CPU spiking, why?

[supertoast92]

Hi everyone,
Ever since my most recent build, I noticed this going on:

It's been pretty consistent for about a year now, and I'm suspecting that it's the cause of my lag spikes while gaming. Every few seconds I'll go from flawless frames to freezing for a second or so then right back to smooth frames. Any ideas?

My system:

i7-870 @2.93GHz
4GB @1333MHz RAM
60GB Crucial SSD, system drive also containing two games
500GB Seagate hard drive, containing all my other junk
EVGA GTX 470
650 watt PSU
Win 7 Home Premium x64

Thanks guys!

 

[nna2]

check the processes tab, are there any strange processes, things that dont need to be running, things like dropbox, megakey, steam if its not a steam game

 

[supertoast92]

Well I do have steam run at boot...is it known to be a resource hog? I'll have to check the processes tab once I get home hehe

 

[nna2]

do you have skype, not so much steam, but skype... ive even checked will randomly use your cpu for no good reason

 

[scout_03]

what are the process working when it's spike post the picture

 

[supertoast92]

Ok I think I've targeted the process, when I'm using VoIP in Xfire, the process along with some audio driver process spikes the one core. I shut Xfire down and it seemed to take care of the issue. Weird!

I also updated my BIOS and installed some Intel IMF driver...dunno if that helped me at all or not. I also went into the BIOS and disabled the power saving option, and I think I'm getting a little better performance as well.

I think I can close this case for now, thanks for the replies everyone