2020-07-19 update caused terrible system performance & extremely high CPU usage ( 4790k series)

Technical Issues and Assistance
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#1

Before the latest batch of updates, everything worked just fine without any performance spikes and without very high CPU & GPU usage.

However, ever since the 2020-07-19 update, the system sometimes almost freezes, with nothing responding to mouse clicks or any other kind of input (or only after several seconds delay).
Looking into htop, kwin_x11 is permanently between 20-40% CPU usage and even 5-20% GPU usage.
Now, to be honest, I did not check the usage percentages before the update, but I seriously doubt it could have been anywhere near that high given how perfectly the system performed even while running very demanding games (and browsing at the same time, etc.).

The usage percentages are permanently that high.
However, the performance is not permanently bad. It alternates between phases of completely normal usage and phases where everything grinds to a halt for a bunch of seconds (including the task bar).

Frankly, this could be anything from the last update. Some update to plasma, the Nvidia 440.100 update...
I'm at a loss at how to fix this, given how unspecific this problem is, but if I can't I really won't have a choice but ditch Manjaro for now :frowning:
... or at least KDE, might try out xfce to see if the same happens.

Here's my inxi output: Dump your "inxi -Fxxxza --no-host" here and bookmark it

Edit:
After running for some longer time, I checked htop again during one of these "slowdown periods" and kwin_x11 at that point consumes basically all of my 16GB RAM. After a while, it goes back to normal consumption.
I think at this point it is safe to say that there is a memory leak right now, which causes the slowdown periods and the current kwin version has serious issues. I'll switch to xfce for the time being, hopefully this will get fixed.

#2

There is a newer BIOS for that mainboard

You could try this if you think the video is under-performance:

#3

To be honest, I don't think this is a GPU problem. GPU usage is pretty normal.
It seems to be a CPU and/or RAM-related problem connected to KDE/kwin_x11.

Thanks about the BIOS hint.
Not sure I want to mess with my BIOS (or rather, UEFI), though. That could have some nasty consequences if I did it wrong.

#4

Neither did i. Read about what my proposal does about kwin in their documentation.

export KWIN_TRIPLE_BUFFER=1 
export __GL_YIELD=USLEEP 
export __GL_MaxFramesAllowed=1
#5

I actually switched to Cinnamon (out-of-the-box xfce is just too ugly and I don't have the time rn to make it pretty) and that "solved" the problem.
No more slowdowns and CPU & RAM usage is now reasonable.

Definitely proves that the problem lies within KDE somewhere.

#6

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