Question Core i7-12700H and Chrome

[jnjnilson6]

Well, I do suppose many people would be experiencing situations of synonymity regarding Chrome. The experience hereunder concerns Windows 11 Pro 23H2 (+all latest updates) and Chrome 119 (latest version) and all the latest versions of drivers.

What I do on my PC consists of tasks which are very light for the Core i7-12700H (14 cores / 20 threads @ 4.7 GHz). My RAM is 48 GB DDR4 at 3200 MHz, my GPU is an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti (which I do not use; instead I use Intel Xe Graphics - primarily due to the fact I do not do anything heavy at all) and my SSD is a 2 TB Samsung 980 Pro. The machine is an Acer Nitro 5 (2022); the BIOS is the latest version.

A few months before I could view 4K videos in Chrome with the system using about 4% CPU. Today this ends up using about 20% of the CPU in Chrome and a synonymous amount of power on Firefox. (My system idles at 1% CPU usage when no programs, except for the drivers which start-up automatically on bootup, are launched).

Now, to the interesting part. When I have about 35 tabs opened in Chrome the CPU usage suddenly goes up to 8-9% (which is a lot for an i7-12700H) and the fans pass from being unheard to spinning with noticeable strength and sound. If videos on those tabs are not played for a while, the CPU usage will go down to about 1%. If a video is started, however, the usage would again hit 8-9%. With a lower number of tabs the usage does not go that high no matter if videos are playing or not and will remain at about 1 or rarely 2%. I have enabled Chrome Memory Saver and it hasn't changed pretty much anything.

My explanation is badly written software (Chrome); and talking about the newest versions of it. These big companies have innumerable people working on software, without knowing at all what they are doing, and the serious issues pop-up continuously and inevitably as often as breaths are taken in and out. It is not clean and smart and clear as in the days when single men who knew what they were doing made good software. A thousand minds are trying, ineffectually, to keep the boat from sinking, but it is sinking and will continue to sink invariably because the structures are not linear, but are messed-up and overloaded and the programs run only on miracles. Soon web browsing will not be done well even on an i9-14900K.

Now, I have answered my own question. I am more-so posting this for people who experience a synonymous situation and wonder if they are alone. With 37 tabs opened in Chrome and no other programs running I am currently getting 14.3 GB RAM used and 1% CPU utilization (because I have not played any videos on YouTube in a while). 8 to 9% CPU usage on a Core i7-12700H is like 100% CPU usage on a Core i3-8130U, so that's pretty serious stuff for most people. And let's not forget that only a short while ago I could play 4K videos with 4% system CPU usage and open innumerable tabs without the CPU going over 1%. Today (version 119), even toggling a 480p video (if whilst harboring many tabs) would end up increasing the usage to 8%. And it would, only, in very rare and inexplicable instances, provide usage of about 2% (particularly regarding Chrome in the Task Manager) and that too would continually shift up to about 10-11% and back down sporadically through the minutes.

Thank you!

PS. Going from 4% CPU usage for running video at 4K in regards to the i7-12700H (14 cores / 20 threads @ 4.7 GHz) up to about 20% for the same task in the matter of a very short time is an achievement - laughter!

 

[hedwar2011]

It should be noted that Chrome in any flavor is a resource hog ESPECIALLY when it comes to CPU utilization. I get alerts from our endpoint security provider consistently from multiple users workstations that they have high CPU utilization due to Chrome. It's always been one and probably always will be because QA doesn't exist with these companies unfortunately.

Amazingly I don't seem to encounter these issues using Brave (yes, it is Chromium based) from users that are using it including myself unless I'm doing something super-heavy.

 

[jnjnilson6]

It should be noted that Chrome in any flavor is a resource hog ESPECIALLY when it comes to CPU utilization. I get alerts from our endpoint security provider consistently from multiple users workstations that they have high CPU utilization due to Chrome. It's always been one and probably always will be because QA doesn't exist with these companies unfortunately.

Amazingly I don't seem to encounter these issues using Brave (yes, it is Chromium based) from users that are using it including myself unless I'm doing something super-heavy.

Thank you very much for the swift and enlightening response!

It is a wonder how they've been able to, in the matter of a very short time, go from 4% usage on the i7-12700H at 4K to about 20% for the same exertion.

 

[hedwar2011]

What's that old saying...."Inquiring minds want to know...."

 

[jnjnilson6]

What's that old saying...."Inquiring minds want to know...."

A video I'd made years ago -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PbLRWC9pPA


Currently, Chrome on the i7-12700H runs the same video (Big Buck Bunny) at 1080p with usage being around 4-5% (the same amount it was a few months ago while running 4K videos).

Software has deteriorated so much that we may well look upon the Pentium 4 days with regret in the future.

PS. 4% CPU usage used to be the entire system usage (while watching 4K), not only for Chrome. Opening Task Manager and looking at the entire CPU usage it is more like 7% (running Big Buck Bunny on the i7 at 1080p). So we've basically reached the level of a Pentium 4 about 9 years ago with a Core i7-12700H for the same thing today.

And to be honest, Pentium 4 HTs felt very superior and powerful and software used to run on Hard Drives back then with the same speed it does on M.2 PCIe Solid State Drives today. Software used to fly on single core processors nearing the 3 GHz mark and with memory around 1 GB.

I do not feel my i7-12700H being faster in 2023 than a Pentium 4 in 2008-2009. Software which can run on tens of times lower resources retains detrimental requirements because it is written badly. Soon machines with 64 GB RAM and i9s will start to run synonymous software with the speeds it ran on Hard Drives and Pentium 4s and 1 GB RAM before 15-20 years. We are spiraling into indefinitely powerful hardware and indefinitely badly written software. And there is a point after which even the most powerful hardware cannot make up for the software.

 

[hedwar2011]

Honestly, I wouldn't lay the blame solely on Chrome. Youtube has (and is) doing everything humanly possible to drive people towards their paid service so I wouldn't be surprised if they are degrading the actual playback of video in some way too.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Honestly, I wouldn't lay the blame solely on Chrome. Youtube has (and is) doing everything humanly possible to drive people towards their paid service so I wouldn't be surprised if they are degrading the actual playback of video in some way too.

I would say you could be very right. Some companies acquire gain by purposefully lowering productivity in order to accumulate particular desires elsewhere.

Concerning this point, I have even seen people installing Windows 11 on the 6xx Pentium 4s and it running properly. Companies like AMD and Intel will be able to sell millions more of their newer Processors just due to the fact Windows 11 supports mostly new hardware and the newest generation processors naturally.

Software and hardware go hand in hand and if programs are written particularly well, then the necessity for newer hardware would slow down and nearly vanish. That is why we are seeing normal frame rates in games running on 16384 core GPUs like the RTX 4090. One part is bad programming; another part is marketing as you've said.

 

[hedwar2011]

I would say you could be very right. Some companies acquire gain by purposefully lowering productivity in order to accumulate particular desires elsewhere.

Concerning this point, I have even seen people installing Windows 11 on the 6xx Pentium 4s and it running properly. Companies like AMD and Intel will be able to sell millions more of their newer Processors just due to the fact Windows 11 supports mostly new hardware and the newest generation processors naturally.

Software and hardware go hand in hand and if programs are written particularly well, then the necessity for newer hardware would slow down and nearly vanish. That is why we are seeing normal frame rates in games running on 16384 core GPUs like the RTX 4090. One part is bad programming; another part is marketing as you've said.

MS is one of the worst culprits of that very thing. There have been numerous topics here and elsewhere discussing how much MS tries to incite panic and paranoia in their end users with talk of end of support or that something isn't going to function properly on certain hardware.

 

[jnjnilson6]

MS is one of the worst culprits of that very thing. There have been numerous topics here and elsewhere discussing how much MS tries to incite panic and paranoia in their end users with talk of end of support or that something isn't going to function properly on certain hardware.

Even when I am away from my laptop, which I have been for quite some time in the recent past, I can hear the fans spinning and spinning and all I have opened is Chrome and 27 tabs within it. And before - while having tasks such as this arisen - the fans were unheard continually and permanently.

I remember back in 2011-2012 opening 40-50 tabs on a single core AMD Sempron 3300+ (1 core / 2 GHz) in Chrome with ATI Xpress 200M (using 128 MB from the system RAM) and 896 MB system RAM available. It worked very well and 720p videos could run nicely.

Now I am hearing the fans and thinking that such a simple task is taking away the long life from my components the same way playing a video game would (and I play none).

It's another thing that I use my laptop in bed, but I have used it so for approximately a year and never have I come upon the aspect of fans spinning whilst simply retaining 27 tabs from Chrome into the memory.

A moment ago I was getting 11-15% CPU usage and 89-91 C on the CPU. Now, magically, without having had done anything, I am getting 3-4% CPU usage and 53 degrees (Celsius) CPU temperature.

I think it was related to Microsoft's in-built anti-malware software running, on its own, unasked and unbidden.

In Windows XP and Windows 2000 almost nothing used the CPU when you were not doing anything. In current Windows versions there are hundreds of little tasks always sucking on the CPU; when you are lucky no heavy task would be triggered just this minute; when you are not, randomly, and out of nowhere, some built-in functionality by Microsoft would start spinning those fans up and drowning the CPU in usage; just like that - out of nowhere.

Now, when I have ended my message, the fans are totally unheard. In the beginning they were spinning wildly and the temperatures were immense; now I am getting 3% CPU usage and 49 C and the fans are quiet as quiet. What have I changed in what I was doing from then up until now? Absolutely nothing. All I did was write down this message in the Tom's Hardware tab in Chrome.

 

[hedwar2011]

Wanna see a PC explode....find a script that opens 365 tabs in your favorite browser right when the computer starts up.

I watched a video of someone doing this and it was funny to see the computer come to just a complete halt. He had only opened the tabs and each one was either defaulted to the New Tab page or directly to Google.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Wanna see a PC explode....find a script that opens 365 tabs in your favorite browser right when the computer starts up.

I watched a video of someone doing this and it was funny to see the computer come to just a complete halt. He had only opened the tabs and each one was either defaulted to the New Tab page or directly to Google.

Reminds me of what I could do with 4 GB RAM back in 2010. I'd probably need 80 for the same things today.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Wanna see a PC explode....find a script that opens 365 tabs in your favorite browser right when the computer starts up.

I watched a video of someone doing this and it was funny to see the computer come to just a complete halt. He had only opened the tabs and each one was either defaulted to the New Tab page or directly to Google.

I have just enabled 'Hardware Acceleration' in Chrome and 4K @ 60 FPS runs with 1 to 3% CPU usage by Chrome in the Task Manager. Before it was around 20%. What a difference!

Additionally, 8K which a moment ago maxed out the CPU and was choppy, currently and after applying 'Hardware Acceleration' uses between 3 and 5% from the CPU and runs smooth as butter.

 

[hedwar2011]

Yeah, I completely forgot about that "setting"

 

[uWebb429]

Chrome in any flavor is a resource hog ESPECIALLY when it comes to CPU utilization.

I am using Chrome with a dozen chrome.exe tasks running and none of these tasks are taking up any meaningful amount of CPU resources. If Chrome is being a CPU hog, maybe it is an extension added to Chrome that was poorly written. Chrome itself should not be a problem if it is setup correctly.

Watch out for useless Chrome features that can use up a lot of CPU cycles while running in the background.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Yeah, I completely forgot about that "setting"

Months before I had disabled the setting due to getting singular black flickers from time to time (not very often) in Chrome. The setting did not fix the flickering and everything else ran exactly the same as before. A little bit after that point the flickering disappeared (probably due to updated drivers), but that setting remained turned off.

Many months have passed since then and opening many tabs or running High Quality video did not at all use up resources or stir the fans up (keeping in mind 'Hardware Acceleration' was off) until very recently. I had entirely forgotten by this point I had turned that setting off in the past. It wasn't until I read about this setting somewhere on the Internet that I decided to test out what would happen if I enabled it. Well, the results ended up being humungous. I still do not know why there was no difference between it turned on and off for so many months and why such difference appeared only recently. There had really not been any noticeable difference (until recently), for I had tested performance right after disabling the setting so many months before and it seemed to have not even the slightest of impact upon performance.

I have currently, and after enabling the setting, tested the machine with high quality video and the results differ greatly as mentioned in my previous comment. I am yet to test it with many tabs over a good period of time, but I strongly believe that the CPU usage will remain trimmed throughout. Hopefully it does.