This came from Linux commit b4ae3f22d238617ca11610b29fde16cf8c0bc6e0 which is implicated in Sandy Bridge power consumption issues (albeit under different conditions).
On my Thinkpad X220 at rS296910 I see the following power consumption numbers (on a memstick image with a few services running and no packages installed).
- After booting and logging in as root: 11W
- After kldload i915kms: 21W
- After suspend + resume: 11W
With this patch I see 11W in all three cases.