Notes using a meter at the power socket - When the PC is "running" without a GPU it uses about 40W of power, only a few watts higher during the first few seconds of booting. Not sure if that says the CPU is quietly alive, or if this board and the cooling alone explains that.
All I have to work with are the EZ debug lights which are on for CPU and Dram and the fact that the fans and RGB from the Corsair lightning hub and from the board all work while on. I have checked for installation damage and everything is like new that I can see (CPU, RAM, MB pins, board itself...