Nvidia-smi keeps gpu awake with on-demand prime profile

Is it normal for nvidia-smi to keep the GPU awake while it is running? I’m on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (kernel version 5.15, nvidia driver version 495.46) and am using the prime profile on-demand. I wanted to run nvidia-smi --loop=1 to monitor if applications are indeed running on the integrated graphics, but it keeps the gpu awake.

The first time I run nvidia-smi, it will take a few seconds to start and will show N/A power usage, as expected. But if I run it again right after, it will instantly show output and now it’s using ~10W. It goes back to sleep after a few seconds. When running it with the --loop option, the GPU will constantly stay awake consuming 10W.

So I just wanted to know if this is normal behavior? If so, is there another way to monitor the gpu without waking it?

It is normal regarding nvidia-smi. It will wake the GPU up.
nvidia-settings on the other hand does not.

It does, I just checked it. While nvidia-settings is running GPU state is D0, goes back to D3Cold shortly after nvidia-settings is closed.

cat /sys/bus/pci/devices/<YOUR_GPU_PCI_ID>/power_state