Well, situation with RK3588 and its much more capable memory controller seems to differ 
Using sbc-benchās -g
switch to do consumption measurements with this device: Power monitoring on socket 2 of powerbox-1 (Netio 4KF, FW v3.2.0, XML API v2.4, 233.43V @ 49.98Hz)
.
Weāre talking about ~1740 mW when clocking the LPDDR4 in idle with 528 MHz vs. ~2420 mW when at 2112 MHz. A whopping 680 mW difference at least on my board with 16GB RAM.
All CPU cores and dmc governor set to powersave
(only the mW value at the bottom counts since averaged from a few measurements before):
System health while idling for 4 minutes:
Time big.LITTLE load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq Temp mW
11:57:45: 408/ 408MHz 0.89 7% 0% 6% 0% 0% 0% 37.9Ā°C 20
11:58:15: 408/ 408MHz 0.54 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.9Ā°C 1740
11:58:45: 408/ 408MHz 0.33 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.0Ā°C 1740
11:59:15: 408/ 408MHz 0.20 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.0Ā°C 1750
11:59:45: 408/ 408MHz 0.12 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.0Ā°C 1740
12:00:15: 408/ 408MHz 0.14 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 36.1Ā°C 1750
12:00:46: 408/ 408MHz 0.08 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.0Ā°C 1740
12:01:16: 408/ 408MHz 0.05 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.0Ā°C 1740
Now only dmc governor set to performance
:
System health while idling for 4 minutes:
Time big.LITTLE load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq Temp mW
12:07:21: 408/ 408MHz 1.02 12% 0% 11% 0% 0% 0% 40.7Ā°C 20
12:07:51: 408/ 408MHz 0.62 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.8Ā°C 2550
12:08:21: 408/ 408MHz 0.37 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.8Ā°C 2480
12:08:51: 408/ 408MHz 0.29 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.8Ā°C 2460
12:09:21: 408/ 408MHz 0.17 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.8Ā°C 2450
12:09:51: 408/ 408MHz 0.10 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.8Ā°C 2440
12:10:22: 408/ 408MHz 0.06 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.8Ā°C 2430
12:10:52: 408/ 408MHz 0.18 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.8Ā°C 2420
Quick check with dmc_ondemand
results in numbers slightly above powersave
:
System health while idling for 4 minutes:
Time big.LITTLE load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq Temp mW
12:17:08: 408/ 408MHz 1.03 15% 0% 14% 0% 0% 0% 38.8Ā°C 10
12:17:38: 408/ 408MHz 0.62 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.9Ā°C 1760
12:18:08: 408/ 408MHz 0.38 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.9Ā°C 1800
12:18:38: 408/ 408MHz 0.23 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.9Ā°C 1770
12:19:08: 408/ 408MHz 0.20 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.9Ā°C 1760
12:19:39: 408/ 408MHz 0.12 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.0Ā°C 1760
12:20:09: 408/ 408MHz 0.07 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.0Ā°C 1740
12:20:39: 408/ 408MHz 0.04 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 37.0Ā°C 1740
Edit: corrected values above from 700mW difference to 680mW. And tried to confirm with another PSU (this time 15W RPi USB-C power brick, before some 24W USB PD charger):
-
powersave
/ 528 MHz: 35.2Ā°C, idle consumption: 1280mW
-
performance
/ 2112 MHz: 37.9Ā°C, idle consumption: 1910mW
A 630mW difference this time (the measurements include all losses by PSU and cable between PSU and board and those PSUs might differ in low load situations).