hello, I have installed 5.5 32 bit under Windows 7 64 on a quad core ( 8 thread ) i7 cpu with plenty ram and MOTU 828mk3 firewire.
( 64 bit Cubase was crashing with some 32 bit third party VSTs, so i went to 32 )
I have the following problem!
my VST meter will go all the way to the top with some VST plug-ins even if the Windows Task manager shows only one thread out of 8 being used! ( about 15% of the i7 ). this happens with both the generic ASIO driver as well as the MOTU. ( 24 / 96 khz )
it seems that Cubase is not directing the show here, and not using the cpu available…
Maybe I have some setting wrong? 
I have reserched this and other forums and found two different exreme views:
1.- people with the SAME issue, quite a few complaints! ( even with two instances of CPU hungry VSTs )
2.- People with normal behaviour of the CPU threads, allowing them to have over 100 instances of vsts with a cpu load of only 60%!!!
OK, I have used Cubase before ( 6 years ago under XP, with a much lower CPU ) and know that cubase can handle vst well, so what is going on now? PLease help!