Many thanks! Setting the frame limit in nvcp to 60 fixed it for me… but is MSFS calling this a fix?
Capping the FPS has a side effect. When you pop out a display like PFD or FMC in your cockpit, your frames will drop by 20-50%. Thats why I had to undo the Nvidia fps cap.
That is hilarious! Good find.
What I noticed is that setting the window to smallest size massively reduced the GFX load and hence the fans stop whiring so this works for me!
From the BETA release notes:
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/sim-update-8-release-notes-1-23-9-0/496878
Quote: “Lower GPU consumption when installing packages while the sim is booting”
Seems like we’re finally getting there 
The background is still rendered by the GPU when I’m waiting for the DLCs to download using the in-game content manager. My GPU is consuming more than 200 Watts when there’s no point doing so: the content manager takes up the full window and the background is heavily blurred, so why not just pause the real-time background and save some energy?
I just tried it in the Sim Update 8 beta, and in fact, my GPU usage went up when minimized.
Also, interestingly/oddly enough, item #38 from yesterday’s Feedback Snapshot shows that this has not been started yet:
Hi,
I really hoped this issue has been fixed according to the changelog of 1.23.12.0, but for me its still there:
Also 100% GPU usage in the menu, which I never understood:
RTX 2070 Super on Windows 11 21H2
Yep same here I have posted on the content manger doing it.
see this existing topic
PS: I know, we had bug topics ( incl. my own ), but all of these are merged into these Whishlist topic 
There’s a SYNC option (I believe it’s called V-SYNC) under Graphics to limit fps. For my PC (3070, i7-11700K) with a 60 Hz monitor my options are off, 30, or 60 fps. I have it set to 60 and the fps while I’m doing update VIII shows just 30 fps with the cpu at 13% and 3070 at 12%.
My topic on this after the last update 28/01/22 has been removed to here. But this issue from 2020. This was fixed. The change now is new. 
It’s still not fixed after SU8. Huge power draw with the simulator minimized while updating content.
With the latest UK electricity prices nearing 30p per KWH thats ~£85 or for our American friends ~$110.
Energy prices are no joke, so would really appreciate Asobo doing something on this.
Am incresingly disgusted with Asobo’s failure to address this, and Microsoft for not making them prioritise it.
Even an FPS cap for the menus wouldn’t address the fact that rendering a full 3D environment for the menu is almost completely pointless beyond its novelty value.
yeah still wondering about this one. The UI in general is terrible user experience for PC. None of the text fields respond like you expect them to, you can’t scroll using a scroll wheel, you can’t type into a field you just expanded…and more
Add onto all of that extra sluggishness due to having a fully rendered background that you can’t even see…what the hell?
I must agree, it is just made like / for a xbox-game and not what a pc user expect. But let us focus in that “wish” on the used system resources. I still hope we can some time disabled all these “schickimicki” stuff and can let open the main-menu (pages) without the need for a credit related to the energy costs ).
And don’t forget the Vote button
PS:: also related to xbox: I really ask me whether the xbox users hear all the time the xbox fan running in full load
You seem to be getting more efficient core usage when the simulator is minimized than I do while I am actually flying the simulator. 
(Just kidding of course, but that’s about the extent of it.)
I use the Nvidia driver’s background FPS limiter to help a little bit.
I have had this problem since the very first version of Flight Simulator 2020, I still have it today. I can confirm this problem is found in multiple machines. I had it both on my laptop and desktop. Almost 100% constant GPU usage in main menu, settings, etc., while lower (around 80-90%) while playing. It doesn’t make any sense! Why should my GPU stay at 100% while downloading updates or when the software is in the background?
It shouldn’t, except that’s the way it was designed, so it does.
I use the FPS limiter in the sim and the background FPS limiter in the graphics driver, so I don’t get 100% GPU usage all the time anymore. It doesn’t solve the problem completely though.
If you want to pause the sim for a while then you can enter the load/save menu and bring up the local file choice dialog which pauses many of the sim’s CPU/GPU hungry threads.