In a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, synchronized control of the operation of a gradient amplifier subsystem, a power supply subsystem, and a power distribution unit subsystem is accomplished by providing a coil command reference signal as an input to respective control blocks of the gradient amplifier subsystem, the power supply subsystem, and the power distribution unit subsystem. The coil command reference signal corresponds to a predetermined gradient coil current for at least one gradient coil of a scanner of the MRI system.