Does it matter that this is a desktop and not a laptop?

The Desktop adaptation is called Cool N' Quiet...

Also run Task Manager and look under the App History tab for any Apps that show a large amount of CPU time even though you haven't turned live tile on. I was getting an intermittent spike when I first installed Windows 8.1 and I saw this Clock Host process running and spiking under the Processes tab. I looked under App History and it showed a large amount of CPU time for this Clock app that I never run, and live tile was turned off. I uninstalled the app and everything went back to normal.

cclarry
The Desktop adaptation is called Cool N' Quiet...
 
I don't seem to have anything called that in my BIOS.

StepD
Also run Task Manager and look under the App History tab for any Apps that show a large amount of CPU time even though you haven't turned live tile on. I was getting an intermittent spike when I first installed Windows 8.1 and I saw this Clock Host process running and spiking under the Processes tab. I looked under App History and it showed a large amount of CPU time for this Clock app that I never run, and live tile was turned off. I uninstalled the app and everything went back to normal.

StepD-I have no apps or widgets of any kind running. Nothing shows any CPU time.
 

Okay. Yeah, that just shows you if something has been running without you knowing, so at least you can rule that out.

I did a complete clean un/re-install of X3 "b" and it seems to have alleviated some of the issues. There seems to be better load balancing. MOTU Mach 5  is still demonstrating the same behavior, though.

southpaw3473
Hi all,
I'm having some serious issues regarding CPU usage spikes in X3. I have noticed, especially since the "c" patch that my usage on core 1 is spiking more than twice the level than the other 7 cores (system specs in my signature). My computer is pretty powerful so I'm a little perplexed. Not the model of efficiency at the moment, though.
 
Also, I am also getting a continuous rise in core 1 until overload and dropout when I use MOTU Mach 5 synth. It happens over about 15 seconds or so. It's never done this before. I have reset the plugins and rescanned but the problem persists.
 
What could be causing such a disparity between the cores? I have changed the max thread count in the config file and that didn't help so returned to 0.
 
Thanks in advance for the help. 

You could try changing "ThreadSchedulingModel" from default=1 to 2. May help ... or not, but quick and easy to test and set back ...
 
ThreadSchedulingModel=<0 - 2>
This variable goes in the [Wave] section and controls the interaction of the main audio thread and worker threads on multiprocessor systems when the Use Multiprocessing Engine option is enabled. Depending
on the system, a particular model may result in less glitching and better overall performance. The values are as follows:
0 = Same as previous versions of SONAR.
1 = (default) Better thread balance. Model is more efficient and can provide cycles for other tasks.
2 = Additional worker thread is created. This may result in improvement with Quad processor systems or higher. Not recommended for Dual processor systems.

 
 
You could try changing "ThreadSchedulingModel" from default=1 to 2. May help ... or not, but quick and easy to test and set back ...
 
ThreadSchedulingModel=<0 - 2>
This variable goes in the [Wave] section and controls the interaction of the main audio thread and worker threads on multiprocessor systems when the Use Multiprocessing Engine option is enabled. Depending
on the system, a particular model may result in less glitching and better overall performance. The values are as follows:
0 = Same as previous versions of SONAR.
1 = (default) Better thread balance. Model is more efficient and can provide cycles for other tasks.
2 = Additional worker thread is created. This may result in improvement with Quad processor systems or higher. Not recommended for Dual processor systems.



Thanks for the tip. I didn't notice any real difference when changing the settings. Core 0 is still considerably higher than the other 7. Still can't figure out why this does this.

Hi all,
I've done everything mentioned in the above posts and I still have the same problem of the first core being nearly 50 higher than the other 7. I am obviously missing something and it's driving me a little nuts. Does anyone else have an inkling of why this is? Thanks again!

Sorry to ask again, but did you disable Cool and Quiet in the BIOS?