I'm running a Ryzen 7 5800XT, Radeon 9070, and 32 GB of RAM. When I launch Helldivers 2, CPU usage jumps from roughly 40% to 100%, and the clock speed sometimes falls as low as 0.78 GHz. The CPU isn't overheating—the recorded temperature is usually around 60–78°C—and I've already updated the chipset software and all graphics drivers. Is this normal for the game, or is something causing the severe clock-speed drop?
3 Answers
Your temperatures are well within a safe range, so overheating does not appear to be the cause. If the low clock speed persists, monitor effective clock speed, CPU power limits, and per-core usage with a tool such as HWiNFO rather than relying only on a maximum-temperature or instantaneous clock reading. You can also test with Radeon Anti-Lag disabled, since latency features sometimes affect CPU behavior in demanding games.
Helldivers 2 can put a surprisingly heavy load on the CPU. Enemy AI, physics, rendering, and the game’s older engine can all contribute to 70–90% usage, with occasional spikes to 100%, especially during hectic scenes. High usage by itself isn’t necessarily a problem if temperatures and performance remain stable.
The game also uses peer-to-peer networking, so the player hosting the session may handle extra enemy and gameplay calculations. That can make CPU usage and temperatures jump compared with other games. Check whether the clock speed is actually staying at 0.78 GHz or only briefly dipping there, since a sustained drop would be more concerning than a momentary reading.
That happens even when I lower the graphics settings, though, so I’m not sure it’s just the rendering load.