Why does Chrome use nearly 95% CPU when playing YouTube videos?
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MellowPine42
After the latest Chrome update on August 6, my CPU usage jumps to around 95% whenever I start watching a YouTube video, regardless of the video quality. As soon as I stop playback, usage drops back to roughly 1–5%. My processor is a Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Has anyone else run into this, and is there a specific setting or fix I should try?
Answers
Before changing browsers, you could also check Chrome’s task manager with Shift+Esc to see whether a tab or extension is responsible. Disable extensions one at a time and test again. If the problem only occurs during video playback while other browsers are fine, reporting it as a Chrome regression may be worthwhile.
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Check whether hardware acceleration is disabled in Chrome. Open Settings, search for “hardware acceleration,” turn on “Use graphics acceleration when available,” and restart the browser. If video decoding is falling back to the CPU, that could explain the spike.
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If hardware acceleration is already enabled and Chrome is still doing this, try another browser as a comparison. Firefox handled the same situation better for some people, and Edge reportedly used only about 3% CPU with the same video. That points more toward a Chrome-specific issue than a problem with the processor.
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MellowPine42: I tried another browser and the same video stayed around 3% CPU. I ended up switching to Firefox permanently since I no longer needed Chrome’s device syncing.