CPU 800% in Activity Monitor - Catalina 10.15.5 - Cubase 10.5.2

Cubase
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Hey all,

First post on this forum so apologies if my formatting is incorrect. I’ve got a tricky one that Ive been unable to decode with multiple techs/composers/software friends. I’ve got a new MacPro Rack 2019 // 3.2ghz 16 core // 192gb of ddr4 ram. My CPU is bottlenecking in sessions with only 30-40 tracks (vst and audio) with a RAM load of 15-20gb. I’m getting pops/lags noticing the Activity monitor is showing the CPU usage at 600% to 800%. My average load meter in Cubase is 2/3 full with a buffer size of 512. I sense that something is wrong as this is a comparable load to what my 2015 iMAC with 32gb of RAM could run smoothly. I don’t know if its Catalina or if its Cubase on Catalina or if its a faulty CPU or what. I haven’t gone to lengths to test similar sessions in Logic/ProTools/Ableton yet but that might be my next step. I’m using all the regular software - Kontakt/Arturia/u-he/Play/FabFilter/UAD/Soundtoys.

Heres a list of things I’ve already tried.
-Activate Multi-Processing On
-Activate ASIO-Guard
-Adjusting Guard Levels from Low to Normal (landed on Normal)
-Disk Preload up to 6 seconds from 3.
-Updating all of plugins used in session
-Making sure Kontakt is using all 16 cores.
-Closing other apps behind Cubase
-Turning Wi-Fi Off
-Batch Resaving all samples used

I’ve probably tried more than this but they aren’t coming to mind at the moment. My issue is that…this computer should be able to handle so much more and I can’t even access half my RAM without it choking.

Here is my question…is anyone SUCCESFULLY running large sessions (scoring/productions with full synth palettes/fx/orchestra/drums/etc heavy on vst) on Cubase 10.5 and Catalina 10.15.5 on a new MacPro?

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Im still on Mojave…
But what graphics are you using? Does it help top hide plugins etc?
There is a nice tool form Intel called “power gadget”. It can give a hint on your real load.
Have you tried to turn off hyperthreading? And is it really good to have kontakt running on all CPUs?

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Thanks for the reply. After building a similar template and then one twice as large in Logic I’ve decided for near certain that Cubase is struggling in Catalina at least on a 2019 Mac Pro. I was having no trouble runnning twice the load in Logic - so I’m probably going to stay there until the problems are resolved - unfortunately.

Graphics = AMD Radeon Pro 580X 8GB (Stock)

Havent noticed hiding plugins making any diff - I dont usually keep any up.

Ill try power gadget. Changing the hyperthreading and kontakt cores hasnt seemed to move the needle. I had hyper off and kontakt cores down for a few months before another tech had me switch but never noticed a diff. Thanks.