl16 ram kit.
 
The 'real' secret sauce to lower power consumption appears to be setting 'low numbers' into bios, that aren't low enough that it crashes or fails to boot. Specifically anything voltage related. Make sure you know how to clear cmos before embarking on this adventure.
 
While I don't mind sharing exact settings I don't think they'll help unless you run the same motherboard.
 
Can get much lower idle consumption but don't really need to at this point.
 
 
 

High RAM usage is fine (no sense in having paid for RAM you don't use).

8GB isn't a ton in the modern days though as programs have become increasingly RAM hungry. So keep the RAM in mind if you run into software the laptop isn't running properly.
 
One step you can take to get a little more mileage out of the 8GB is disabling programs from starting with windows. Comes with the trade-off of having to start them manually as you need them though.