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I wonder if what I am seeing here is normal?
Insert an Elephant, slap it into 5.1 mode.
Project is a 24/96 one.
System is a Q6700 2.66MHz x4 Quad Core CPU.
The CPU usage immediately shoots to 100% and is unusable.
Is this normal? and if so - what type of monster CPU would be needed?

www.opusproductions.com
Multichannel Audio Specialists
DVD-A, DVD-V Authoring
Mixing & Mastering to most formats

Yes, this is normal for sure.  No current generation processors are able to provide enough performance for this mode, because it requires high performance from a single core.

This is something that I have always wondered about:
How much oversampling is useful when recording/mixing at 96kHz?

Is it necessary or helping at all or does it just kill CPU at that rate?
Should I go with 2X oversampling (at least at the final rendering stage)
or what would you recommend?

(Sorry, I notice this goes beyond Elephant and concerns all the wonderful Voxengo effects with oversampling feature...)

"There's a certain detail seen here."

I think that at 96kHz, 2x oversampling is enough for most uses.

I have it set to Auto, and that seems to drastically reduce the CPU usage.
Still - why can this even be set if there is no CPU powerful enough to actually do it?
Would it work in a non real time export?

www.opusproductions.com
Multichannel Audio Specialists
DVD-A, DVD-V Authoring
Mixing & Mastering to most formats

I do not see a reason not to include it, because at 44.1kHz stereo it can work.

Yes, it will work in bouncing mode.