Awesome test, thank you!
It shows exactly my point when I straight away dismiss claims saying "Intel is inefficient and runs hot". With custom PL settings, it's as efficient as the user wants it do be. Dropping PL values to reasonable levels gives the user a barely noticeable difference in observable performance, but a huge gain in efficiency and heat output. Reading reviewers that only test at maxed out power limits gives a one-sided and unrealistic picture.
But you can also drop the PL with Ryzen CPUs, which would make at least the "Intel is inefficient" part continue to be true when compared to current AMD offerings. Testing at maxed out power limits isn't unrealistic when it's the default behavior in many cases, by using your argument, you could argue that the 5800X reviews were unrealistic as you could activate the Eco mode and show a much cooler and efficient CPU, but that isn't the default performance and neither is what most buyers are going to do with it. While I would love to see more reviews caring more about efficiency tweaks over overclocking, most people don't care about it.
Based on ComputerBase testing of the Eco mode on the 5900X and 5800X, they can achieve ~25%+ lower power consumption(150W at eco, 200 at stock, both measured at the wall) with ~8% performance loss, while the 5950X with the eco mode performed the same as a stock 5900X, losing 20% performance compared to stock, making it only slightly more efficient than the 5900X in Eco mode. The 5600X barely changes anything, only lowers the power consumption by 10W while performing basically the same as stock.
Would be interesting to see similar tests with other CPUs, maybe the i7 would benefit more from it, just like the 5900X and 5800X benefit more from the eco mode?
