the decision to upgrade to the 260.xx nvidia drivers has been made exactly because earlier drivers have a performance issues related to text rendering (the most

the decision to upgrade to the 260.xx nvidia drivers has been made exactly because earlier drivers have a performance issues related to text rendering (the most likely culprit of high cpu usage when using terminal). You could try changing hinting and smoothing options to see if that helps. Or you could just use nouveau - it got really nice in last 12 months or so.